BROWSINGS IN BOOKLAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14377, 21 November 1908, Page 13

BROWSINGS IN BOOKLAND

By Constant Beader. . I catch myself musing upon the madness of making up one's mincl.'a month ahead, when itj is manifest folly to venture in advance of the present moment. J his by way of comment upon the Announcements" whicli head this pacs. Out of probably 20 topics . inny or wsy not engage my attention, I usually select three or four, only to discovor when the time comes to put pen to paper—tor, to modernise, to push the paper into the typewriter—that I am writing about something far removed from my original idea. To illpstrate, while walking down the street this morning meditating, as to which out of several subjects in my mind best suited my mood—a mood perturbed and disturbed with tlie excitement and fatigue following the day of the election—a good friend of mine, a bookseller by -profession—and . were I to go into business I know of- no more beneficent business than that of circulating books—stopped me with the singular ejaculation Orthodoxy!'.' As 1. had spent several hours in First Church listening to the debate on i" The Christ 'of the Cross," lat first inferred ' that my friend desired to j express 'an opinion or to tort, from me a confession regarding the colour and texture of my particular brand of theology. / It was not for the full space of five seconds that the meaning of his remark dawned uoon me. Exactly what that meaning was may best be stated in the fact that a minuto or two later I; emerged from his shop the pro,ud possessor of ' a copy of Mr 6, K. Chesterton's latest volume on doxy."

As is probably known to all readers of these " Browsings," Chesterton's writings exercised a strange fascination for me when first I discovered his "Wild Knight," his "Twelve Types," and " The Defendant." Since which time -I have diligently and with much profit perused such of .his books as have come my - way, these including his " Browning," - his " Watts," and his " Dickenij," those remarkable romances "Napoleon," "The Club of Queer Trades," , and " The Man who was Thursday." "Heretics," his introductions to "Boswell," to, the "Book of Job," and to .the Everyman "Dickens," to say nothing of the wierd and ■ sidesplitting fun of "Greybeards at Play" and " Biography for Beginners." I have been looking forward with expectancy to reading his new book of essays,- "All Things Considered," when Suddenly, like a bolt from the bine," Orthodoxy" was thrust into my hand. There was absolutely no help for it; everything had to be placed on one side, all previous plans o'erturned, and for the next couple of hours I was dead to the world and deaf to all outside appeals. O3 my return to consciousness I bethought me that the best way of making up for lost time was to endeavour to infuse into these " Browsings" the impressions of my two hours' absorption.

Ere I had got through the first two chapters of " Orthodoxy" I was struck by its remarkable relation to the theological theme which had , engaged the attention of the divines of the Presbyterian Assembly, and also by the peculiar parallels between the evolution in thought of the Ee'v. John Gibson Smith and Mr Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Both men:have written-a book 1 , in between the, covers of which they have attempted to narrate their spiritual evolution in autobiographic form. And the way inj which Chesterton prefaces his book is probably the true explanation of the finding of , the Assembly upon Mr Smith's volume. , At least that is how I regard the matter, and by way of substantiating my theory I will quote what Mr.Chesterton says

I am the man who, with the utmost daring, discovered what had been discovered before. ... The book recounts my elephantine adventures in pursuit of the obvious. No one can think my case more ludicrous than I think it myself; no reader can accuse me here of trying to make a fool of him; I ain the fool of this story, and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne. . • • I freely confess all the idiotic' ambitions of the end of the nineteenth century. I did, like all other solemn little boys, try to be in advancc of the age. Like them, I tried to be sgme 10 minutes in advance of the trith. And I found that I was 1800 years behind it. I did strain my voice with a painfully juvenile exaggeration in uttering my truths. And I was punished in tho fittest and funniest way, for I have kept my truths; but I have discovered, not that they were not truths, but simply that they were not mine. When I fancied that I stood alone, I was really in the ridiculous positioh of being backed up by all Christendom. It may be, Heaven forgive me, that I did try to be original; but I only succeeded in inventing all by myself an inferior copy of the existing traditions of -civilised religion, . . I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it I discovered that it was orthodoxy;

