Dr. Thursday's Post

We are here in the Great Novena, the nine days of prayer to the Holy Spirit - and today we finish chapter III of Orthodoxy - our long journey through the foothills... What, you thought THOSE were mountains! Well, yes, this has been tiresome, and even GKC called it "the first and dullest business of this book - the rough review of recent thought." [CW1:246]

If you have been following along with our dull paragraph-plodding, reading one word after another, you will see, at the bottom of CW1:244, that GKC gives one more short analogy. It is worth study, not only because of the great "verbal fireworks" but because this holding up of a mirror is one of the best, and easiest Great Arguments to be used against so many wrong ideas being voiced today - the Argument of Symmetry, also called "practice what you preach", stated in wonderful mathematical precision in GKC's St. Thomas Aquinas:

"No sceptics work sceptically; no fatalists work fatalistically; all without exception work on the principle that it is possible to assume what it is not possible to believe. No materialist who thinks his mind was made up for him, by mud and blood and heredity, has any hesitation in making up his mind. No sceptic who believes that truth is subjective has any hesitation about treating it as objective. [CW2:542-3]

Exactly. But let us proceed.

Click to continue.

As usual, GKC picks a nicely debatable topic - the French Revolution. Those of us who were at the ACS conference in 2004 remember the hilarious debate about it between Mark Pilon (who said GKC was wrong) and Dale Ahlquist (who said "What?") Yes. Again, in true Thomistic fashion, GKC goes further toward truth, even with such a tense topic:

The French Revolution was really an heroic and decisive thing, because the Jacobins willed something definite and limited. They desired the freedoms of democracy, but also all the vetoes of democracy. They wished to have votes and not to have titles. Republicanism had an ascetic side in Franklin or Robespierre as well as an expansive side in Danton or Wilkes. Therefore they have created something with a solid substance and shape, the square social equality and peasant wealth of France. But since then the revolutionary or speculative mind of Europe has been weakened by shrinking from any proposal because of the limits of that proposal. Liberalism has been degraded into liberality. Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb. The Jacobin could tell you not only the system he would rebel against, but (what was more important) the system he would not rebel against, the system he would trust. But the new rebel is a sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.

It may be added that the same blank and bankruptcy can be observed in all fierce and terrible types of literature, especially in satire. Satire may be mad and anarchic, but it presupposes an admitted superiority in certain things over others; it presupposes a standard. When little boys in the street laugh at the fatness of some distinguished journalist, [Who do you think GKC is talking about? Hee hee.] they are unconsciously assuming a standard of Greek sculpture. They are appealing to the marble Apollo. And the curious disappearance of satire from our literature is an instance of the fierce things fading for want of any principle to be fierce about. Nietzsche had some natural talent for sarcasm: he could sneer, though he could not laugh; but there is always something bodiless and without weight in his satire, simply because it has not any mass of common morality behind it. He is himself more preposterous than anything he denounces. But, indeed, Nietzsche will stand very well as the type of the whole of this failure of abstract violence. The softening of the brain which ultimately overtook him was not a physical accident. If Nietzsche had not ended in imbecility, Nietzscheism would end in imbecility. Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot. Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain.

This last attempt to evade intellectualism ends in intellectualism, and therefore in death. The sortie has failed. The wild worship of lawlessness and the materialist worship of law end in the same void. Nietzsche scales staggering mountains, but he turns up ultimately in Tibet. He sits down beside Tolstoy in the land of nothing and Nirvana. They are both helpless - one because he must not grasp anything, and the other because he must not let go of anything. The Tolstoyan's will is frozen by a Buddhist instinct that all special actions are evil. But the Nietzscheite's will is quite equally frozen by his view that all special actions are good; for if all special actions are good, none of them are special. They stand at the cross-roads, and one hates all the roads and the other likes all the roads. The result is - well, some things are not hard to calculate. They stand at the cross-roads.
[CW1:244-6, my emphasis]

Now, you can read all about the nothing-end (or beginning) of science in the ancient orient in Fr. Jaki's Science and Creation - but here you see that the oriental view is just as futile for anything else: the sceptic and the fatalist, the rebel and the revolutionist annihilate their own tools... they are "undermining their own mines."

It is, to recur to the title of the chapter, The Suicide of Thought.

But, as I told you, we are standing on a ridge (on its downward slope, admittedly) where we can see something lovely - something we are approaching. GKC, the artist, here writes a line which smacks of Art - and reminds me, since I have used the analogy of a hike into our text, of the amazing Pierre Duhem (1861-1916) who was a physicist and historian - and a hiker and artist as well. During his vacations from teaching, he would hike into the Alps and draw wonderful pictures of the scenes - see Jaki's The Physicist As Artist for a sample of his amazing works. Ahem. The line I refer to is:

After this I begin to sketch a view of life which may not interest my reader, but which, at any rate, interests me.
[CW1:246]

That is, in the forthcoming pages, indeed, the remainder of the book. But, in true hiker fashion - I recall Gandalf's explanation ("looking backward") to Bilbo after his rescue from the trolls - GKC takes one last glance backward before he leaves this dark part of the trail:

In front of me, as I close this page, is a pile of modern books that I have been turning over for the purpose - a pile of ingenuity, a pile of futility. By the accident of my present detachment, I can see the inevitable smash of the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Tolstoy, Nietzsche and Shaw, as clearly as an inevitable railway smash could be seen from a balloon. They are all on the road to the emptiness of the asylum. For madness may be defined as using mental activity so as to reach mental helplessness; and they have nearly reached it. He who thinks he is made of glass, thinks to the destruction of thought; for glass cannot think. So he who wills to reject nothing, wills the destruction of will; for will is not only the choice of something, but the rejection of almost everything.
[CW1:246]

This may recall a famous analogy speaking to God's foreknowledge of our free will: we are sitting on a mountaintop (we cannot get away from these hiking views, can we?) and watch as two trains, one on each side of the mountain, proceed along a pair of tracks where the signals have failed. We can know with certainty that they shall collide (or not) depending on our knowledge of the switch settings, but it is not WE who cause the collision. Here, too, GKC does not cause the "smash" - no, but we see it even more clearly a century afterwards, on cable TV, on the INTERNET, and in so many other ways.

Alas, it is not as comforting as a mere railway "smash". These dark ones are attacking even greater, and even holier things. Note again how GKC's argument proceeds: using, not abusing, even the things of his enemies, and always proceeding to greater matters than mere rebuttals of their errors. Also, you may wonder (having heard that this book is supposedly about "Christianity") how the topic will arise. You will find the matter first introduced in this chapter's concluding paragraph:

And as I turn and tumble over the clever, wonderful, tiresome, and useless modern books, the title of one of them rivets my eye. It is called "Jeanne d'Arc," by Anatole France. I have only glanced at it, but a glance was enough to remind me of Renan's "Vie de Jesus." It has the same strange method of the reverent sceptic. It discredits supernatural stories that have some foundation, simply by telling natural stories that have no foundation. Because we cannot believe in what a saint did, we are to pretend that we know exactly what he felt. But I do not mention either book in order to criticise it, but because the accidental combination of the names called up two startling images of sanity which blasted all the books before me. Joan of Arc was not stuck at the cross-roads, either by rejecting all the paths like Tolstoy, or by accepting them all like Nietzsche. She chose a path, and went down it like a thunderbolt. Yet Joan, when I came to think of her, had in her all that was true either in Tolstoy or Nietzsche, all that was even tolerable in either of them. I thought of all that is noble in Tolstoy, the pleasure in plain things, especially in plain pity, the actualities of the earth, the reverence for the poor, the dignity of the bowed back. Joan of Arc had all that and with this great addition, that she endured poverty as well as admiring it; whereas Tolstoy is only a typical aristocrat trying to find out its secret. And then I thought of all that was brave and proud and pathetic in poor Nietzsche, and his mutiny against the emptiness and timidity of our time. I thought of his cry for the ecstatic equilibrium of danger, his hunger for the rush of great horses, his cry to arms. Well, Joan of Arc had all that, and again with this difference, that she did not praise fighting, but fought. We know that she was not afraid of an army, while Nietzsche, for all we know, was afraid of a cow. Tolstoy only praised the peasant; she was the peasant. Nietzsche only praised the warrior; she was the warrior. She beat them both at their own antagonistic ideals; she was more gentle than the one, more violent than the other. Yet she was a perfectly practical person who did something, while they are wild speculators who do nothing. It was impossible that the thought should not cross my mind that she and her faith had perhaps some secret of moral unity and utility that has been lost. And with that thought came a larger one, and the colossal figure of her Master had also crossed the theatre of my thoughts. The same modern difficulty which darkened the subject-matter of Anatole France also darkened that of Ernest Renan. Renan also divided his hero's pity from his hero's pugnacity. Renan even represented the righteous anger at Jerusalem as a mere nervous breakdown after the idyllic expectations of Galilee. As if there were any inconsistency between having a love for humanity and having a hatred for inhumanity! Altruists, with thin, weak voices, denounce Christ as an egoist. Egoists (with even thinner and weaker voices) denounce Him as an altruist. In our present atmosphere such cavils are comprehensible enough. The love of a hero is more terrible than the hatred of a tyrant. The hatred of a hero is more generous than the love of a philanthropist. There is a huge and heroic sanity of which moderns can only collect the fragments. There is a giant of whom we see only the lopped arms and legs walking about. They have torn the soul of Christ into silly strips, labelled egoism and altruism, and they are equally puzzled by His insane magnificence and His insane meekness. They have parted His garments among them, and for His vesture they have cast lots; [Jn 19:24, quoting Ps 21(22):19] though the coat was without seam woven from the top throughout.
[CW1:246-8, emphasis added]

Since that ends the chapter I ought not go further, especially since it has such a musically satisfying cadence.

