Pulling down the gas-lamp / Chesterton

"For these reasons, and for many more, I for one have come to believe in going back to fundamentals.  Such is the general idea of this book.  I wish to deal with my most distinguished contemporaries, not personally or in a merely literary manner, but in relation to the real body of doctrine which they teach.  I am not concerned with Mr. Rudyard Kipling as a vivid artist or a vigorous personality;  I am concerned with him as a Heretic--that is to say, a man whose view of things has the hardihood to differ from mine.  I am not concerned with Mr. Bernard Shaw as one of the most brilliant and one of the most honest men alive;  I am concerned with him as a Heretic--that is to say, a man whose philosophy is quite solid, quite coherent, and quite wrong.  I revert to the doctrinal methods of the thirteenth century, inspired by the general hope of getting something done.

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down.  A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light.  If Light be in itself good--"  At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down.  All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality.  But as things go on they do not work out so easily.  Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light;  some because they wanted old iron;  some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil.  Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much;  some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery;  some because they wanted to smash something.  And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes.  So, gradually and inevitably, today, tomorrow or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light.  Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark."

(Chesterton.  "Heretics".  Introductory Remarks, last two paragraphs.)
_________________


This would be something like talking about Humpty Dumpty falling of the wall, and how on earth to you put things back together again.  Applebaum talks about this in relation to the post-Soviet era in Eastern Europe.  When you have ruined the institutions, what will you have left and what will you do to rebuild society?  These experiments are very expensive, the damage untold.  Always they begin by isolating people from each other.  Is that the first thing that happens when the light is out?

I am not sure about the doctrinal methods of the thirteenth century.  Luther may have had some problems with those, too.  A Reformation was necessitated quite soon, with the scholastics ready to be thrown outwith their non-sense.  Maybe Chesterton is even engaging in some anti-protestant screed here. The scholastics were not Luther's and the Renaissance's men, nor Anselm, nor Aristotle.  Philosophy is just not the path to freedom in Christ.  We cannot think our way to redemption.  Nevertheless, it makes sense to me to be cautious and not throw out the Light with the lamp-post.  Very simply:  the concepts need to be revealed and Biblical.

(Here, by the way Applebaum writes about the Ukrainian crisis.)

Ambiguity / Definitions / Chesterton

"And having discovered that opportunism does fail, I have been induced to look at it more largely, and in consequence to see that it must fail.  I perceive that it is far more practical to begin at the beginning and discuss theories.  I see that the men who killed each other about the orthodoxy of the Homoousion were far more sensible than the people who are quarreling about the Education Act.  For the Christian dogmatists were trying to establish a reign of holiness, and trying to get defined, first of all, what was really holy.  But our modern educationists are trying to bring about a religious liberty without attempting to settle what is religion or what is liberty.  If the old priests forced a statement on mankind, at least they previously took some trouble to make it lucid.  It has been left for the modern mobs of Anglicans and Noncoformists to persecute for a doctrine without even stating it."

(Chesterton.  "Hertics".  Introductory Remarks.)

We see that Chesterton is still laboring with the concept and need for definitions.  It would be the theme of the introductory remarks.

The Grand requires General Theories / Chesterton

The theory of the unmorality of art has established itself firmly in the strictly artistic classes.  They are free to produce anything they like.  They are free to write a "Paradise Lost" in which Satan shall conquer God.  They are free to write a "Divine Comedy" in which heavens shall be under the floor of hell.  And what have they done?  Have they produced in their universality anything grander or more beautiful than the things uttered by the fierce Ghibbeline Catholic, by the rigid Puritan schoolmasters?  We know that they have produced only a few roundels.  Milton does not merely beat them at his piety, he beats them at their own irreverence.  In all their little books of verse you will not find a finer defiance of God than Satan's.  ... Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction.  Blasphemy depends upon belief, and is fading with it.  If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor.  I think his family will find him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion.  (Chesterton, Heretics.  Introductory Remarks)

I have to admit to not knowing a lot about what he is all aluding to.  But it seems like an excellent paragraph.  I wish I would get around to reading Milton and Dante, etc., but I may not make it.  I don't even have time today to look up "Ghibbeline" and "roundel".

