Orthodoxy

Such is the madman of experience; he is commonly a reasoner, frequently a successful reasoner. Doubtless he could be vanquished in mere reason, and the case against him put logically. But it can be put much more precisely in more general and even aesthetic terms. He is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point. He is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity. Now, as I explain in the introduction, I have determined in these early chapters to give not so much a diagram of a doctrine as some pictures of a point of view. And I have described at length my vision of the maniac for this reason: that just as I am affected by the maniac, so I am affected by most modern thinkers. That unmistakable mood or note that I hear from Hanwell, I hear also from half the chairs of science and seats of learning to-day; and most of the mad doctors are mad doctors in more senses than one. They all have exactly that combination we have noted: the combination of an expansive and exhaustive reason with a contracted common sense. They are universal only in the sense that they take one thin explanation and carry it very far. But a pattern can stretch for ever and still be a small pattern. They see a chess-board white on black, and if the universe is paved with it, it is still white on black. Like the lunatic, they cannot alter their standpoint; they cannot make a mental effort and suddenly see it black on white.

Take first the more obvious case of materialism. As an explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality of the madman's argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out. Contemplate some able and sincere materialist, as, for instance, Mr. McCabe, and you will have exactly this unique sensation. He understands everything, and everything does not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, but still his cosmos is smaller than our world. Somehow his scheme, like the lucid scheme of the madman, seems unconscious of the alien energies and the large indifference of the earth; it is not thinking of the real things of the earth, of fighting peoples or proud mothers, or first love or fear upon the sea. The earth is so very large, and the cosmos is so very small. The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.

Orthodoxy

For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. In one sense, of course, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves. A Christian is only restricted in the same sense that an atheist is restricted. He cannot think Christianity false and continue to be a Christian; and the atheist cannot think atheism false and continue to be an atheist. But as it happens, there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism. Mr. McCabe thinks me a slave because I am not allowed to believe in determinism. I think Mr. McCabe a slave because he is not allowed to believe in fairies. But if we examine the two vetoes we shall see that his is really much more of a pure veto than mine. The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. Poor Mr. McCabe is not allowed to retain even the tiniest imp, though it might be hiding in a pimpernel. The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts.

Spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind as do materialistic denials. Even if I believe in immortality I need not think about it. But if I disbelieve in immortality I must not think about it. In the first case the road is open and I can go as far as I like; in the second the road is shut. But the case is even stronger, and the parallel with madness is yet more strange. For it was our case against the exhaustive and logical theory of the lunatic that, right or wrong, it gradually destroyed his humanity. Now it is the charge against the main deductions of the materialist that, right or wrong, they gradually destroy his humanity; I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, poetry, initiative, all that is human. For instance, when materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force. It is absurd to say that you are especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought to destroy free will. The determinists come to bind, not to loose. They may well call their law the "chain" of causation. It is the worst chain that ever fettered a human being. You may use the language of liberty, if you like, about materialistic teaching, but it is obvious that this is just as inapplicable to it as a whole as the same language when applied to a man locked up in a mad-house. You may say, if you like, that the man is free to think himself a poached egg. But it is surely a more massive and important fact that if he is a poached egg he is not free to eat, drink, sleep, walk, or smoke a cigarette. Similarly you may say, if you like, that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in the reality of the will. But it is a much more massive and important fact that he is not free to raise, to curse, to thank, to justify, to urge, to punish, to resist temptations, to incite mobs, to make New Year resolutions, to pardon sinners, to rebuke tyrants, or even to say "thank you" for the mustard.

O homem que era quinta-feira

Escuso de dizer que houve um choque. Os pessimistas à minha volta olhavam ansiosamente de um Professor para o outro, a ver qual era na realidade o mais débil. Mas eu ganhei. Não se podia esperar que um velho doente como o meu rival fosse de uma fraqueza tão impressionante como um jovem actor na força da vida. Compreende, ele era de facto paralítico e, movendo-se dentro de limites definidos, não podia ser tão paralítico como eu. Depois tentou arrasar intelectualmente as minhas pretensões. Defendi-me com um ardil muito simples. Quando ele dizia uma coisa que ninguém, a não ser ele, percebia, respondia-lhe outra que nem eu próprio percebia. "Não imagine - disse ele - que teria conseguido deduzir o princípio de que a evolução é apenas negação, pois é inerente a ele a introdução de lacunae, que são essenciais na diferenciação." Respondi desdenhosamente: "Leu isso tudo no Pinckwerts, e já há muito que Glumpe expôs a ideia de que a evolução funcionava eugenicamente." Não merece a pena dizer que Pinckwerts e Glumpe nunca existiram, mas, com grande surpresa minha, toda aquela gente parecia lembrar-se muito bem deles, e o professor, achando que o método científico e misterioso o deixava à mercê de um adversário um tanto falho de escrúpulos, recorreu a um espírito mais popular. "Vejo - disse, trocista - que prevalece, como o porco falso de Esopo. " "E o senhor falha - respondi, sorrindo - como o porco-espinho de Montaigne." Será necessário dizer que não existe nenhum porco-espinho em Montaigne? "A sua cartola é de tirar e pôr, tal como a sua barba", disse ele, e eu não tinha nada a responder a isto, que era verdade e tinha bastante espírito. Mas ri-me alegremente, e dizendo ao calhar "como as botas do panteísta", virei-lhe as costas, trazendo comigo os louros da vitória. O verdadeiro professor foi expulso, mas sem violência, apesar de haver um que tentou pacientemente arrancar-lhe o nariz. É agora, segundo creio, recebido em toda a Europa como um delicioso impostor. Compreende, o seu entusiasmo e a sua zanga tornam-no divertidíssimo.