But I must be true to my own art here, and provide you with a link or two for your future reference. You have heard me refer to Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth previously, and you shall hear it mentioned again - so, if you recall when Milo meets the smallest giant, the biggest midget, and the others, you may note the parallel here. Should that seem too elusive a link, or too confusing, do not worry - you will hear more - FAR more - about this in a later chapter. Here's a sample of GKC's description of this mysterious person:

Outrageously tall men might feel him to be short. Very short men might feel him to be tall. Old bucks who are growing stout might consider him insufficiently filled out; old beaux who were growing thin might feel that he expanded beyond the narrow lines of elegance. Perhaps Swedes (who have pale hair like tow) called him a dark man, while negroes considered him distinctly blonde.
[CW1:294-5]

Yes, a mystery. You may try to guess who that is, but I expect that you will find it a Surprise. I think it is also a mystery to consider that I write this today, Thursday in the Great Novena, and seven weeks ago this evening we heard GKC's concluding quote of the Psalms as the priest stripped the altar... those terrible and barren and naked words, some of the saddest and most empty words of the psalms...

And this might make us ask: What if God rebelled? What if God revolted?

So let us, for a brief pause, ponder that stripping, that emptying - for very soon we shall have our fill. [cf. Mt 5:6]

Come, O Holy Spirit!
Fill the hearts of Thy faithful
and enkindle in them
the FIRE of Thy love!

Thou on those who evermore
Thee confess and Thee adore
In Thy sevenfold gift descend.

--Dr. Thursday.

Chesterteens Recreate Famous Threesome Picture

Baring, Overbaring and Pastbaring.

See the original.

An Interview with Betty Aberlin

I recently had the privilege and fun of interviewing Betty Aberlin for Gilbert Magazine. She is a poet who has recently had her book published, which is kind of a big thing for a poet. On top of that, her name is linked with one of Chesterton's favorite writers: George MacDonald. George wrote the other half of Betty's book, so to speak.

This interview will be in a future issue of Gilbert Magazine (about two issues from now, based on how we work) so if you're interested in reading about this fascinating poet-who-is-also-a-famous-actress, please make sure your subscription is up-to-date or renewed.

A Student's Essay for the American Chesterton Society becomes a Great Article on FaithFUSION

The following was originally written by me as part of an essay contest for the American Chesterton Society and has been expanded for Faithfusion:

In today’s world a revolutionary is not one who espouses a new idea, but one who would dare to bring back an old one. The reason is that the new ideas are generally boring and mundane while old ones are fresh and exciting because they have been packed away for so long. In today’s world, a boorish man is generally accepted because it is new and respectable to be rude; being chivalrous, on the other hand, is decried as sexist and offensive because it is an old idea. Thus, those who call themselves “liberal” and embrace the new ideas tend to be the critics rather than the idealists. It was with something of this in mind that G. K. Chesterton wrote in Varied Types, “He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative.”

Let's all go give him a comment of appreciation.

The Great Novena

Today begins the great novena (nine days of prayer) to the Holy Spirit. Some of us at Gilbert Magazine pray this every year for our magazine, so we get some good inspiration for our readers. Since you know we need all the help we can get ;-) please join us in prayer.

Special intentions: Gilbert writer's family members who are sick, burdened by unemployment or the knowledge of a layoff coming soon; a couple's adult son recently died tragically; another couple's 14 year old son died of a virus; a friend struggling to write a book; for unity amongst all Christians; and any other intentions you may add.

Dr. Thursday's Post

Errors, Rush-ian Orthodoxy and Giraffes (again)

Happy Ascension!

One of the greatest, and most important, things I learned in college - I mean the academic part, not the social part - was that one does not get to know more about computers through the gate of higher mathematics which is labelled "Calculus". The mathematics of computers is not to be found on the great branch of the Tree of Knowledge which is called "Continuous" - but on the other, far smaller, and much less well known to most students, called "Discrete" - the mathematics which deals with numbers - that is, whole numbers, integers (Latin integer = whole, entire) in the old-fashioned way, as separate (discrete) things, and not just another point on a line.

Anyway - when I had my very first course in computers, our first assignment was to type up a very short program - we used punch cards in that class, though there were also "terminals" which were quite comparable to what you are no doubt using to read this. We had to check very carefully that we had "punched" them correctly, and when we had finished, we "submitted" them to the computer... and maybe 20 minutes later we received our "printout" results.

The curious thing was this, as our professor told us: "If you did this assignment correctly, you will have an error. This is intentional, and part of your learning about this subject."

And this is borne out by the Great Lecture given to Milo by the Princesses Rhyme and Reason: "you sometimes learn more from doing the wrong thing for the right reason than doing the right thing for the wrong reason." (In The Phantom Tollbooth, the movie; I quote from memory.)

(An aside: sure it is better if we always do the right thing - even if it's for the wrong reason. But the point made by R&R is that it is possible to learn even from our errors, even if we live in a Castle in the Air!)

But I'd prefer to say that this is part of the mystery of Sin. God permits (actually, tolerates, one of the few accurate uses of that dull word) sin because He can bring greater good from it. Think Adam: "o felix culpa the priest sung 40 nights ago: "O happy (or better, fruitful) fault!"

Why do I bring this up? Because in the next few verses from Orthodoxy, our current textbook, we shall hear in very quick order, the names of several dark-minded Heretics - those who are in error. And yet, our guide Uncle Gilbert shall show us how to use them to get over this last rough "Nietzsche Ridge" and receive some wonderful gifts...
Click here when you're ready.

Before we resume, just remember where we are: nearing the end of the chapter called "The Suicide of Thought", examining the ways that modern thinkers strive to make others (and themselves) STOP thinking. GKC pauses, nearing this last rather rough but not very tall ridge, and considers our journey thus far:

At the beginning of this preliminary negative sketch I said that our mental ruin has been wrought by wild reason, not by wild imagination. A man does not go mad because he makes a statue a mile high, but he may go mad by thinking it out in square inches. Now, one school of thinkers has seen this and jumped at it as a way of renewing the pagan health of the world. They see that reason destroys; but Will, they say, creates. The ultimate authority, they say, is in will, not in reason. The supreme point is not why a man demands a thing, but the fact that he does demand it.
[CW1:241]

The Will, hmmm. I mentioned The Phantom Tollbooth according to a plan, since I must now also mention the correlative text, The Neverending Story which (like so many fairy tales) emphasizes that most mysterious gift called The Will. (In an orc-tunnel beneath the Misty Mountains I hear someone murmuring "pity"...) For that is the error common to Nietzsche, Wells, Shaw, and some other authors. I shall not dig into this in detail - which is nearly what GKC writes too:

I have no space to trace or expound this philosophy of Will. It came, I suppose, through Nietzsche...
[CW1:241]

Now that I have stated this dark, sinister name, I can tell you why I began with my "error" in computing. I began this way to highlight the mystery of such a name - because in Deus Caritas Est the very first quote made by the Holy Father comes not from Aquinas, nor even from a saint - but from Nietzsche! He sounds very Chestertonian here, too:

According to Friedrich Nietzsche, Christianity had poisoned eros, which for its part, while not completely succumbing, gradually degenerated into vice.[1] Here the German philosopher was expressing a widely-held perception: doesn't the Church, with all her commandments and prohibitions, turn to bitterness the most precious thing in life?
[Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 3; note [1] states "Cf. Jenseits von Gut und Böse, IV, 168." This is quoted from the EWTN Library.]

Like my computer science professor, and the Princesses Rhyme and Reason, Benedict shows us that sometimes we need to see an error first in order to learn more about the truth. And remember, we are travelling through this very difficult territory with Uncle Gilbert to learn, as he did, the ways which are wrong - so that we shall know the Right Way.

GKC thinks that the error bean with Nietzsche, and goes on to its appearance in other Heretics:

But however it began, the view is common enough in current literature. The main defence of these thinkers is that they are not thinkers; they are makers. They say that choice is itself the divine thing. Thus Mr. Bernard Shaw has attacked the old idea that men's acts are to be judged by the standard of the desire of happiness. He says that a man does not act for his happiness, but from his will. He does not say, "Jam will make me happy," but "I want jam." And in all this others follow him with yet greater enthusiasm.
[CW1:241]

Ah, jam. (I had some grape jam at my feast-day breakfast this morning.) You might say I delight in quoting children's fantasies - I do, and even more because few others do, and at least I have a familiarity with them. (Didn't I tell you how I lectured from Alice in Wonderland when I taught computer science classes? I did. Ahem.) But I might just as well quote Chesterton's children's fantasies, as those of you will know who have read the treasure-trove called CW14. The scene is at breakfast, a number of people are sitting around the table. Our hero, Petersen, has just made a very grand insight which I cannot take the space to quote, and the room is silent for a moment.

