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Notes reinforcements, relieving the beleaguered citadel of faith. But others, who differ widely from them
both, may yet find in them so much to stimulate thought and to rehabilitate strongholds held
precariously, as to awaken both appreciation and gratitude.
Mr. Chesterton’s political opinions do not concern us here. It is a curious fact, of which innumerable
illustrations may be found in past and present writers, that political radicalism so often goes along
with conservative theology, and vice versa. Mr. Chesterton is no exception to the rule. His orthodoxy
in matters of faith we shall find to be altogether above suspicion. His radicalism in politics is never
long silent. He openly proclaims himself at war with Carlyle’s favourite dogma, “The tools to him
who can use them.” “The worst form of slavery,” he tells us, “is that which is called Cæsarism, or
the choice of some bold or brilliant man as despot because he is suitable. For that means that men
choose a representative, not because he represents them but because he does not.” And if it be
answered that the worst form of cruelty to a nation or to an individual is that abuse of the
principle of equality which is for ever putting incompetent people into false positions, he has his
reply ready: “The one specially and peculiarly un-Christian idea is the idea of Carlyle—the idea
that the man should rule who feels that he can rule. Whatever else is Christian, this is heathen.”
But this, and much else of its kind, although he works it into his general scheme of thinking, is not
in any sense an essential part of that scheme. Our subject is his place in the conflict between the
paganism and the idealism of the times, and it is a sufficiently large one. But before we come to
that, we must consider another matter, which we shall find to be intimately connected with it.
That other matter is his habit of paradox, which is familiar to all his readers. It is a habit of style,
but before it became that it was necessarily first a habit of mind, deeply ingrained. He disclaims it
so often that we cannot but feel that he protesteth too much. He acknowledges it, and explains that
“paradox simply means a certain defiant joy which belongs to belief.” Whether the explanation is
or is not perfectly intelligible, it must occur to every one that a writer who finds it necessary to
give so remarkable an explanation can hardly be justified in his astonishment when people of
merely average intelligence confess themselves puzzled. His aversion to Walter Pater—almost the
only writer whom he appears consistently to treat with disrespect—is largely due to Pater’s laborious
simplicity of style. But it was a greater than either Walter Pater or Mr. Chesterton who first
pointed out that the language which appealed to the understanding of the common man was also
that which expressed the highest culture. Mr. Chesterton’s habit of paradox will always obscure
his meanings for the common man. He has a vast amount to tell him, but much of it he will never
understand.

32.2 Analysis

Paradox, when it has become a habit, is always dangerous. Introduced on rare and fitting occasions,
it may be powerful and even convincing, but when it is repeated constantly and upon all sorts of
subjects, we cannot but dispute its right and question its validity. Its effect is not conviction but
vertigo. It is like trying to live in a house constructed so as to be continually turning upside down.
After a certain time, during which terror and dizziness alternate, the most indulgent reader is apt
to turn round upon the builder of such a house with some asperity. And, after all, the general
judgment may be right and Mr. Chesterton wrong.
Upon analysis, his paradox reveals as its chief and most essential element a certain habit of mind
which always tends to see and appreciate the reverse of accepted opinions. So much is this the
case that it is possible in many instances to anticipate what he will say upon a subject. It is on
record that one reader, coming to his chapter on Omar Khayyám, said to himself, “Now he will be
saying that Omar is not drunk enough”; and he went on to read, “It is not poetical drinking, which
is joyous and instinctive; it is rational drinking, which is as prosaic as an investment, as unsavoury
as a dose of camomile.” Similarly we are told that Browning is only felt to be obscure because he
is too pellucid. Such apparent contradictoriness is everywhere in his work, but along with it goes
a curious ingenuity and nimbleness of mind. He cannot think about anything without remembering

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