But the part about proper blasphemy needing some sort of belief makes sense. And hence, we know that Chesterton is right about it all.  There is no "unmorality of art".


 

Apparently, this sort of thing, below, is a "roundel".  Well, lacking art about as much as the abstract above.

Process / Chesterton

"When everything about a people is for the time growing weak and ineffective, it begins to talk about efficiency.  So it is that when a man's body is a wreck he begins, for the first time, to talk about health.  Vigorous organisms talk not about their processes, but about their aims.  There cannot be any better proof of the physical efficiency of a man than that he talks cheerfully of a journey to the end of the world.  And there cannot be any better proof of the practical efficiency of a nation than that it talks constantly of a journey to the end of the world, a journey to the Judgment Day and the New Jerusalem.  There can be no stronger sign of a coarse material health than the tendency to run after high and wild ideals;  it is in the first exuberance of infancy that we cry for the moon.  None of the strong men in the strong ages would have understood what you meant by working for efficiency.  Hildebrand would have said that he was working not for efficiency, but for the Catholic Church.  Danton would have said that he was working not for efficiency, but for liberty, equality, and fraternity.  Even if the ideal of such men were simply the ideal of kicking a man downstairs, they thought of the end like men, not of the process like paralytics."

(G.K. Chesterton.  Introductory Remarks. "Heretics")

... "not of the process like paralytics."  Haha, funny.  Chesterton gives me belly-laughs.

My feelings about "process" have mostly been something like that, even in relation to science education.  Talk about "process", "efficiency", or even "the journey" seem to take the passion right out of things, or let the air out of the balloon.  When someone is just on a journey, or enjoying the ride, or on the way, one seems to really want to know where they are headed and whether one can take an interest in the goal.

There must be a time or place for that sort of process thinking or talk, though.  I wonder how one would distinguish.

For example, Applebaum in her book on the history of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe (see recent post) is trying to recapitulate the process so we can learn from what we can glean. It seems an important work--perhaps specifically the work of the historian or journalist--supposedly detached, unsentimental and fair. It is meant to be a report.  It is not forward looking, though it aims to rebuild the societies that have seen demolishing by totalitarianism.

Chesterton 2 / "The Golden rule is that there is no golden rule"

It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe.  That was done very frequently in the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object.  But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy.  This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period.  General theories are everywhere contemned;  the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man.  Atheism itself is too theological for us today.  Revolution itself is too much of a system;  liberty itself is too much of a restraint.  We will have no generalizations.  Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram:  "The golden rule is that there is no golden rule."  We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature.  A man's opinion on tramcars matters;  his opinion on Botticelli matters;  his opinion on all things does not matter.  He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe;  for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost.  Everything matters--except everything.

(Heretics.  Introductory Remarks.)

What is he doing here, again?  He is contrasting the zeal of the Middle Ages, which resulted in the burning of heretics, with the current refusal to come to any rules, at all.  As silly as the former approach may seem now, we seem to have overcompensated to a point where we will have no generalizations, no doctrines, no golden rules--except that there is no golden rule--no theory of the universe, no religion.

I am not sure if that is the same as existentialism.  Make up your own individual meaning.  Probably.

What do I know.



 

Chesterton / Heretics 1 / Definitions

Ok, as time permits, I do want to re-read G.K. Chesterton, quote him some and ponder what he is saying.

--I rarely re-read books (except for the basics) and re-watch movies, but Chesterton gave me such great belly laughs along with good insights, all in his inimitable fantastic English style, that I consider him worth a second look.  The fact that he is deconstructing 19th century philosophy and evil things such as Eugenics, Marxism and so on, of course, factors hugely, here.

So, let's put some more work into it.

Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word "orthodox."  In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic.  It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics.  He was orthodox.  He had no pride in having rebelled against them;  they had rebelled against him.  The armies with their cruel security, the kings with their cold faces, the decorous processes of State, the reasonable processes of law--all these like sheep had gone astray.  The man was proud of being orthodox, was proud of being right.  If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more than a man;  he was a church.  He was the center of the universe;  it was round him that the stars swung.  All the tortures torn out of forgotten hells could not make him admit that he was heretical.  But a few modern phrases have made him boast of it.  He says, with a conscious laugh, "I suppose I am very heretical," and looks round for applause.  The word "heresy" not only means no longer being wrong;  it practically means being clear-headed and courageous.  The word "orthodoxy" not only no longer means being right;  it practically means being wrong.  All this can mean one thing, and one thing only.  It means that people care less for whether they are philosophically right.  For obviously a man ought to confess himself crazy before he confesses himself heretical.  The Bohemian, with a red tie, ought to pique himself on his orthodoxy.  The dynamiter, laying a bomb, ought to feel that, what-ever else he is, at least he is orthodox.  