Marjory was watching him keenly: she had just had a gleam of hope. His eyes were slowly filling with the pale blue fire she knew well: it was so he used to look when she read him a poem, or when the sunset grew red and gold over the wooded hill. At such moments he would say something which she couldn't understand.
At length the words came, with a kind of timid radiance.
"May I have jam?"
"Certainly," she said, raising her eyebrows wearily. He only smiled ravenously, but she felt sure that if any earthly chair had been high enough he would have kicked his legs. There was another silence.
"Some fellows like butter and jam," said the religious enthusiast of the morning's conversation. "I think that's beastly."
"The main benefit of existence," said Marjory bitterly, "seems to be eating."
"Hardly the main benefit surely," said Petersen calmly, "though I agree with you that it is a neglected branch of the poetry of daily life. The song of birds, the sight of stars, the scent of flowers, all these we admit are a divine revelation, why not the taste of jam?"
"Not very poetical to my fancy," said Marjory, scornfully.
"It is uncultivated," said Petersen, "but a time may come when it will be elaborated into an art as rich and varied as music or painting. People will say, 'There is an undercurrent of pathos in this gravy, despite its frivolity,' or 'Have you tasted that passionate rebellious pudding? Ethically I think it's dangerous.' After all, eating has a grander basis than the arts of the other senses, for it is absolutely necessary to existence: it is the bricks and mortar of the Temple of the Spirit."
And he took a large bite out of the bread and jam.
[CW14:786-7]

But now I am only doing what GKC did - he mentions John Davidson, H.G. Wells and another snippet from Shaw (apparently quoting Bentham) about this same thing - then gives the summary:

The real difference between the test of happiness and the test of will is simply that the test of happiness is a test and the other isn't. You can discuss whether a man's act in jumping over a cliff was directed towards happiness; you cannot discuss whether it was derived from will. Of course it was. You can praise an action by saying that it is calculated to bring pleasure or pain to discover truth or to save the soul. But you cannot praise an action because it shows will; for to say that is merely to say that it is an action. By this praise of will you cannot really choose one course as better than another. And yet choosing one course as better than another is the very definition of the will you are praising.
[CW1:242]

And as you have noticed, I also like to quote rock music. Here, we see an idea powerfully expressed by the Canadian group "Rush":

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice..."
["Free Will", Rush]

(Wow, I wonder if they ever read any GKC.) It is worth going further along this ridge - as you have seen if you have travelled with us so far, we acquire new and powerful tools at each stop. Here is today's gift, derived directly from those great Heretics GKC quotes. This is one of the most quick-moving, most verbally rich, most fireworky, but also most deep and useful passages we have seen - perhaps because from here we can see a grand view of the territory we shall shortly be travelling. This bit might be called the "Pleiades" - the Seven Sisters - of Orthodoxy, for from it we receive (as if at Pentecost) a sevenfold gift! What a remarkable place we are now at! Read it carefully:

...they [these Heretics] always talk of will as something that expands and breaks out. But it is quite the opposite.

(1) Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation.

(2) In that sense every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else.

That objection, which men of this school used to make to the act of marriage, is really an objection to every act.

(3) Every act is an irrevocable selection and exclusion.

Just as when you marry one woman you give up all the others, so when you take one course of action you give up all the other courses. If you become King of England, you give up the post of Beadle in Brompton. If you go to Rome, you sacrifice a rich suggestive life in Wimbledon. It is the existence of this negative or limiting side of will that makes most of the talk of the anarchic will-worshippers little better than nonsense. For instance, Mr. John Davidson tells us to have nothing to do with "Thou shalt not"; but it is surely obvious that "Thou shalt not" is only one of the necessary corollaries of "I will." "I will go to the Lord Mayor's Show, and thou shalt not stop me." Anarchism adjures us to be bold creative artists, and care for no laws or limits.

(4) But it is impossible to be an artist and not care for laws and limits.

(5) Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame.

If you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If, in your bold creative way, you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe.

(6) The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into a world of limits.

You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature. You may, if you like, free a tiger from his bars; but do not free him from his stripes. Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump: you may be freeing him from being a camel. Do not go about as a demagogue, encouraging triangles to break out of the prison of their three sides. If a triangle breaks out of its three sides, its life comes to a lamentable end. Somebody wrote a work called "The Loves of the Triangles"; I never read it, but I am sure that if triangles ever were loved, they were loved for being triangular. This is certainly the case with all artistic creation, which is in some ways the most decisive example of pure will.

(7) The artist loves his limitations: they constitute the thing he is doing. The painter is glad that the canvas is flat. The sculptor is glad that the clay is colourless.
[CW1:243-4]

Yes, the line-breaks and numbering are mine. You may see from number (2) why I speculated whether "Rush" had read GKC. You will also recall that I promised we should see our friendly giraffe again, and here he is! And if you are interested in the "larger" map of GKC's works, you may wish to add a cross-reference to his fiction: Gabriel Gale asks:

"Were you ever an isosceles triangle?"
"Very seldom," replied Garth with restraint. "May I ask what the devil you are talking about?"
"Only something I was thinking about," answered the poet, lifting himself on to one elbow. "I wondered whether it would be a cramping sort of thing to be surrounded by straight lines, and whether being in a circle would be any better."
["The Yellow Bird" in The Poet and the Lunatics]

The last three of the seven, which speak of art and limit, (and of science, as readers of Fr. Jaki already know, and as we shall shortly learn from GKC) are found in many other places in GKC's writing; the idea constitutes what I call a "motif" within his writing: like a musical theme, the idea appears in many other forms and places, and I would fill in another posting or two to quote them - perhaps someday we'll explore them. But for now we must hurry along our present course. Yes - as we begin the Great Novena tomorrow in our preparation for Pentecost, let us think on all this richness - remembering that with great gifts comes great responsibilities. And pray for each other as we proceed with our journey...

--Dr. Thursday

Chesterton's Art

Chesterton was an artist before he was a writer. In fact, he went to art school, but discovered it wasn't for him. Still he drew everywhere on everything his whole life. Even on wallpaper and ceilings.

So it was with great curiosity that I read in the recent Gilbert magazine that some of Chesterton's art will be on display, for what I believe is the first time, in England.

This will take place (if you are so lucky to be able to travel there) in Oxford, England, at a new art gallery called ART JERICHO, opening on May 18, 2008 (you still have time to make travel plans).

One of the people attending the opening and speaking there is Dr. William Oddie, the author of the forthcoming book, The Making of GKC. But if you miss Dr. Oddie there, you have another opportunity to hear him speak at the Annual Chesterton Conference in June.

However, you won't get to see Chesterton's artwork unless you get over to England.

Pearce on Shakespeare

I've had it from a good source (Thanks, Dave!) that Joseph Pearce's new book on Shakespeare is ready early and shipping now.

Since Joe will be speaking on this very topic at the annual Chesterton Conference, you'd be well prepared to read his book first.

From the Inner Workings of the Blog

"I just wanted to let every Chesterton fan out there know that I am producing Chesterton's play "The Surprise" in my home town on North Wales, Pennsylvania! It has been a long road so far, and I'm not even CLOSE to finishing yet! Wish me luck! The performances are on June 7th @ 6:30pm and June 8th @ 3pm! Any and all prayers are welcome:)
signed, an aspiring Chestertonian!"

More on the Current Gilbert Magazine

After just reading The Tripods Attack, I read with interest the article in the recent Gilbert magazine which was about GKC's relationship with HG Wells. Wells is a character in the above mentioned novel.

I found it fascinating to read the difference between GKC's and Wells's relationship, and Belloc and Wells's relationship. And this difference is where Chesterton's sainthood cause comes into play. I would be far more likely to react like Belloc, and carry things too far when it comes to differences in opinion. In fact, I've done that. I've gone too far and now there are people who won't talk to me.

I wish I could be more like Chesterton. Still able to be friends with people you totally disagree with. To be able to separate the person from the ideas.

David Zach: Future Man

I got my latest Gilbert magazine.

David Zach is on the cover and the theme is "The Future." The interview with Dave was really interesting, as he is the only professional futurist I know. I loved the quote in his interview about statistics getting tortured. It brought to mind a funny thought about numbers being hanged, drawn, and quartered. The forty-four turned into an eleven right before my eyes, poor thing.

Anyway, a lot of other great articles in there, including Chesterton on telephones, which I loved.

Speaking of interviews, I interviewed Betty Aberlin today for the magazine. Not to be confused with Lady Aberlin, niece of King Friday XIII, whom she plays on television. She was wonderful and I can't wait for you to read all about her in a future issue of Gilbert.

Dr. Thursday's Post

Looking for Answers and Feeling Groovy

With all my emphasis on science or philosophy in the last few weeks, you may be happy to hear GKC's digression into some literary matter - somebody named Tennyson. Asking me who Tennyson was is probably like asking your typical Lit'ry Scholar who Gödel or Schnitger or Planck was. Then again I read GKC so I know a little...Ahem.

