"I want to pay tribute...to G.K. Chesterton, whose paradoxical and savory wisdom was a knighthood of God."
-Jacques Maritain, "Contemporary Renewals in Religious Thought"
(found in book Religion and the Modern World, p. 8)
Quotes by and posts relating to one of the most influential authors of the 20th century, G.K. Chesterton
-The Everlasting Man (1925)
-March 9, 1918, Illustrated London News
It may come as a shock to many readers to find a selection by Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) included here. The rotund British writer was not noted for his knowledge of things scientific. He never, for example, could quite bring himself to accept the theory of man's descent from lower animals. Yet there are times, as in the following selection, when he startles you with unexpected scientific insight.
Chesterton's topic is nothing less than the fundamental contrast between deductive logic, true of all possible worlds, and inductive logic, capable only of telling us how we may reasonably expect this world to behave. Let us hasten to add that Chesterton's analysis is in full agreement with the views of modern logicians. Perhaps his "test of the imagination" is not strictly accurate— who can "imagine" the four-dimensional constructions of relativity?-but in essence his position is unassailable. Logical and mathematical statements are true by definition. They are "empty tautologies," to use a current phrase, like the impressive maxim that there are always six eggs in half a dozen. Nature, on the other hand, is under no similar constraints. Fortunately, her "weird repetitions," as GK calls them, often conform to surprisingly low-order equations. But as Hume and others before Hume made clear, there is no logical reason why she should behave so politely.
The following selection is taken from, of all places, Orthodoxy, Chesterton's most famous work of Christian (it was published fourteen years before he became a Catholic) apologetics. The style is that for which the author is justly famous-brilliant, witty, alliterative, dazzling in its metaphors and verbal swordplay, and a joy to read even when you disagree with him.
-Charles Dickens (1906)
-October 12, 1907, Illustrated London News
-Charles Dickens (1906)
-What I Saw in America (1922)