(Heretics, introductory comments.)

This opening already gives me such pleasure, that I, for once, am interested in "process" skills.  What did he do here?

He is giving the most basic of all introductions, an exploration of what terms mean, or used to mean.  I remember beginning essays that way in High School.  As he does in many places, he shows how things have been turned upside down.  It always makes you wonder how he can be seemingly the only person who has figured this out or can really show it clearly.

The matter in fact is so preposterous, that one must practically slap one's forehead with the goofy-ness of it all. A man used to be proud of being right and stake his life on it.  Now a man is proud of being "heretical", and does not seem to care whether he is right or wrong, as long as he is dynamiting something.

Of course, it entertains, how Chesterton moves from the kingdoms of the world, the state, the king, the decorous, to the howling wilderness, to the center of the universe, and the swinging stars.  It is beautiful and exciting.  We are with the rebel and his cause.  Indeed, there are weighty matters for which one may stand up and fight.

Contrast this person with the modern "heretic", who is basically looking for applause, or maybe chicks, or who knows what, for being a bad boy. He really looks shabby and tawdry by comparison, in the end. You want to dynamite but for what purpose?  Does it matter if you are right or wrong?

This is really, really good stuff.

For example, when we talk about Luther, we see that he was labeled a "heretic" and excommunicated by the Roman church.  Hence the movement was termed "Lutheran", to signify its heretical-ness.  But the objective of Luther and every Lutheran has ever only been to be "orthodox" and "catholic."  He stood and could do no other.  The people moved with him because he was right.  The time was right.  And a movement born in the monastery and the university resonated with the famous average citizen.   The stars swung around him.  And a heresy it was not that spread like wild-fire.

So much for today.

Chesterton, Early Childhood, the Church as Mother

Lately, in discussing art and how it can contribute to a "defamiliarizing" which can shake us out of a slumber, even a spiritual slumber, it has been said that women have contributed to this slumber and the "familiarizing", so to speak.  It was even mentioned somewhere that "dragons" kept the door to mystery, and these "dragons" sounded to me something like Sunday School teachers.

I think nowadays, when fewer children are raised in the faith, in the church, by mothers who are at home... that the emphasis on early childhood training should not be minimized. It is quite so that my own mother's piety, as well as my grandparents' piety were not dragons and gate-keepers--they were the very gates themselves.  In childhood everything is magical.  Everything is new.  Everything is unfamiliar at first.  We learn, we lay down the neurons, we are shaped into a trust and hope... and piety.  Every day we prayed:  "Lord make me pious, so that I will go to heaven."  (Lieber Gott, mach mich fromm, dass ich in den Himmel komm.)

It is the jaded, faded, the disappointed, the skeptic...  I don't know who else, who needs to be "defamiliarized".  I don't know.  It has not happened to me much, personally.  I just need to pick up a Bible and it hits me between the eyes.  It is quite enough.  Really.  I find.

Chesterton has this interesting thing to say about authority.  He means to accept the authority of Rome with this and I can't follow him there, but otherwise there is much good in the analogy.

"You believed your father, because you had found him to be a living fountain of facts, a thing that really knew more than you;  a thing that would tell you truth to-morrow, as well as to-day.  And if this was true of your father, it was even truer of your mother;  at least it was true of mine, to whom this book is dedicated.  Now, when society is in a rather futile fuss about the subjection of women, will no one say how much every man owes to the tyranny and privilege of women, to the fact that they alone rule education until education becomes futile:  for a boy is only sent to be taught at school when it is too late to teach him anything.  The real thing has been done already, and thank God it is nearly always done by women.  Every man is womanized, merely by being born.  They talk of the masculine woman;  but every man is a feminised man.  And if ever men walk to Westminister to protest against this female privilege, I shall not join their procession.