Anyway, it is quite funny, because of the parallel place where GKC quotes the same line, he uses a word which became lots more famous in the 1960s... I think it is called the 59th Street Bridge Song, which has a very nice little woodwind backup band playing - I think rock bands should get five extra points when they use a bassoon! Ahem again. But first the quote from Orthodoxy:

It is worth remark, in passing, that when Tennyson, in a wild and rather weak manner, welcomed the idea of infinite alteration in society, he instinctively took a metaphor which suggests an imprisoned tedium. He wrote -

Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change

He thought of change itself as an unchangeable groove; and so it is. Change is about the narrowest and hardest groove that a man can get into.
[CW1:239]

Click here to get into the groove.And now, from two years further back:

Somebody writes complaining of something I said about progress. I have forgotten what I said, but I am quite certain that it was (like a certain Mr. Douglas in a poem which I have also forgotten) tender and true. In any case, what I say now is this. Human history is so rich and complicated that you can make out a case for any course of improvement or retrogression. I could make out that the world has been growing more democratic, for the English franchise has certainly grown more democratic. I could also make out that the world has been growing more aristocratic, for the English Public Schools have certainly grown more aristocratic. I could prove the decline of militarism by the decline of flogging; I could prove the increase of militarism by the increase of standing armies and conscription. But I can prove anything in this way. I can prove that the world has always been growing greener. Only lately men have invented absinthe and the Westminster Gazette. I could prove the world has grown less green. There are no more Robin Hood foresters, and fields are being covered with houses. I could show that the world was less red with khaki or more red with the new penny stamps. But in all cases progress means progress only in some particular thing. Have you ever noticed that strange line of Tennyson, in which he confesses, half consciously, how very conventional progress is? -

Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

Even in praising change, he takes for a simile the most unchanging thing. He calls our modern change a groove. And it is a groove; perhaps there was never anything so groovy.
[ILN August 18, 1906 CW27:259-60,emphasis added]

You may not know what "absinthe" is - it's from the Greek word for "wormwood" [see Rv 8:11] and contains a dangerous alkaloid (that means POISON, kids) It's a GREEN liqueur, tasting (I'm told) of anise. The Westminster Gazette, I'm told, was originally printed on green paper. My same source tells me that the Tennyson quote is from his "Locksley Hall".

Is all this somehow linked to evolution? Or, more importantly, to the "Suicide of Thought"? Certainly. If all there is is CHANGE, there cannot be thought. We know change may often be needed (this makes me think of a baby crying with a dirty diaper!) and change is a reality, since that's what "time" is all about. But, in one of the most profoundly scientific statements Chesterton ever made, we find this truth:

"There must in every machine be a part that moves and a part that stands still; there must be in everything that changes a part that is unchangeable."

Is this Chesterton's version of the First Law of Motion? Just about. (It also reminds me of Francis Thompson's great poem "New Year's Chimes" - but I must not digress into that just now; perhaps another time.) What's hilarious - and simultaneously deeply moving - is the context of this quote. GKC is speaking about woman. It's in the chapter called "The Emancipation of Domesticity" in What's Wrong With the World. Your assignment: ponder both the physics and the mystical anthropology in that line; it's home work. Pun intended. But jot it down in your log and let us move on.

The main point here, however, is that this idea of a fundamental alteration in the standard is one of the things that make thought about the past or future simply impossible. The theory of a complete change of standards in human history does not merely deprive us of the pleasure of honouring our fathers; it deprives us even of the more modern and aristocratic pleasure of despising them.

This bald summary of the thought-destroying forces of our time would not be complete without some reference to pragmatism; for though I have here used and should everywhere defend the pragmatist method as a preliminary guide to truth, there is an extreme application of it which involves the absence of all truth whatever. My meaning can be put shortly thus. I agree with the pragmatists that apparent objective truth is not the whole matter; that there is an authoritative need to believe the things that are necessary to the human mind. But I say that one of those necessities precisely is a belief in objective truth. The pragmatist tells a man to think what he must think and never mind the Absolute. But precisely one of the things that he must think is the Absolute. This philosophy, indeed, is a kind of verbal paradox. Pragmatism is a matter of human needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist. Extreme pragmatism is just as inhuman as the determinism it so powerfully attacks. The determinist (who, to do him justice, does not pretend to be a human being) makes nonsense of the human sense of actual choice. The pragmatist, who professes to be specially human, makes nonsense of the human sense of actual fact.
[CW1:239-240]

What is pragmatism? Simply, the idea that truth depends on practicality; thought is only important in its result in action. Here for a moment we see the eminent fairness and true Scholastic character of GKC: he sees, admits, and defends its partial truths and good purposes, while warning of the dangers in its extreme form. This issue of "extremes" hints at something we shall see in a later chapter. Jot that down too.

Now, GKC himself pauses, and gives us a quick review of our recent journey:

To sum up our contention so far, we may say that the most characteristic current philosophies have not only a touch of mania, but a touch of suicidal mania. The mere questioner has knocked his head against the limits of human thought; and cracked it. This is what makes so futile the warnings of the orthodox and the boasts of the advanced about the dangerous boyhood of free thought. What we are looking at is not the boyhood of free thought; it is the old age and ultimate dissolution of free thought. It is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss what dreadful things will happen if wild scepticism runs its course. It has run its course. It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the great truths that will be revealed if once we see free thought begin. We have seen it end. It has no more questions to ask; it has questioned itself. You cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men ask themselves if they have any selves. You cannot fancy a more sceptical world than that in which men doubt if there is a world. It might certainly have reached its bankruptcy more quickly and cleanly if it had not been feebly hampered by the application of indefensible laws of blasphemy or by the absurd pretence that modern England is Christian. But it would have reached the bankruptcy anyhow. Militant atheists are still unjustly persecuted; but rather because they are an old minority than because they are a new one. Free thought has exhausted its own freedom. It is weary of its own success. If any eager freethinker now hails philosophic freedom as the dawn, he is only like the man in Mark Twain who came out wrapped in blankets to see the sun rise and was just in time to see it set. If any frightened curate still says that it will be awful if the darkness of free thought should spread, we can only answer him in the high and powerful words of Mr. Belloc, "Do not, I beseech you, be troubled about the increase of forces already in dissolution. You have mistaken the hour of the night: it is already morning." We have no more questions left to ask. We have looked for questions in the darkest corners and on the wildest peaks. We have found all the questions that can be found. It is time we gave up looking for questions and began looking for answers.
[CW1:240-241, emphasis added}

Exactly. And though GKC shall review just a little more in this chapter, we have now passed some important peaks in this leg of our journey. Just past that next little dark spot (Nietzche Ridge) which we'll tackle next week, we shall encounter some very lovely, yet very dangerous territory. Risky, yes; but even more bountiful in its answers - and its goodness. You will be surprised.

--Dr. Thursday

P.S. Having brought up the "unrolling" word recently, I thought I would give you a bonus quote from a little-known source, copied when I was in high school, revealing how true GKC's views on these matters really are, and how children can always grasp their depth:

"While fish in the ocean were just playing around and having a good time, man was hard at work thinking how to evolve."

All I have for reference is this: "quoted by Harold Dunn, a grade school teacher and collecter of children's malapropisms". Dunn's collection is quoted at length in Art Linkletter's Kids Say the Darndest Things, though I can't seem to locate this particular gem in that reference work. Sorry.

Shatter and Shake us Awake!

Happy Feast of St. George, patron of England!

The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.
-- The Red Angel in Tremendous Trifles

From "The Queen of Seven Swords":

"St. George of England"

Mine eyes were sealed with slumber; I sat too long at the ale.
The green dew blights the banner; the red rust eats the mail.
And a spider spanned the chasm from the hand to the fallen sword,
And the sea sang me to sleep; for it called me lord

This was the hand of the hero; it strangled the dragon's scream,
But I dreamed so long of the dragon that the dragon was a dream:
And the knight that defied the dragon deserted the princess.
Her knight has stolen her dowry; she has no redress.

Mirror of Justice, shine on us; blaze though the broad sky break
Show us our face though it shatter us; shatter and shake us awake !
We were not tortured of demons, with Berber and Scot,
We that have loved have failed thee Oh, fail us not !

with gratitude to Dr. Thursday...

Speaking of Evolution...

"ILN January 16, 1932 (reprinted in All I Survey)

I saw in this paper - which sparkles with scientific news - that a green-blooded fish had been found in the sea; indeed, a creature that was completely green, down to this uncanny ichor in its veins, and very big and venomous at that.

Somehow I could not get it out of my head, because the caption suggested a perfect refrain for a Ballade:: A green-blooded fish has been found in the sea. It has so wide a critical and philosophical application. I have known so many green-blooded fish
on the land, walking about the streets and sitting in the clubs, and especially the committees. So many green-blooded fish have written books and criticisms of books, have taught in academies of learning and founded schools of philosophy that they have almost made themselves the typical biological product of the present stage of evolution.

There is never a debate in the House of Commons, especially about Eugenics or the
Compulsory Amputation of Poor People, without several green-blooded fishes standing up on their tails to talk. There is never a petition, or a letter to the Press, urging the transformation of taverns into tea-shops or local museums, without a whole string of green-blooded fish hanging on to the tail of it, and pretty stinking fish too.

But for some reason the burden of this non-existent Ballade ran continually in my head, and somehow turned my thoughts in the direction of poisonous monsters in general; of all those dragons and demi-dragons and devouring creatures which appear in
primitive stories as the chief enemies of man.

It has been suggested that these legends really refer to some period when prehistoric man had to contend with huge animals that have since died out. And then the thought occurred to me: Suppose the primitive heroes killed them just when they were dying out. I mean, suppose they would have died out, even if the Cave Man had sat comfortably in his Cave and not troubled to kill them."

