Orthodoxy

What It's About

Written in 1908 as a reply to critics of his earlier book Heretics, this is Chesterton's account of how he arrived at Christian belief. He tells it as a comic parable of an English yachtsman who sets out to discover a new island, lands on his own country by mistake, and finds he has rediscovered what was already there. Chesterton's argument is that the ancient Christian creed answers human experience better than the modern philosophies he tried first. It is part autobiography, part philosophy, and part defence of the faith, and it is written in a style full of paradox and humour.

Key Concepts

Chesterton argues that the modern world has become "mad" by trusting reason alone. He compares the madman to someone who has lost everything except logic, and he calls the result "the suicide of thought". Against this he sets wonder, drawing on fairy-tale logic, which he calls the "Ethics of Elfland". He treats the world as a gift to be met with gratitude rather than a machine to be explained. He defends tradition as "the democracy of the dead", which gives a vote to the past. He also argues that Christianity holds apparent opposites, such as pride and humility or anger and mercy, in tension rather than dissolving them. Critics have often found his case more brilliant than rigorous. They point out that it relies on striking paradox and on caricatured opponents rather than systematic proof. Chesterton himself later joked that the book was a "slovenly autobiography".

About the Author

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English writer, journalist and public debater, known for his wit, his love of paradox and his larger-than-life presence in Edwardian and interwar London. He wrote on an enormous range of subjects and was admired, and sometimes argued with, by friends and opponents alike for his good humour.