For I remember with certainty this fixed psychological fact;  that the very time when I was most under a woman's authority, I was most full of flame and adventure.  Exactly because when my mother said that ants bit they did bite, and because snow did come in winter (as she said);  therefore the whole world was to me a fairyland of wonderful fulfillments, and it was like living in some Hebraic age, when prophecy after prophecy came true.  I went out as a child into the garden, and it was a terrible place to me, precisely because I had a clue to it;  if I had held no clue it would not have been terrible, but tame.  A mere unmeaning wilderness is not even impressive.  But the garden of childhood was fascinating, exactly because everything had a fixed meaning which could be found out in its turn."

(Chesterton, Orthodoxy, last chapter)

I like it that Chesterton does not despise his early and feminine training and dedicated "Orthodoxy" to his mother. Certainly, he was "defamiliarized" through his grown-up adventures in politics, literature, art, philosophy and debates, but he always discovered the old truths over again through his own life experiences. In a way we are all "defamiliarized" by adult life, finding our own clues and then in turn becoming teachers of the young. 

Busy / Duty and Punishment

Dear Blog:  I have been busy and fighting the flu...  Not much time to read and write.

In the morning I read my Bible from the Treasury.  In the evening I read a bit from Chesterton.  That's all we can do right now.

The story this morning was of Noah's Ark.  Wow, what a punishment.  It goes from bad to worse.  First Adam and Eve are banished from God and the garden, plus receive the curses, then Cain gets sent away to be a wanderer, and now the whole earth is flooded and drowned.  -- People doubt these stories, but they sure have a ring of truth to them.   We still have such a mess everywhere.  And we still seek God's face, but he is missing, it seems.  I am finding my faith confirmed rather than threatened by reading them.  God's plan and promises and hopes held out, is what we have, by his mercy to the incorrigible, dumb and selfish egomaniacs.

--Chesterton is a hoot.  What else can one say.  Last night he ridiculed all those who thought pagans were all revelers.  No, no, he said, it's all about civic duty.  Indeed, I'd say, he hit the nail on the head, in thinking about Plato from the other day.  "Be just, my children, and serve the state faithfully."

So much.

"Often said silly things, like Plato"

We have picked up a new book, now that we have put The Republic behind us.  It is a G.K. Chesterton and it is this one:



It cost me $18.00 from Amazon.ca, which ships to my house within several days and at no extra cost.  This is a dangerous thing.  One can convince oneself quite quickly to buy another book, and have it in one's lap in no time flat...  But Chesterton has been on my want-to-read-list, for quite some time.  After reading several volumes by Chesterton on the I-Pad while exercising (What I saw in America;  Eugenics and other Evils;  On George Bernhard Shaw) -- I have indulged in a hard copy which one can under-line in, take to sofa or bed, and generally make a decent mess of.  As I have a day time job, I have less time to read.  It will take several weeks to get through the 400 pages. We are already into the chapter on H.G. Wells (after suffering through a very long and boring introduction by a certain David Dooley).

It is a little frightening to find that I know so little about the men Chesterton speaks of, but this is just the point.  I want to know more about what happened intellectually in the 19th century and the turn of the century.  As a culture we seem to have a blind spot there, perhaps because everything before radio or WW I might as well be antiquity.  What is the difference to us between Plato and 400 B.C. or the 19th century?  They are all just various Wikipedia entries.

To make a quick link to Plato, let's begin with a quote that involves Plato and Rudyard Kipling.  Chesterton seems to value courage very highly, as we all do.  To stand against heresy takes courage.  Chesterton makes the point that as Europe has become more militarized, the average citizen has become less brave.  Something in Kipling and his view on military matters prompted this generalization.



"Now, the message of Rudyard Kipling, that upon which he has really concentrated, is the only thing worth worrying about in him or in any other man.  He has often written bad poetry, like Wordsworth.  He has often said silly things, like Plato.  He has often given way to mere political hysteria, like Gladstone.  But no one can reasonably doubt that he means steadily and sincerely to say something, and the only serious question is, what is hat which he has tried to say?  Perhaps the best way of stating this fairly will be to begin with that element which has been most insisted by himself and by his opponents--I mean his interest in militarism.  But when we are seeking for the real merits of a man it is unwise to go to his enemies, and much more foolish to go to himself.