Mr Chesterton has this in common with Dr Samuel Johnston—to whom lie has been not inaptly compared—that'lie can take for his text the most commonplace theme and preach upon it a most thoughtful and forceful sermon. What contributes largely to tho perennial interest jf Boswell's record is that in addition to

infinite variety it never soars above the

n'ead of the average man. And herein may be seen the importance of Mr Chesterton's contribution to Christian apologetics. When Blatchford, in the columns of the Clarion, launched his campaign against the programme of Christianity, his power consisted in the fact that because his attack was worded ill the vernacular ho was able, to some extent, to capture the popular imagina-' lion. Unfortunately, the apologists who essayed to answer him were unable to escape from the terminology of the theologians, which to many is practically an unknown tongue. Now, the reason why Mr Chesterton has been able to frame so

strong and striking a defence of orthodox Christianity is precisely because, as 'a young man, Jic "never read a line of Christian apologetics." And also because, sis lis sigitfficantly adds, I read as little as 1 can of tliein now." Here is a chapter from the history of his spiritual evolution All tlmt I had hitherto heard of Christian theology had alienated nie ' from it. I was a pagan at the age of 12 and a complete agnostic by the age of 16; and 1 cannot understand anyone passing the age of 17 without having asked himself so simple a question. I did, indeed, retain a cloudy reverence foi 1 a oosmic deity and a great historical interest in the Founder of Christianity, Butt, J. certainly regarded flim as. a man, Swsg-j gerb3i»J

I thought that, even in that point, He had an advantage over some of His modern critics. I read the scientific and sceptical literature of mv time— all of it, at least, that 1 could find written in English and lying about, and I read nothing else. I mean 1 read nothing else on any other note of philosophy. The penny dreadfuls which I also read were indeed in a healthy and heroic tradition of Christianity; hut I did not know this at the time. 1 never read a. line of Christian apologetics. I read as little as I can now. It was Huxley and Herbert Spencer and Bradlaugh who brought me back to orthodox theology. They sowed in my mind my first wild doubts of <loubt.

This incident of Mr Chesterton's boyhood and youth is finely illustrative of the telling truth he so emphatically insisted upon when taking up the cudgels against Blatch ford and M'Cabe and their | school—viz., that it requires Vastly more faith to Become and remain an agnostic than to become and remain a Christian. That is to say, it is more difficult'to (lisbelieve in miracles than to believe in them. Following the sentences above' quoted, Mr Chesterton continues "Our grandmothers were right when they said that Tom Paine and the freethinkers unsettled the mind. They do. They unsettled mine horribly. ' Ths rationalists made me ouestion whether reason was of any use whatever; and when I had finished Herbert Spencer I had got as. far as doubting (for the first time) whether evolution had occurred at all. As 1 laid down the last of Colonel Ingersoll's atheistic lectures the dreadful thought broke across my mind, ' Almost Thou pcrsuadest me to be a Christian?' I was in a desperate way." This bit of autobiography gave me the key to Chesterton's chapter on "The Maniac," the moral of which may be summed up in two of his striking sentences: "Materialists and madmen never have doubts." " Mysticism keeps men sane." The chapter is founded on that motto of the modern world which declares that a man will get on in the world if only he believes in himself. And the entire book is an attempt to reveal and refute th'e falsity of the motto and to reply to the offered objection ihat if a man is not to believe in himself, in what is he to believe.

Mr Chesterton starts out with the assumption that "the men-who really believe in, ■themselves are all in lunatic asylums," in support of which position he offers an ingenious and- amusing argument, which I may not stay to describe. But- the pith of his logic is contained in- the words, "Imagination does not. breed insanity. Exactly what does breed l insanity is reason." This he follows, up by remarking that poets do not go mad but chess-players do. - Mathematicians go mad and cashiers, but creative artists very seldom. "Poetry is sane bacausa it floats easily in an infinite sea. Keaton ,;eeks to .cross -ihti infinite isea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the physical exhaustion of Mr Holbein. ' To accept everything is an exercise; to understand everything is a strain. The pcet only desires exaltation i!nd expansion—a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens.It is the logician who seeks to get the .-heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.", 'After cjillinH attention, as worthy of Tcmark, to the fact that when a, poet was really morbid at was commonly because he had 6ome weak spot of rationality on his brain, Mr Chesterton continues:— ''