More Information on the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association Annual Conference

Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association
Annual Conference October 30 - November 2, 2008
Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
Sheraton Fallsview Hotel & Conference Center
6755 Fallsview Boulevard. Niagara Falls, Ontario L2G 3W7, Canada
Phone: (905) 374-1077

For conference Information: www.mapacagazette.net

Looking for Some Chestertonian Presenters

As some of you may recall, Jill presented a paper to us at the Chesterton Conference about two years ago, a fascinating look at Dickens's Dombey through a Chestertonian point of view.

Jill has a request:

I have the wonderful and unique opportunity of bringing our friend, GKC, to the forefront at the 2008 MAPACA conference (Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association). After presenting a Tolkien/Chesterton paper there (a largely secular and postmodern arena) last year, I was asked many positive questions about Chesterton, enough that the panel chair suggested that I propose a panel for 2008. Happily, with the support my friend, professor Bill Mistichelli from Penn State/Abington, and God's help, my proposal was accepted.

Now, the important thing is for me to have abstracts for papers. In order for the panel to exist, I will need to have 3-4 presenters, and this is where I really need your help,. If there is any way for you to spread the word, I would so appreciate it. Below, I am including my specific panel proposal and contact info. And you will find the general Call for Papers for the MAPACA conference (Ed. note: I can't include it all here, but if you are interested, email me). There will be found all the details of the conference itself. You'll note there that Bill annually chairs a session on Tolkien and Lewis, one in which acquaintances of yours may also be very interested.

On Bill's suggestion, too, I just sent a similar proposal for the NEMLA (Northeast Modern Language Association) conference in 2009. I'm all for letting GKC do his magic in all of these places so sorely in need of his common sense!

Thanks for your help. God bless.
Jill
Details: Click here.
G. K. Chesterton, certainly one of the most voluminous writers of the early twentieth century, was well-known for his work as a literary and social critic, a novelist, a poet, and Catholic apologist. As a forerunner of the reawakening of Chesterton interest, Dale Ahlquist, president of the American Chesterton Society, refers to G. K. Chesterton as “the apostle of common sense,” for he was a man eager to shepherd the people of his time, a heyday of secular humanism and the rise of postmodernism. His gifted use of paradox has the unique ability to evoke smiles and awaken faith. His famous debates with George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells created an intense but friendly and respectful forum for discussion of opposing views on science, materialism, and religion. Without doubt, Chesterton can engage equally well in such discussions with thinkers of our day.

In his literary criticism, Chesterton salutes those Victorian writers, such as Charles Dickens, who so clearly delineate between good and evil, promote the necessity for social and moral change, and portray the joy ever-present in the company of absolute truths. These same values are evident in his apologetic works, such as Orthodoxy, and his fiction, such as The Man Who Was Thursday. Such literary contributions bestow us with lifelong gifts, for in the early 20th Century, they supported and encouraged the enormously influential works of, among others, C.S. Lewis and J.R. R. Tolkien. Indeed, Chesterton's work enthusiastically encourages dialogue across centuries. This Chesterton panel eagerly invites proposals for papers of comparative literature as well as those of social and cultural commentary.

Looking for a Game of Gype? Head to London!

I received this from Holly:

I'm writing from the Hide and Seek festival; we have monthly events in London where we play interesting games, and on 10 May we're going to be running a night of Chesterton-influenced and inspired games at BAC (the Battersea Arts Centre, not far from where Chesterton lived in Battersea).

We're always keen to have new designers and players, and I wondered whether any of your London-based readers might be interested in running a game at the event. We're keen on pretty much any type of game or playful activity: grown-up versions of playground games, games where the players work together to create something, scavenger hunts, quiet card games, anything that involves the overlap of games and other art forms, and just general exciting stuff along the lines of the Adventure and Romance Agency from Chesterton's "Club of Queer Trades". There's a little more information about it here and on the rest of the website, but anyone who's interested can contact me.

If you think your readers might be interested, I'd be grateful if you could pass the information on to them.

Regards, Holly

Doesn't this make you wish you lived near Battersea?

Dr. Thursday's Post

Thanks again to Dr. Thursday for this hilarious post.

Rolling the other way: all chairs - or all camels?

Last week I omitted a warning I used several times previously. I did not mention that GKC was using "evolution" as an example - a rapid, en passant kind of example. I did so because I think it was well worth stopping to see what we were able to see in the brilliant light GKC provided. We have learned something almost NO other writer in the last century has been able to attain - an approach to true Scholastic thought, applied to one of the most pesty of issues. Alas for the scientists, and alas-squared for the philosophers, if that's what they still call themselves, who have not yet read GKC, and taken his writing to heart!

Now, we resume - and we find in front of us yet another chasm, shaped quite remarkably like last week's. But where evolution makes all things the same thing (or a flux and nothing more besides), this is the opposite. This is another failure to see things as they are - but now to see no degree of similarity of any kind.

But this time, instead of provoking thought, or anger, or boredom, I think this will provoke laughter. Actually, I laughed a good bit about last week's posting, and since then as well; I read some really strong comments in Fr. Jaki's The Road of Science and the Ways to God which made evolution seem... ah well but we must go on. Please finish your drinks and let us proceed...
Click here to read on.

GKC goes from one error of modern thought to another, shining light into the dark corners...

Then there is the opposite attack on thought: that urged by Mr. H. G. Wells when he insists that every separate thing is "unique," and there are no categories at all. This also is merely destructive. Thinking means connecting things, and stops if they cannot be connected. It need hardly be said that this scepticism forbidding thought necessarily forbids speech; a man cannot open his mouth without contradicting it. Thus when Mr. Wells says (as he did somewhere), "All chairs are quite different," he utters not merely a misstatement, but a contradiction in terms. If all chairs were quite different, you could not call them "all chairs."
[CW1:238]

Are your chairs quite different? Hee hee. If you have read GKC's earlier book, Heretics you may perhaps recall that we've heard something like this before. But it's lots funnier:

...it is a very common phrase of modern intellectualism to say that the morality of one age can be entirely different to the morality of another. And like a great many other phrases of modern intellectualism, it means literally nothing at all. If the two moralities are entirely different, why do you call them both moralities? It is as if a man said, "Camels in various places are totally diverse; some have six legs, some have none, some have scales, some have feathers, some have horns, some have wings, some are green, some are triangular. There is no point which they have in common." The ordinary man of sense would reply, "Then what makes you call them all camels? What do you mean by a camel? How do you know a camel when you see one?"
[GKC Heretics CW1:167]

Some of you may be thinking this has something to do with evolution (it does, but probably not in the way you're thinking!) But animals can be fun, as well as dangerous, again, not in the way you are probably thinking. Let GKC explain:

A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.
[ILN Jan 4 1908, CW28:21 - another 100 year old quote!]

Which reminds me of GKC's very hilarious view about giraffes:

When first the giraffe was described by travellers it was treated as a lie. Now it is in the Zoological Gardens; but it still looks like a lie.
[ILN Oct 21 1911 CW29:176]

Or this:

A man can coil a snake round and round inside his hat, though only a few individuals have indulged in this form of nature-study. If a man were to attempt to fold up a giraffe, or even to deal in this manner with the most compact or collapsible horse or dog, he would find that they were not sufficiently articulated animals.
[ILN July 25 1931 CW35:561]

I bother you with this nonsense because our good long-necked friend shall appear again in a little while, unless of course he has evolved into something else by then. Hee hee.

Ahem. But this is getting into something quite serious. The correct philosophical term is "universals" - the idea of something (and idea such as a quality like green or tall, or a category of thing, like chair or camel) which is common to various real (existing) things... Please remember what path we are on: the Suicide of Thought - the modern crimes which are attempting to destroy, prevent and eliminate thought. Let us hear the next bit, then:

Akin to these is the false theory of progress, which maintains that we alter the test instead of trying to pass the test. We often hear it said, for instance, "What is right in one age is wrong in another." This is quite reasonable, if it means that there is a fixed aim, and that certain methods attain at certain times and not at other times. If women, say, desire to be elegant, it may be that they are improved at one time by growing fatter and at another time by growing thinner. But you cannot say that they are improved by ceasing to wish to be elegant and beginning to wish to be oblong. If the standard changes, how can there be improvement, which implies a standard? Nietzsche started a nonsensical idea that men had once sought as good what we now call evil; if it were so, we could not talk of surpassing or even falling short of them. How can you overtake Jones if you walk in the other direction? You cannot discuss whether one people has succeeded more in being miserable than another succeeded in being happy. It would be like discussing whether Milton was more puritanical than a pig is fat. It is true that a man (a silly man) might make change itself his object or ideal. But as an ideal, change itself becomes unchangeable. If the change-worshipper wishes to estimate his own progress, he must be sternly loyal to the ideal of change; he must not begin to flirt gaily with the ideal of monotony. Progress itself cannot progress.
[CW1:238-9]

Pigs! Another animal, but I must stop here. No; I shall give the linking quite which unites this last thought to his previous work:

...this kind of vagueness in the primary phenomena of the study is an absolutely final blow to anything in the nature of a science. Men can construct a science with very few instruments, or with very plain instruments; but no one on earth could construct a science with unreliable instruments. A man might work out the whole of mathematics with a handful of pebbles, but not with a handful of clay which was always falling apart into new fragments, and falling together into new combinations. A man might measure heaven and earth with a reed, but not with a growing reed.
[Heretics CW1:117]

Make sure you select a stable means of measurement, or you'll never know if you are rolling, unrolling, or re-rolling - or just staying in one place. It may take all your running - as the Queen told Alice - to stay in one place - but sometimes you need to do it.