Now, Mr. Kipling is certainly wrong in his worship of militarism, but his opponents are, generally speaking, quite as wrong as he.  The evil of militarism is not that it shows certain men to be fierce and haughty and excessively warlike.  The evil of militarism is that it show most men to be tame and timid and excessively peaceable.  The professional soldier gains more and more power as the general courage of a community declines... All ages and all epics have sung of arms and the man;  but we have effected simultaneously the deterioration of the man and the fantastic perfection of the arms.  Militarism demonstrated the decadence of Rome, and it demonstrated the decadence of Prussia." (p. 57)

--This is so very interesting, but about Rudyard Kipling I only know that he wrote the "Jungle Book".  About Prussia I know a lot more, having descended on one side of the family from Prussians. One of my grandmothers even saw a Kaiser Wilhelm.  I am afraid that the Prussians have not left a good impressions on Chesterton.  It will be interesting to see what else he has to say about them.

Chesterton on the Two Party Democracy

G.K. Chesterton on "The Voter and the Two Voices." (Essay)

The real danger of the two parties is that they unduly limit the outlook of the ordinary citizen.  They make him barren instead of creative, because he is never allowed to do anything except prefer one existing policy to another.  We have not got real Democracy when the decision depends upon the people.  We shall have real Democracy when the problem depends upon the people.  The ordinary man will decide not only how he will vote, but what he is going to vote about.

...The democracy has a right to answer questions, but it has no right to ask them.  It is still the political aristocracy that asks the questions.  And we shall not be unreasonably cynical if we suppose that the political aristocracy will always be rather careful what questions it asks ... the powerful class will choose two courses of action, both of them safe for itself, and then give the democracy the gratification of taking one course or the other.

(Religion and Politics, in "Literary Converts", Joseph Pearce, pp. 60,61)

Interesting points.

It makes me think of two things mostly.  Ever since Facebook, we seem to be closer to the discussions within the United States.  The polarization baffles and annoys anyone who is watching and listening.  If they were not continuously on the election path... if only.  If only.

And Canada is not very different.  We have three parties, which widens the discussion somewhat.  But our government tends to be in a dictatorship position once it is elected.  In contrast, in Germany, any new party can rise to power.  If it achieves 7% of the popular vote it can send members to parliament.

Secondly, it reminds me of what has lately come into my life under the guise of "dialectics".  It seems to me that it was nothing of the sort.  It was just plain contrariness, selecting the questions, framing the discussion, throwing itself against everything and anything, never intending to change its mind, or even to have a mind on anything.  Vacuous.  Futile. Vain--as Solomon would say.  But then Solomon says that everything is vanity...

Chesterton on Blake

I just want to hang on to this link on G.K. Chesterton writing about William Blake.
There is a link in the link to a book which is only available on Kindle.

http://www.chesterton.org/discover-chesterton/chesterton-101/lecture-18/

I am finding that I am hugely interested in Chesterton, though I also think that he is sometimes very wrong.  Still, I feel like I want to read the entire corpus.

Edward I and the Jews in 1290 / Chesterton

Wikipedia tells us something interesting:  

Chesterton faced accusations of anti-Semitism during his lifetime, as well as posthumously.^[23] In a work of 1917, titled “A Short History of England,” Chesterton considers the year of 1290, when by royal decree, Edward I expelled Jews from England, an edict not rescinded until 1655. In writing of the official expulsion and banishment of 1290, Chesterton writes that Edward I was “just and conscientious” a monarch never more truly representative of his people than when he expelled the Jews, “as powerful as they are unpopular.” Chesterton writes Jews were “capitalists of their age” so that when Edward “flung the alien financiers out of the land,” he acted as “knight errant,” and “tender father of his people.”^[24] In The New Jerusalem, Chesterton made it clear that he believed that there was a "Jewish Problem" in Europe, in the sense that he believed that Jewish culture (not Jewish ethnicity) separated itself from the nationalities of Europe.^[25] He suggested the formation of a Jewish homeland as a solution, and was later invited to Palestine by Jewish Zionists who saw him as an ally in their cause.

