January 15, 2008
Heretics 9 and 10 : The Moods of Mr George Moore and On Sandals and Simplicity
The chapters were short, so they were combined into one file.
The Moods of Mr. George Moore is Chesterton’s account of George Moore, an writer who attacked Christianity.
“The more hopeless is the situation the more hopeful must be the man. Stevenson understood this, and consequently Mr. Moore cannot understand Stevenson…The weaker a thing is, the more it should be respected…Thackery understood this, and therefore Mr. Moore does not understand Thackery. Pride is a weakness in the character; it dries up chivalry and energy. The Christian tradition understands this; therefore Mr. Moore cannot understand the Christian tradition.”
And in On Sandles and Simplicity, Chesterton attacks the a backwards view of the ’simple life’ :
“This complaint against them stands, that they would make us simple in the unimportant things, but complex in the important things. They would make us simple in things that do not matter — that is, in diet, in custome, in ettiquette, in economic system. But they would make us complex in the things that do matter — in philosophy, in loyalty, in spiritual acceptance, and in spiritual rejection. It does not so much matter if a man eats a grilled tomato or a plain tomato; it does very much matter whether he eats a plain tomato with a grilled mind.”