--Dr. Thursday

Emphasis by the editor, who sees connections there to the current political campaign.

Links to Orthodoxy

Just in time to celebrate its 100th anniversary, Ryan at Catholic Audio has announced a page of links, including audio Orthodoxy, chapter by chapter. Put this in your iPods and smoke it. (Pardon my old-fashioned expression.)

Thanks, Ryan.

In case your readers are not aware already, there exists a monthly based on Chesterton in Madrid, Spain. This publication is called "Chesterton" and is a magazine dedicated to current analysis based on Chesterton's common sense.

Thanks to reader: Rich

New Chesterton and Belloc Books at Loome

I just saw that Loome got in a BUNCH of GKC and Belloc books....

Thanks to blog reader: Peter

YouTube: Orson Wells's The Man Who Was Thursday

Hi Nancy,

Thought you would be interested to know that someone has posted Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre adaption of "The Man Who Was Thursday" on youtube. Here is a link to part 1 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyHoT1oa0j4&feature=related

Thanks to: Mary B.

Anti-subsidiarity in Action

We are in Austin, TX, setting up an art show yesterday. We've been doing art shows for 11 years and have done over 300. This was the most unorganized set up ever.

Although, God did provide us with an absolutely gorgeous day to sit around and wait in, which we thanked Him for many times.

And, the long wait, which began at 1PM and ended with us finally getting to bed at midnight, also allowed us to see one of Austin's most unusual tourist attractions. We saw the bats. We were waiting on a bridge that was only one bridge down river from the "Bat" bridge.

The reason this art set up was so anti-subsidiarity was because the people setting up seemed to be working under the assumption that we artists didn't know how to set up, and we needed their help.

The art show also seemed to assume that if given the option, we artists wouldn't understand where to go or how to park our vans and trucks so that the maximum number of people could set up at the same time. So they organized us. And it took forever.

But we are set up, albeit tired, and the show begins today. If we have weather like yesterday, I think we'll all be happy.

Have a great weekend, and if you live near Austin, come by and see us, ok y'all? (that's Texas talk ;-))

New Blogzine Announced: World of Forms

My name is James Hoskins and I've created a new blogzine called "World of Forms." It combines two things that I, and I'm sure several of you, are quite passionate about: Art and Philosophy. Anyone who is a fan of music, art, film, literature, and/or philosophy will, I think, enjoy the articles at http://worldofforms.net.

I'm also an avid lover of G.K. Chesterton and frequently quote him (or blatantly rip him off) in my articles. The reason I'm sending this email is because I want to build relationships with other like-minded people and associations. I would love for anyone at the American Chesterton Society Blog to link to http://worldofforms.net, or maybe even mention it in a blog. It would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks James

Dr. Thursday's Post

Unrolling: the Truth

We ended last week's leg of our journey with talk about a bridge... some very serious talk.

It is now time for us to screw up our courage to the sticking point, as we face the steep, narrow path ... the yawning chasm... the fearful abyss... the danger...

Yes, for the topic today is among the most debated, most boring, most important, most feared, most confusing, and most fight-provoking of topics...

But there is also a bridge. Click to read more here.

The topic is one word: EVOLUTION.

The issue is (according to SOME) exactly that war between faith and reason. Is there a God? Is there design? Is there science? What am I? What is Man? Is evolution a theory? What is a theory? And so on.

I find some of it very boring, because it is always the same tired words, never clear, never precise.. but more to the point, never quoting Chesterton, who has it phrased so well!

Father Stanley Jaki, the great historian of science, author of some 50 books, calls GKC the "Critic of Evolutionism" in his little study Chesterton A Seer of Science - one of its four short chapters examines why. But even more, this simple title clarifies the matter for us - and settles us boldly down the path.

The distinction, you see, is between Evolution (as a science) and EvolutionISM (a philosophy).

You see the chasm? The terror of the abyss which divides the various fields of human thought! And our path leads across it?

But I promised a bridge. Chesterton, like Aquinas, "has thrown out a bridge across the abyss of the first doubt, and found reality beyond and begun to build on it." [St. Thomas Aquinas CW2:543]


The abyss is easily seen, the fear is intense. Let us look at the bridge, then, and gain confidence.

Materialism and the view of everything as a personal illusion have some such effect; for if the mind is mechanical, thought cannot be very exciting, and if the cosmos is unreal, there is nothing to think about. But in these cases the effect is indirect and doubtful. In some cases it is direct and clear; notably in the case of what is generally called evolution.

Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of thought. Descartes said, "I think; therefore I am." The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram. He says, "I am not; therefore I cannot think."
[CW1:237-8]

The scholastics, for whom argument meant Pursuit of Truth, used a tool called "distinguo" = "I Distinguish." In order to study something they considered it according to similarity, but even more, according to DIFFERENCE.

So does GKC.

Read those words again. IF IT IS ANYTHING MORE...

You see, there are TWO things here, hiding in that word "evolution" (which is just Latin for "unrolling"). Yes, once you've recovered from your acrophobic spasm, you can look and see there really are two chasms here.

(the word I wanted was "rapture of the heights" but perhaps better that I left it out.)

One is the error being made by the scientists. They think they can stop being philosophers - which means being WHOLE men - while they do their biology. No physicist ever says "Ah, what a pleasant day. I think I could go for a bit of measurement, maybe a length, a velocity, or something fun. Yes, I am going to do some physics now. So I shall by no means do any mathematics. That would be to abandon my field, and I must be a TRUE physicist."

What a loon.

Well, by no means can a biologist STOP DOING philosophy while he is doing his biology. The error is quite widespread; GKC wrote about this for most of the last chapter. But some 50 years before GKC wrote Orthodoxy Cardinal Newman was saying the same thing:

The human mind cannot keep from speculating and systematizing; and if [some field] is not allowed to occupy its own territory, adjacent sciences, nay, sciences which are quite foreign to [that field], will take possession of it. And this occupation is proved to be a usurpation by this circumstance, that these foreign sciences will assume certain principles as true, and act upon them, which they neither have authority to lay down themselves, nor appeal to any other higher science to lay down for them.
[Newman, The Idea of a University, Discourse IV]

Ah. See those strong cables, those mighty foundations? We are reassured. The chasm does not bother us at all.

Then there is that second chasm - the one where the philosophers play a game, trying to pretend that there cannot be a science at all. Newman's warning applies just as well here, but I shall give another example for you.

Some centuries ago, people believed that the "heavens" (that is, the stuff you see above you when you are outdoors) were "divine" - or at least somehow "holy". It was not possible to "explain" them by means of the tools of earth - that is, terrestrial mechanics. (I hear some people yelling "Galileo" and "Newton" - but that does not explain anything at all. We're not talking about science yet.) You see, even to this very day, in 2008 there are people who REFUSE to believe certain truths about reality, because their religion, er, I ought to say, their PHILOSOPHY forbids them to believe it.

And since the forbidding is from a Philosophy (you can read "religion" here if you like), the freeing or the granting of access, must also occur within that same realm, or it cannot "take hold".

That is what happened back in the 13th century, when the truth we proclaim every Sunday: "Credo... in unum Dominum Jesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum" - I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ only-begotten Son of God - was brought to bear on the matter. The heavens could not be divine, because Jesus was the Only-begotten - and not the heavens, as the Greeks taught. The really serious work anticipated Newton by several hundred years:

The Aristotelian dichotomy between superlunary and sublunary matter was dealt a decisive blow, and the unitary approach of classical physics to earthly and heavenly bodies was foreshadowed, when Buridan, inspired by his faith, discussed the substance of stars in a manner which patently deprived them of the divine and imperishable characteristics which Aristotle attributed to them.
[Jaki, Science and Creation chapter 10]

Indeed! If you want to explain the birth of modern science, you must look to a CREED which freed us from a wrongful belief. ("Reason itself is a matter of faith" - we heard that last week, didn't we?)

The heavens are NOT divine. They may use their own laws, or they may use "terrestrial" laws - but at least for CHRISTIAN philosophers, there is NOTHING which prevents "science" from exploring them with even earthly tools.

It's even funnier to think, as one glances through the history of science, how scientists found something strange in the sun which had NEVER been found on earth.... WAS THIS A COUNTER-EXAMPLE? Oh, no. It was first found in the sun, but you can buy it in the store... they called it after the Greek word for "sun" but now you can get helium in a balloon.

Then there's that strange weird blue color, again something apparently impossible on earth - scientists used the word "forbidden" - and called the substance "nebulium" - but it proved to be nothing more than oxygen, in an extremely ionised state, possible only in VERY empty space.

One more example, to bring us back to earth. The scientists of maybe two centuries ago thought that the physical substances which exist in LIVING things were somehow FORMALLY different from those in NON-living things. They used the word "organic" to mean those which came from life (from organisms), and "inorganic" for rocks, rivers, and the rest of things.

Until 1829 when a German chemist named Wöhler produced something called "urea" (yes, it sounds like "urine" where it is found) - but he did it in the lab, in glassware, from non-living (inorganic) compounds. (It caused quite a bit of war; see Jaki's The Relevance of Physics chapter 11 for the hilarious whining about this!)