--------------------------------

We learn here, that Edward I expelled Jews from England in 1290.  This edict was not rescinded until 1655.  Chesterton approves of this edict because the monarch was protecting his people from powerful, capitalistic and unpopular people.  He did right to fling "alien financiers out of the land."

I hadn't heard this before.  Nor is it often mentioned that Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain cruelly had expelled the Jews from their land which caused untold misery to the affected families.  They were not allowed to take any goods with them and often perished.  (The other day, I read a book by a Roman Catholic apologist on the inquisition.  He never mentioned the treatment of the Jews.)

All of these expulsions happened before Luther let himself be carried away into his famous tirade.  However, the circumstance related to Jews in Europe during the centuries were always complicated due to segregation and money lending.

Please refer back also to this previous post on the subject. 

Some more Chesterton / Eugenics and Other Evils

Yesterday, I had a chance to read some more G.K. Chesterton and have only a bit left in the "Eugenics and Other Evils."  And I must say simply this:  the man is so incredibly sane.

I love sane.  I love clear and good.  I don't need slant and sly. Slant and sly can be fun like those who want to sit forever and solve a puzzle.  Not I.  I don't do that.

There are different ways of being smart.  There are different ways to think about thinking.  There are different kinds of poetry with different applications.  Chesterton does not fall short anywhere.  He's got the vocabulary, yet he is also simple.  He has imagery and examples galore.   He is thinking extremely deeply about the thinking process and its fallacies.  --It seems like he is one step further.  He sees the fallacies of those who fancy themselves thinkers. He's got them by the tail.  Yea!  Fun!

He debunks the wrong thinking of an entire age.  I've just become acquainted with this age and Chesterton is the antidote to this.  I had suspected that Eugenics was intimately connected to some of the arrogant, Christless stuff I had come across.  I had even said it at the time but no one agreed with me. (Instead it was my own biases, supposedly, which always made me say stupid things like that.  This was someone's thinking about thinking.)   Of course, I have my own framework, but it is the same same framework as Chesterton's.  And he will point out the anarchy of the undogmatic age.  The State becomes anarchic.

In some ways the English have an advantage.  They sit on their nasty, little, windswept, rain-beaten island, somewhat removed from the convulsions of the continent. They have a kind of observer perch and status on some items.  It's a little bit like living in this cold, northern place.  We watch the hotheads in the United States and even try to talk with them, but we are truly removed from the center of all the mania, and for some several reasons we don't really get what is going on in some of the busy places and hothouses.  But we can also comment on all that in some reasonable and detached fashion.

In as far as Chesterton sometimes mentions Prussian attitudes, I am guessing he is talking about a militaristic predeliction. In reading Simon Uwe Netto we also learned that this generalization by the English turned out to be very unfortunate.  The existing distance did not lend itself, in the end, to aiding the German underground during Hitler's days. So this detachment can also be fatal.  But then much of the thinking non-sense of the Enlightenment and I'd say also Idealism grew mostly on the continent. Not that there wasn't cross-fertilization.  Recently I read how jubilantly Marx welcomed Darwin's book on the "Origin of the Species".  (We should remember in this context that the full title of the book was:  On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.)  So here we have the English coming up with some nutty idea of their own. Marx cannot resist commenting on the "crude English method" by which the world came to such a marvelous theory. 

All of this brings me back to my recent ranting and raving about people calling people "imbecilic", as opposed to the genius status they hold for themselves, about calling people "shallow" while thinking themselves "complex",  This is analogous to the calling of the poor and underprivileged and exploited-- the "feeble-minded", as in Chesterton's "Feeble-Minded-Bill" under discussion in England.

We've come to complete a circle here, and Chesterton has closed it for me.  I wonder why he comes up so rarely in the talks of the enlightened.  Chesterton reminds me of Luther, in some ways: lucid, picturesque, earthy, humble, loud, smart, knowledgeable, grounded, thoughtful, simple, honest, sane.   Luther spoke to the Middle Ages and the depravities they had sunk to.  Chesterton spoke to other centuries and their follies.  How did they do it?  How could they be so insightful?   Luther and Chesterton drank from the same fountain and secret well. -- We know what it is. It is their deep joy in Jesus Christ.