Perhaps the strongest case of all. is this: that- only one great English poet went mad—Cowper. And he" was definitely driven mad by logic, by the .ugly alien .logic of predestination. Poetry was. not the disease .but the medicine. •Poetry partly kept him' in -health. He coukl sometimes forget the .red and thirsty hell to which his hideous necessitarianism dragged him amwin; the wide waters and the white flat lilies of the Ouse. He was damned by John Calvin; he was almost saved -by John Gilpin;.

Not content-vrith the startling assertion that a, materialism ■wlnc'li hinders and thwarts., the healthy development of the imagination is .leading the world to the madhouse, Mr Chesterton, in his suggestive chapter on "The Suicide of Thought," carries his analogy a stop furtkr. Par from I the world as we know it to-day bempr too evil, Mr Chesterton asserts it to be far too good; "It is full of wild and wasted virtues. •. The modern world is full of tile old Christian virtues gone mad The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from one are wandering alone." He cites Mr Blntchford as attacking Christianity because he is x made on one Christian virtue-" the merely mystical and almost irrational virtue of charity." According to Mr Chesterton Mr Blatchford " has a strange idea, that he will make it easier to forgive sins by saying that there are 110 sins to for-. , Ihus one of the basic causes of the difficulties and differences of to-day is the virtue of humility gono astray. The way in which tliis idea is elaborated is so truly Chestertoniaii that I am compelled once more to quote: — 1 , Modesty lias niSved from the organ of ambition. Modesty • has settled upon the organ of oonvictiou", where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but ufldoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the nart of a man that does assert is. exactly the part he ought not to assert—'himself, i'ho part lie doubts is exactly the part lie ought not to doubt—the Divine reason. . . . The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping, not a nail in his,boot that prevented him from- going i on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, whioh will make him stop working altogether, . . , We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe m tho'multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt tho law of gravity as beiu-r a mere fancy of their own! Scoffers" of old time were too proud to be convinced, but there are t-do humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the•earth; but the modern sceptics are ioo meek even to claim their inheritance It IS exactly this intellectual helplessness which is oar second problem.

Mr Chesterton perceives another very I real peril in that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. The world is at- war agamst reason, and the only barrier hitherto raMC d against- the attack—the barrier of religious authority—is being Jevellcd to _ the ground. It was to guard against tliis remote possibility that the crced6 and the crusades, the Hierarchies, and the horrible persecutions were orgajjifwl, not as is ignorantly supposed for the suppression of reason, hut 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 priest to absolve, the authority of popes to define authority, evon of inquisitors to terrify * th<v-vo wero all only dark defences erected round one. central authority, more „ndemonstrable, more supernatural than all— tho authority of a man to think. We !;noiv now that this is so; we have no excuse for not knowing.it, for we can near scepticism crashing through the old ring of authorities, ami at the 6ame moment we can i-ee reason swaying upon her throne, In go far as religion is gone reason is going. For tliey are both of the «ime primary and' authoritative kind. iliis Jeads Mr Chesterton up to the contention that the most characteristic current pliilofopliies have, not only a touch -of mania but a touch of suicidal mania. He then proceeds to deal with the philosophy of Will as expounded bv Neitzsche and his numerous disciples.

~ WOLFE';; srapPPS |a sliinkv ud go. tcHift.