That brought about (or at least began, or provided the possibility of beginning) the junction of two disciplines, which henceforth had a new hallway joining them: biology and chemistry. So now we have biochemistry, molecular biology, and whole departments of sub-disciplines.

Now, let us turn to that other chasm. And here I shall for once speak about my own experience. The SAME thing is happening (has been happening) between biology and computing. I do NOT mean that computers are helping to do searches in DNA sequences. I mean that the question of DESIGN, invoked or opposed, belongs at least in part to computing, where the idea of a thing-which-specifies-the-building-of-a-thing is a way of life. (We computer people call them "compilers"; without them we are cooks without kitchens, utensils, and ingredients.)

The ribosome is the machine of the living cell which makes proteins. But its code exists in the DNA. A ribosome is able to build the parts for new ribosomes, because it is given (1) the recipe or blueprints and (2) the raw materials. A compiler can produce another compiler, provided... Ah - the bridge! (I was going to say "the Surprise"... hee hee!)

But in just about any of the daily whine about "evolution" you will NOT hear the real matters being explored - you will only hear the boring stuff as the children fight.

Enter GKC. And, like Aquinas, with a blow on the table, he divided the science from the philosophy. Read it again. Yes - "stingless for the most orthodox" - isn't that a GREAT phrase? Learn it; learn these paragraphs. GKC gives us the bridge by which we cross those chasms and safely arrive on the other side.

The whiners, scared, silly, little ones that they are, are left behind, and we advance.

--Dr. Thursday

P.S. Yes, evolution is a science inasmuch as it measures something real: the relation between a living being and its offspring. That is all. The obedient Mendel, the monk, ought to be its patron saint - not Darwin the cagey secretive God-basher. Oh, yes; he had another, non-scientific, purpose, which he kept hidden; see e.g. Jaki's The Purpose of It All for more. And talk about purpose? Can there be such a thing? Will your purpose now be to post a comment arguing against it? How odd. I could quote GKC: "No sceptics work sceptically; no fatalists work fatalistically; all without exception work on the principle that it is possible to assume what it is not possible to believe." (CW2:542) but here's an even more curious version: “Those who devote their lives to the purpose of proving that there is no purpose, constitute an interesting subject for study.” [A. N. Whitehead, The Function of Reason, 1929]

One more thing. If you'd like to know more about the relation between compilers and ribosomes, please ask. I do hope to write about it someday. It will be lots of fun, and very Chestertonian.

GKC on NYC

Why he will never visit.

Chesterton Lecture Tonight in Lisle, IL

Oxford lecturer, Dominican scholar headlines ‘Theology in Life’ lecture
April 9th 5:00 pm Birk 112 Click here to read the whole press release.

Lisle, Illinois ~ George [sic!] Keith “G.K.” Chesterton was a prolific English critic and author of verse, essays, novels and short stories.

Chesterton ranked with George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells among the most celebrated writers of his time. He is probably best known for his series about the priest-detective Father Brown who appeared in 50 stories. Between 1900 and 1936, Chesterton published some 100 books.

But after converting from Anglican in 1922, Chesterton’s energy turned toward defending Catholicism. Chesterton argued against all the trends that eventually took over the 20th century: materialism, scientific determinism, moral relativism and agnosticism. He also argued that socialism and capitalism are enemies of freedom and justice in modern society.

“G.K. Chesterton’s Discovery of Metaphysical Realism” is the topic of a lecture that will be presented by Fr. Aidan Nichols, O.P., a renowned theologian, author and John Paul II Memorial Visiting Lecturer at the University of Oxford, at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 9 in the Krasa Center Presentation Room.

The lecture is the first in a series at Benedictine University titled “Theology in Life” which focuses on theology for lay people and how they can relate that theology to their lives in the workplace, civil society, political society and family.

In his lecture on Chesterton and metaphysical realism, Nichols will highlight the interdisciplinary nature of Catholic intellectual life which recognizes the importance of faith and reason. Metaphysical realism is a philosophical cornerstone of Catholic thinking.

The lecture is also about Chesterton, a man known as a writer and journalist, who took his faith to the marketplace and defended it with wit, reason and humor.

Finally, Nichols will discuss how divine revelation emerges in human experience and thought, manifesting truth, goodness and beauty.

Nichols was born in 1948 at Lytham St. Anne's, England and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Oxford University. He entered the Dominican order in 1970 and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1976. He has lectured at Cambridge University and was the Robert Randall Distinguished Professor in Christian Culture at Providence College (Rhode Island).

In 2003, the Master of the Order of Preacher (Dominicans) conferred the degree “Sacrae Theologiae Magister” (Master of Sacred Theology) on Nichols. The Master of Sacred Theology is the highest canonical degree in theology.

The lecture is sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies at Benedictine University and St. Procopius Abbey. It is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Christine M. Fletcher, Ph.D, at (630) 829-6263 or by email at cfletcher@ben.edu.

Benedictine University is an independent Roman Catholic institution located in Lisle, Illinois just 25 miles west of Chicago. Founded in 1887, Benedictine provides 45 undergraduate majors, 11 graduate programs,a Ph.D. in Organization Development and an Ed.D. in Higher Education and Organizational Change.
Benedictine University is ranked as a Top School in the Midwest for Master’s Universities, sixth in Illinois for Ethnic Diversity, and as a Top Campus for International Students, Economic Diversity and Highest Graduation Rate for 2008 by U.S. News & World Report.

Texas!

Tomorrow, we are leaving for Texas. We'll be visiting the capitol city of Austin, to do the Art City Austin this weekend. Next weekend, we'll be at Main Street Fort Worth.

I'll have a variety of internet connections while I'm on the road, so I may post, and I may not, depending.

If you live in either Austin or Dallas/Fort Worth, please come and see us.

WikiQuote Page of Chesterton Quotes

WikiQuote is new but growing fast. Someone has put up a lot of Chesterton quotes, which have hopefully been cross referenced to our big guy's writings.

H/T David.

Seton Hall Lecture I Wish I Could Attend

A New Distributist League is forming

This news from our friends at ChesterBelloc Mandate:

Distributism in Action

As John Médaille from The Distributist Review pointed out recently, various new endeavors are in preparation for the coming year.
We hinted in the past about a future conference. Now we are working in earnest to secure a site and date for the event. This will be a full day conference with eight speakers who have generously offered their time and support. Please return to our site for updates as developments unfold.
A Grassroots Movement Rising…Again
The original Distributist League initially met at the Devereux pub and spawned 24 like-minded branches across Great Britain within a single year.* These in turn hosted lectures and conferences, and coordinated with complimentary organizations such as Fr. McQuillan's Catholic Land Association.
In recent years, many have made efforts to re-introduce Distributism and, as a result, discussions surrounding the topic have been increasing on the world-wide-web. These consequences are not negligible. Book publishers, online and print journals, lectures, universities, and television programs have either touched on the topic or have dedicated themselves to it.
Short-term Goals
We would like to notify our readers of the following proposed objectives we will meet:
1. The establishment of a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization to educate society about and in support of Distributism. This apostolate will engage in the dissemination of educational materials, semi-annual lecture series, and conferences.
2. A chronicle in print is in development with the intent of discussing solutions to our current global dilemmas. Conceptually the magazine will concentrate on both the practical application of Distributism, as well as analysis of various movements conformes with Distributist thought. This journal will include some of the writers featured on our online archive and debates with capitalists and socialists will also be welcome.
3. Fund-raising will play a supporting role towards keeping our costs down for events and all materials. All profits will be used toward our described efforts.
You Can Have an Impact
Send us an email and let us know whether you would like to be contacted with updates and information about said events. We will not release your information to any third parties and you will not have to provide your name if you desire not to do so. Just send us an email that you wish to subscribe and please provide us with your country of residence, city and state/province. This will assist us when preparing future events.
Ultimately we would like to lecture across the globe, so please support this effort by being a part of the mailing list
Establishing a database will allow us to quantify the existing support for these ventures, and inform our readers when and where they will take place.
Please contact us at:
societyfordistributism@gmail.com **
Country of residence:
City:
State/Province:
Sending us your information will be invaluable in our efforts to coordinate these goals
Servire Deo Regnare Est!

Richard Aleman
The ChesterBelloc Mandate
*According to John Michael Thorn's book, An Unexplored Chapter in Recent English History, these branches were founded between 1926 and 1927.
**Upon the establishment of a non-profit, we will notify our subscribers of our new email address.

Dr. Thursday's Post

The Peril - and a Bridge into Light

We ended last week, smack in the Octave of Easter (the week of eight Sundays!) with a real cliffhanger:

...there is a great and possible peril to the human mind: a peril as practical as burglary. Against it religious authority was reared, rightly or wrongly, as a barrier. And against it something certainly must be reared as a barrier, if our race is to avoid ruin.
[CW1:236]

And I am sure everyone was wondering what that peril is. Good. So you can wonder just a little more, but you are about to find out - if you dare.

We are coming to the first really serious peak in our "study" (that is a pompous term for my boisterous and lengthy meanderings) of GKC's centennial book, Orthodoxy. We had a couple of weeks where we made a slight detour for the sake of the season - so just in case you let it slide and want to catch up, you ought to read (or re-read!) Chapter III called "The Suicide of Thought" - up to the paragraph end I have just quoted.

