The New Zealand. Tablet THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 1913. 'HERETICS'

New Zealand Tablet, 9 January 1913, Page 33

The New Zealand. Tablet THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 1913. 'HERETICS '

TJCH is the somewhat startling title of one (®S|Li of Mr, G. K. Chesterton’s latest books; and the matter is as startling as the title; for, in an age of universal tolerance, Chesterton boldly assumes to himself complete orthodoxy, and brands as * heretics ’ those contemporary writers who most conspicuously disagree with him —Kipling, Ber- ' nard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and others. The wide-spread modern idea that all these men, as well as himself, may be in possession of diverse aspects of the same truth, he brusquely dismisses with the Chestertonian simile of the architect who submits a plan of the south aspect of Sea-View Cottage, and

explains at the same time that the . cottage itself is unthinkable by the human mind. In fact, all through the book, Chesterton deliberately attacks the vaunted ideals of liberty and progress current in his own century, and harks back to the medieval and Catholic principles. Religious liberty, he stigmatises as a failure, tor good taste, that last and worst of human super stitions,’ has enjoined silence upon religious discussions. 1 Another modern dictum attacked by him is the celebratedformula: ‘Art for art’s sake.’ We have heard this so frequently that it is hard not to believe it in part, and to think that a great work of art is produced from the mere joy of creation, unadulterated by any didactic motive. Yet we find this ultra-modern, writer assuring us that ‘ A man cannot have the energy to produce good art without having the energy to wish, to pass beyond it. x . . . A small artist is content, with art ; a great artist is content with nothing except everythingan artist is only a performing bear compared with the meanest man who fancies he has anything to say.’ And he supports his defence of didactic art by reference to some of the world’s greatest literature, and by the names of two of the greatest of living English authors, Rudyard Kipling and Bernard Shaw, both of whom have a distinct doctrine to promulgate in their writings. w * To Irishmen, and to those of Irish descent, one of the most interesting - of the twenty chapters is that on Celts and Celtophiles.’ Chesterton is always worth listening to on Irish subjects, even though we may not always agree with him. Readers of his earlier books will remember his impatient repudiation of the traditional Irishman of English fictiona reckless, impulsive, irresponsible character; and his insistence upon, his own conception of the typical Irishman, as a brilliant, brainy, and logical individual, with a taste: for the exact sciences. The present essay is written, against the Celtophiles,’ those who would explain every trait in the modern Irish character by reference to the Celtic race. Chesterton emphatically distinguishes. between the idea of race and the idea of nationality,, and defines nationality as a ‘product of the human, soul and will —a spiritual product.’ He adds that ‘ there are men in the modern world who would think anything, and do anything rather than admit that anything could be a spiritual product.’ He points out the various origins of nations; how some were born in triumph and some in oppression; how some were the remnants of a large power and some the junction of smaller powers. Ireland he regards as the most remarkable instance in history of this strange spiritual principle of coherence, operating independently of circumstances and of any physical cause. In a burst of enthusiastic admiration for the strange vitality and magnetic power of the Irish race, he says: ‘ Rome conquered nations, but Ireland has conquered races, . . the purest blood , " . . has not been so attractive as a nation without a flag. ... Five triumphant races have been absorbed, have been defeated by, a defeated nationality.’ ■ «■ But from a Catholic point of view the most in-, teresting chapters of his book are those on ‘ The Importance of. Orthodoxy,’ and ‘The Negative Spirit.’ Here he attacks the present-day passion for Bohemianism in doctrine, in morals, and in art, and contrasts it with the medieval and Catholic thirst for philosophical truth. He asks why, in the name of all that is human and reasonable, a man should pride himself on being apart from the established doctrines and ideals, and his wrath descends with special severity on those who pique themselves on having outgrown dogmas; while they contemplate with broad-minded aloofness the different systems of thought. ‘ The human brain,’ he says, ‘is a machine for coming to conclusions if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, it is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut.’ He considers that a man, far from degrading his intellect by accepting dogmatic religion, is merely exercising the functions of his reason, and differentiating himself .from

the inanimate objects around him, for ‘trees have no dogmas; turnips are singularly broad-minded.’ » In his chapter on The Negative Spirit,’ Chesterton has something to say on what he considers the crying- evil of modern literature, as it is” of modern life—the lack of definite and inspiring ideals. His quarrel with the realistic fiction of the present day is not so much that it presents vivid pictures of evil, as that it gives us no vivid pictures of nobility and beauty. It is all neutral tinted, containing no image of what Chesterton calls ‘ a thing of clear colors and pure air.’ And, indeed, if we recall any piece of literature which has made a lasting impression upon us by its nobility and purity, we shall find it is not a chronicle of faultless lives, but a single example of shining virtue, all the brighter because of its dark and gloomy background. The eye rests on the dazzling beauty and purity of the central figure, not on the dark colors of the rest of the picture, and the radiant lily shows only the more perfect because it is rooted in the muddy soil of common humanity, as Carlyle puts it, like a ‘ beautiful eye looking out at us ’ from the inner heart of nature, which is beauty. So Browning throws out the picture of Pompilia against the unlovely forms of Guido and the rest; but it is Pompilia we remember best, and not Guido. In the same way, Chesterton asks which is the happier and the healthier: the monk who spends most of his life in meditation upon the lofty and ennobling ideal of Christ, or the man of the world, who keeps himself from drink only by the morbid remembrance of the possibility of a drunkard’s grave. And in this, as in other issues,' the author’s answer is always in favor of the ancient Catholic principle or method, in preference to the modern system. Indeed, he is move Catholic spirited than very many Catholics; for he has turned away with stern determination from the twentieth century fetishes of progress and liberalism, to their medieval antithesis. Heretics is very interesting reading, if only for the pleasure of seeing our Catholic principles of the importance of , dogma and definite religious ideals so brilliantly upheld by one of the foremost writers of our day.