Curiously enough, I have, recently been reading Mr Henry L. Mencken's new book oil "Freidrich Nietzsche," and although i conceived a great dislike for Mencken's dogmatism and intolerance, and mourned .'hie- lack of literary expression, yet I was much interested in the outline given of Ncitzclie's life and work. For the moral of the wlwis hook is contained in the opening, paragraphs, which run as follows : —

Frieddeh Nietzche was a preacher's son brought up in the fear of the Lord. ]t is the ideal training for shamsmashers and free thinkers, Let a hnv of alert restless intelligence come to early manhood in au atmosphere of strong faith, wherein doubts are blasphemies and inquiry is a crime, and rebellion is certain to appear with his beard. So long as his mind feelis itself puny besides the overwhelming ipomp .and circumstance of parental authority he will remain docile audi even pious. But so soon as he begins to see authority as something ever finite, variable and all too human—when he begins to realise, that his father and mother in. the last analysis are mere human beings and fdlliblo like himsc-lf—then he will fly precipitately toward the intellectual wailing places, to think his own ■thoughts in his own way, and to worship his own gods beneath the open sky. As a clii.ld Nietzche was holy, as a man he was the symbol and ernbodimant of all unholinese. At nine lie was already verced in the lore of the icverend doctors, and the pulpit, to his happy mother—a preacher's daughter as well as a preacher's wife-seemed his logical and lofty goal. At 30 lie,was chief among those who held that all pulpits should be torn down-and fashioned into bludgeons to boat out the silly brains of theologians.

No one who has read that intensely interesting piece of autobiography entitled "Father and Son" can fail to trace a striking similarity in the spiritual development of Edmund Gosh© "and Friedrich Nietzsche. So faT as reading was coilC&rnod 3',-dmund, Gosse was brought up upon the liible and the I'onnv Cvclopaxlia. Here is an extract which exactly describes ths position:—

Not a single fiction was read- or told to )ns during my infancy. The rapture of the child, who delays the process of going fo ; bed by cajoling " a story out of his mother orchis nurse as lie sits upon her knee, well tucked up, at the corner of the nursery fire—this was unknown to me. Never 111 all my early childhood did any one address to me the affecting preamble "Once upon a time." I was told about- missionaries tmt never about- pirates. I was familiar with humming oiniSj but I had never heard of fairies. Jack the Giant-killer, Eiimpelstiltkin, and Robin Hood were not of my acquaintance, and tliough I understood about wolves, Little Pied Riding Hood was a stranger even by name. So far as my " dedication " was concerned I can hut .think that my parents were in error thus to exclude t-lie imaginary from my outlook upon facts, '.they desired to make me truthThe tendency \vas to make me positive and sceptical, flad they wrapped me in the soft folds of supernatural fancy my mind mi slit liave been longer content toi follow tlieir traditions in an unquestioning spirit."

This Rom-ejvhat sad experience of Edmund Gesso go:s right to the 'heart of the truth of Mr Chesterton's next ch-3.ptcr on ill© lithies of klf J,"in)," for he there dtecrib&i how lie learnt his first and last philosophy—that which tie now.believes in wit-h unbroken' certainly—in the nursery. " I'lle things I believed most then, 'the things I believe most now, are the t-hinj-'s called fairy tales," for "fairyland is nothing but the sunny country, of Common Sense." I take leave of Mr Chesterton and his "Orthodoxy" for the present, trusting to be able to return to £0 fascinating a. theme in the early future with the vividness of contrast in I picture G'osse and Neitzsche—the one the eon of parents of the Plymouth Brethren persuasion, the other the offspring of a Lutheran pastor and his wife; brought up in the odour of sanctity, faced from infancy with the_ hard and stern facts of religion, without opportunity of giving the slightest play to their imaginations, strangers to all the , wealth 'of fairy romance which literature holds for the children of men. And on the other eide I see Chesterton as a child rioting x in all the precious Jore of nursery rhymes gild nursei'v stories, his imaginative. faculties trained to the utmost, passing as a youth unscathed through the ordeal of a course of Bradkngh and Ingersoll, and emerging as one of the finest and most original exponents of tho Christian creed to-day. despite, his careful upbringing, fio strained his belief in nothingness that he ended in a madhouse. And though I have not seen any precise statement of Julmund Gosse's present position, yet from the general tone of his writings I gather that it is largely that of tho aisfnostic. the moral to my., mind is that the greatest good which caai come to the children of to-day, who, ilnfortunately, for the most part, so far as my observation goes, consist of materialists in embryo, is a genuiiio revival in a -belief in Santa Claus. To winch end parents generally ehould this uiristmas strenuously set themselves