Very well. All ready to resume the hike? Good. As Hans the guide called out, "Forüt!" - "Forward!" (That's from Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, in case you've forgotten... we aren't going there today. Sorry. That leaves from Iceland in late June - wanna go?) Ahem.

What, then, is this peril? Actually, we were told about it, a paragraph or two ago:

The whole modern world is at war with reason; and the tower already reels.[CW1:235]

Yes, please read that again. These times are dark. Few things have been darker, been more misnamed than "the Enlightenment". These times, NOT the 13th century, are the Dark Ages. These times are emphatically NOT the "Age of Reason". You can find this discussed elsewhere; the philosophers, if any still are with us, must now go stand in the corner, for they have refused to help. But GKC is here, with light, with weapons, with truth... (Compare these with Milo's gifts in The Phantom Tollbooth - a book which in so many ways hints at the same things GKC tells us!)

So what is the peril? Summon all your courage, and read on - when you dare.

"That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself." [CW1:236]

Yes. You can, if you choose, think yourself into a state where you can no longer think. No alcohol, no drugs; nothing like that. You read the wrong books, listen to the wrong music, watch the wrong TV shows, visit the wrong web-sites... and Poof.

Your Mind - It's Gone!

By action of your own mind, you make yourself a PUPPET - and no longer think.

You may think this is nonsense, pure fantasy... I can think myself into NOT thinking? Ah, yes... Remember Milo, stuck in the Doldrums in The Phantom Tollbooth because he wasn't thinking? But this is not fantasy. This is for real. This can REALLY HAPPEN... and HAS HAPPENED. GKC is not so much giving a commentary (or predicting, considering its aptness for the present time!) but simply reporting.

Do you think this is profound, or find it unexpected? You will be even more surprised at what comes next:

Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape." The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all."

There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped. That is the ultimate evil against which all religious authority was aimed. It only appears at the end of decadent ages like our own...
[CW1:236, emphasis added]

An aside: I wonder, did John Paul II read this before he wrote his 1998 encyclical called Fides et Ratio? (That is, "Faith and Reason"!) Alas, he did not quote GKC; I checked. (If you are seeking a doctoral topic, perhaps a study comparing these two great works might be most profitable.)

The surprise, I am sure you noticed, is that there is an answer, and it is in what MOST people nowadays consider the most unlikely place: the greatest support of Reason is in Faith. In fact, one cannot even have Reason unless one first has faith.

The few real philosophers with us are nodding happily. They are delighted that GKC has taken the Three Great Self-Evident Principles of Thought as his starting point, even though he doesn't state them explicitly. They will not mind that I review them for you:

(1) The existence of the thinking subject.
(2) The principle of contradiction: "A thing cannot at the same time be and not be."
(3) The natural capacity of our reason to know the truth.
These are also called the first fact, the first principle, and the first condition of certain knowledge.
[See Scholastic Philosophy by Michael W. Shallo, S.J.>

These three principles cannot be proven, but must be accepted, or you can do NOTHING AT ALL. Not even write a journal article for a philosophy magazine. Or even post a comment on a blogg...

Yes, if you never resume reading this book, nor ever read any GKC again, please memorise this ONE line.. OK, these three sentences - at least the one in BOLD:

"It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all."

Aren't you glad you kept reading? You thought all you were going to hear about was that awful peril - and here Chesterton is handing us a weapon! Wow. What a GREAT tool we now have! We have beaten flat most of the last few centuries of philosophers, and can now toss their books into the trash. They are all LIARS, rather, they are HYPOCRITES, doing what they refuse to admit is possible:

[The "moderate realism" of Thomism and Scholastic Philosophy] is the only working philosophy. Of nearly all other philosophies it is strictly true that their followers work in spite of them, or do not work at all. No sceptics work sceptically; no fatalists work fatalistically; all without exception work on the principle that it is possible to assume what it is not possible to believe. No materialist who thinks his mind was made up for him, by mud and blood and heredity, has any hesitation in making up his mind. No sceptic who believes that truth is subjective has any hesitation about treating it as objective.
[GKC, St. Thomas Aquinas CW2:542-3]

But you want to know more. GKC immediately gives an example from one of his "Heretic" friends, H. G. Wells. (Note: I call him that because of Chapter 5 in GKC's Heretics, and not from any personal criticism; GKC considered him a friend.)

...already Mr. H. G. Wells has raised its ruinous banner; he has written a delicate piece of scepticism called "Doubts of the Instrument." In this he questions the brain itself, and endeavours to remove all reality from all his own assertions, past, present, and to come. But it was against this remote ruin that all the military systems in religion were originally ranked and ruled. The creeds and the crusades, the hierarchies and the horrible persecutions were not organized, as is ignorantly said, for the suppression of reason. They were organized for the difficult defence of reason.

Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve, the authority of popes to define the authority, even of inquisitors to terrify: these were all only dark defences erected round one central authority, more undemonstrable, more supernatural than all - the authority of a man to think. We know now that this is so; we have no excuse for not knowing it. For we can hear scepticism crashing through the old ring of authorities, and at the same moment we can see reason swaying upon her throne. In so far as religion is gone, reason is going. For they are both of the same primary and authoritative kind. They are both methods of proof which cannot themselves be proved. [That's almost literally the definition of the above three principles!] And in the act of destroying the idea of Divine authority we have largely destroyed the idea of that human authority by which we do a long-division sum. With a long and sustained tug we have attempted to pull the mitre off pontifical man; and his head has come off with it.
[CW1:236-7, emphasis added]

Wow, did you catch this: "in the act of destroying the idea of Divine authority" - isn't that horrifying! For that is the secret aim of so many of these philosophers! It's a war, after all - remember GKC's last words? "The issue is now quite clear. It is between light and darkness and every one must choose his side." [Ward, Gilbert Keith Chesterton 650] And we'll see, perhaps next week, how this idea will link to other matters - big, nasty, debate-making matters - that you might not expect.

But for today, just look at this - doesn't something seem familiar here? Remember: "If thy head offend thee, cut it off; for it is better, not merely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a child, but to enter it as an imbecile, rather than with your whole intellect to be cast into hell - or into Hanwell."[CW1:224; cf Mt5:30, 18:8] Ah, yes - but here, there's someone else doing the pulling!

I was about to list names of these Dark Powers - but that would just make noise and waste your energy. (You'll hear one of them in the near future anyway; no it's neither "Sauron" nor "Voldemort".) Let them remain in the dark - you know who they are - I shall just call them the Dark Powers of Evil - those who have rejected the Good - these are all at work, claiming to advance "Reason" but really attacking it! They are hard at work, to pull off the mitres we all wear, in our sworn dedication to Faith... Indeed, the tower already reels.

You may think it is funny to consider all humans wearing the mitre, the conical hat of bishops, the symbol of pontifical power - but these things are serious, and come up in so many places in GKC. You need to ponder what it might mean to be a "pontiff" = "to build a bridge" - and how that must be both a matter of faith as well as reason. If you need a reading assignment, see GKC's memorial at the death of Francis Thompson, ILN Dec 14 1907 CW27:603, or look up the life and work of John Roebling (the Brooklyn Bridge designer), or of St. Benezet. Or, perhaps, even the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, where you'll read:

Thus alms are besought for the building of a bridge, or church, or for any other work whatever that is conducive to the common good..." [Summa II-II Q187 A5, emphasis added]

But - yes, yes - unless you read it in GKC, some of you won't believe it. So:

"...when men wish to be safely impressive, as judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the long, trailing robes of female dignity."
[What's Wrong With the World CW4:128]

Or if you prefer the fictional version:

"'All ceremony,' he said, 'consists in the reversal of the obvious. Thus men, when they wish to be priests or judges, dress up like women."
[Napoleon of Notting Hill CW6:247-8]

Why is this relevant? Because women are nearly always the first teachers of children. Remember, you cannot spell M-A-N without M-A - a truth which confutes all the feminists!

Let me end this very difficult and complex - but extremely important - stage of our journey with another quote from that excellent book on Education - no not Newman, but GKC. Another one you ought to memorise:

"A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching."
[What's Wrong With the World CW4:162]

I know at first you'll think that bit about women has NOTHING to do with pontiffs. You'll need to think about that - and perhaps read that book after we're done with this one.

Yes - please think carefully about all of this - while you still can. They are already attacking!

--Dr. Thursday

P.S. I must insist on this bridge matter as being a wonderful symbol for intellect and reason. Reason is, in a sense, a bridge we build from our inmost self to Reality - and like all bridges, requires faith and a firm foundation. It's most thoroughly human: "Building a bridge seemed such a clean, heroic thing for a man to do." [said of Roebling in David McCullough, The Great Bridge p.82-83] I could quote many additional demonstrations, but I shall give just the one which I first learned from Fr. Jaki:

The rebuilding of this bridge between science and human nature is one of the greatest needs of mankind.
[GKC, The Defendant 75 quoted in Jaki, Chesterton a Seer of Science 45]

Rod Bennett to Discuss Cecil Chesterton's History of the United States

Join in the conversation, where he'll be posting excerpts daily for discussion.

ChesterCon08 Schedule ready for viewing/registration

The 27th Annual Chesterton Conference is announced!

Go register now, before everyone else does.