THE BIGOT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1025, 14 January 1911, Page 9

THE BIGOT.

(By G. K. Chesterton.)

Bigotry is-an incapacity to conccivfl seriously tho alternativo to a proposition. It has nothing whatever -to do with belief in tho proposition itself. Ai man .may bo sure enough of something, to bo burned for it- or to niake war on 1 the world, and yet- bo 110 inch nearer to being a bigot. Ho is only a bigot if ha cannot understand that his dogma'is a dogma, even if it-is true. Persecution may be immoral,. but it is not necessarily irrational; tho persecutor ■ may comprehend with his intellect- the errors that ho'drives forth with his spear.': It is not bigoted (fo'r instance) lo'.-t-reat the Koran as supernatural. But it", is bigoted to' treat the Koran as natural;, as obvious to anybody pnd common to everybody. It is not bigoted . for a Christian to regard Chinamen as' heathens. It is rather when ho insists on regarding them as Christians that his bigotry begins. ■

One of the. most fashionable ■ forma of bigotry exhibits. itself -in tho discovery of fantastic and .trivial explanations of things that- need 110 explanation. We are in this eloudland of prejudice -(for example) when v.'o say- that a, man becomes ah atheist b'ecauso lis wants to go on the spree; or that a riian becomes a Roman Catholic because the priests have trapped him; or that a man'becomes'a v Socialist because-lis envies tho rich. For all theso random aiid remote explanations show that'-.we have never , seen, like .a clear diagram, the real -explanation: t-liat Atheism, Catholicism, and/Socialism are all quite plausible philosophies.. A .man.does.iiot need to be driven or trapped or bribed into them-; becauso a man can'bo. converted to them. • :

' Again, it is not impossible (though it is'now rare) for an intelligent man tO; feel certain 'that Irish Home Rule tvonldi be disastrous.: But it- is-impossible for an intelligent main to. maintain seriously that the desire for it was imposed upon the Irish by "agitators." All intelli-. gent not gratify .tho Irish; national sentiment; he need not even admire it ; but lie must .see .that- in such a case a sentin|ont would exist, or lie is liot an intelligent man at all. • . True, liberalitty, ill .short; consists -of heing able to imagine, tho enemy. . The • free.man' is not ho who thinks all opin-; ions equally true or false; that is npt" freedom, but feeblc-mindedncss. .- The free man is he who sees the errors.aa ; clearly as lie sees the truth; ..

' The moro '. solidly convinced a man. really is, the less lie .will use phrases like "No. enlightened person can. really hold " or "I 'cannot understand how Mr. Jones can possibly maintain; . followed by some vfery old, mild, and defensible opinion. A. progressive person; may hold anything ho Jikes.. I do understand quite well how Mr. Jones mantains those maniacal opinions which ha does maintain. If a men sincerely believes that lie has the map of. the .'maze,, it must show the wrong paths just as much as tiie right. He should be able to imagine the whole plan of an crror: : the complete logic of a fallacy. He' .must, be able to think;it if he dees-not bplieve it.

It,is admitted, even in.dictionaries, that.an example assists.a- definition.• 1 take an instance of the error of bigotry out of my own biography,' so' to N speak.'.' Nothing is more marked in tliis stranpe epoch of ours than tho combination :.ot', an exquisite tact and a sympathy in things of taste, aiid artistic style, with an-plmost brutal stupidity in the things thought. There, arc lio-great• fighting philosophers t'c-'day; Ijeciuse" only, about , tastes; and,.thero.is' : rfo 'disputing about tastes. A'-prTn-' cipal critic- on the "New Age" , who reviews books over the signature, of'"Jacob Tonson," which covers (I believe) tho identity of one'of- our' ablest'.younger writers, .made "a ' reabouo me a littlo while ago' which amused nio very .much. After sajing many things much too complimentary, but marvellously sympathetio and offering many criticisms ivhich were really-'delicate and exact, he ended up(as far as I remember) with these' astounding words: "But I never can really-feel a man to be my intellectual" equal who believes in 'any dogma."' It whs _like seeing a fine' Alpino climber' tan five hundred feet into tlia riuid. ' • For this last sentence' is the old',' in-' nocent, and stale tiling called Bigotry; it is the .failure of tho mind to imagine any other mind. The unhappy Mr. Ton-' son is among the poorest of the children, of men; he. has - only one universe. Everyone, of course, must see one cosmos as the true cosmos; but Mr. • Toiison cannot, see any other cosmos, even as a hypothesis. •My own intelligence is less fine,-but at least it is much moro free.. I can seo ; six or seven universes quite plain. < I can see the spiral world tin which Mrs. Bcsant hopefully crawls; I can sco the. clockwork cosmos in time -\with which ■" Mr. M'Cabe's brain ticks so accurately ; I can see tho nightmare world of Mr.' Hardy, its creator cruel and half-witted like a village idiot; I can see tho illusive world of Mr. Yeats, a gorgeous curtain that, covers only darkness.: and I havo . no doubt- that I shall bo ablo to see" Mr. Tonson's. philosophy, also, .if heshould ever give himself the trouble, to express it in intelligent/terms. But as the expression "anyone who believes in any dogma" means to a rational mind no more or rather less than' "Yip-i-addy- • * ' c 2 re , t I can only at present ■ include Mr. .Tonson among the great bigots of history—"Daily News."

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