Chesterton in ten

Ten minutes of Chesterton

p. 26  Chesterton argues that theorists jump to hasty generalizations when they conclude things from reindeer drawings on caves.  We should not construct sweeping statements from the drawings.  Humorously, he points out that in the future, researchers could point to initials we've carved into walls or trees and conclude equally implausible reasons behind them (27).

He pokes fun of Well's assertion that religion evolved slowly out of these three old world realities:

1. Fear of chief of the tribe--Wells calls "the Old Man"
2. phenomena of dreams
3. cycle of harvest...death/rebirth

Chesterton concludes that they are too dissimilar, having no unifying theme: "Nor could anyone imagine any connection between corn and dreams and an old chief with a spear, unless there was already a common feeling to include them all"(27).

Then he moves on to say that Wells intentionally makes them remoter than they really are, "For the plain truth is that all this is a trick of making things seem distant and dehumanised, merely by pretending not to understand things that we do understand" (27).

 The only possible conclusion is that these experiences, considered as experiences, do not generate anything like a religious sense in any mind except a mind like ours. We come back to the fact of a certain kind of mind that was already alive and alone (29).

d. Man could already see in these things the riddles and hints and hopes that he still sees in them. He could not only dream but dream about dreams. He could not only see the dead but see the shadow of death; and was possessed with that mysterious mystification that forever finds death incredible.

We come back once more to the simple truth; that at sometime too early for these critics to trace, a transition had occurred to which bones and stones cannot in their nature bear witness; and man became a living soul. 30