Chesterton
I. Some Random Thoughts on Materialism
When G K Chesterton wrote his "Orthodoxy" in 1908, materialism
was a fetish of the intelligentia, easy to mock. How different it
is today when every second person you meet is convinced of the
materialist thesis. more
II. The Paradoxes of Christianity
This is a lengthy extract from the chapter bearing this title in
G K Chesterton’s "Orthodoxy". The book was published in 1907, but
it has much to say to us 100 years on. more
III. The Ethics of Elfland
An extract from a chapter of Chesterton's marvellous little
book, Orthodoxy. more
IV. Joseph Pearce & G K Chesterton
A comment on the conversion of Joseph Pearce. more
V. The Age of the Crusades
Chapter vi. of Chesterton’s A Short History of England
gives us a fresh view of the contrast between the mind of
Catholicism and of Mohammedanism, and of the distortions wrought
by a Protestant version of English history. more
VI. The Meaning of Merry England
It is the folly of modern man that he believes the universe in
its intricate order and detail to be nothing but the result of a
series of happy accidents. That order never happens by accident,
that there is no reason why any series of accidents should be
‘happy’, never troubles him. Materialist folly allies itself with
the atheistic to ground a blindness over the history of the
Catholic Church’s influence on the culture of Europe. It was no
‘happy’ accident that the slavery of the Romans gave way to
private property and to personal integrity but the fruit of order
imposed by an intellectual cause as is shown in this extract from
chapter viii of G K Chesterton’s A Short History of England.
Slavery could not survive in the atmosphere established by the
Church in a populace that put its faith in God and His
revelation. That she alone is the guarantor of man’s true freedom
is hidden from modern man. more
VII. Chesterton on St Thomas
This is a reproduction of part of ‘The Permanent Philosophy’, the
seventh chapter of Chesterton’s study of St Thomas Aquinas
published in 1933. It sets out with splendid clarity St Thomas’s
teaching on being and defends it against the sages of the modern
age. more
VIII. What is It That We Know When We Know. Chesterton's Summary
of St Thomas
The central question of all philosophy, the adequation of our
knowledge with being, is addressed by G K Chesterton in his short
biography of St Thomas. Here is an extract. more
IX. The Thing
G K Chesterton wrote a book of essays back in 1929 whose title he
coined from an expression in a celebrated letter of Hilaire Belloc
to The Evening Standard. more
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