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Byers Final Thesis August 2014 Doublesided ‘Nearer to the Roots of Things’: Nature in the Ideological Imagination of G.K. Chesterton Susie Byers B.A. (Hons) This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia. School of Humanities 2014 2 Abstract This thesis investigates the role of nature in the political and historical imagination of writer and Catholic apologist G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936). Chesterton’s attitude towards the natural world, expressed in both his fiction and non-fiction, inflected his thinking about economics, national identity and the role of science and reason in the modern world. This thesis employs the tools of intellectual history to interrogate existing historiography and to explore previously uncharted aspects of Chesterton’s work, in particular, the role of ‘nature’ in his attempted conciliation between free will and determinism. He believed that nature and landscape influenced human character but denied that geography could be wholly determinative, arguing that it was a heresy to cede one’s authority to the ‘laws of nature’. He believed that modern thinkers were particularly susceptible to bowing before nature through the application of nature’s laws to human society. From the style of nationalism that allowed blood to rule destiny to the scientism that established immutable laws to govern human society, everywhere Chesterton looked he saw biology becoming the master of society. In leveling these accusations he was charging modernity with failing to manifest the principles of the Enlightenment. Chesterton believed that, in seeking to defeat superstition and undermine faith, modern men and women had instead become slaves to new and even less satisfying dogmas, and specifically to the belief that historical progress, evolution or conformity to the laws of nature would lead humanity inevitably to a better future. Chesterton clearly felt that modernity was a failed experiment, but had no patience for common manifestations of counter-modernity that he felt were equally in thrall to dangerous and false beliefs. For Chesterton, as for many others, the modern world was a battleground between the forces of rational thought and illogical 3 superstition. Despite his commitment to the Catholic Church and his reliance on traditional authority, he claimed for himself a position on the side of reason because he felt he stood against one of the animating superstitions of his time – the overwhelming power of nature. In making this claim for himself he illuminates some of the complexities of counter-modern movements in twentieth-century Britain – movements that require further study. 4 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 5 Introduction 7 Chapter One: Key Concepts and Historiography 29 Chapter Two: Chesterton, Science and the Natural World 54 Chapter Three: The Distributist Solution 112 Chapter Four: Chesterton, Nature and the Nation 142 Chapter Five: A Natural History 181 Conclusion: The Nature of Modernity 225 Bibliography 260 5 Acknowledgements My supervisor, Professor Rob Stuart, has been an extraordinarily generous teacher, not only during this project but over the years since I took his Modern European History course as a first year undergraduate at the University of Western Australia (UWA). He is not only a source of intellectual inspiration, but is also profoundly kind, proving that a razor sharp intellect can go hand in hand with limitless compassion and empathy. There is no doubt that this thesis would have faltered without his encouragement, criticism and belief that ideas matter. Professor Dan Stone supervised this thesis during a happy year based at Royal Holloway, University of London. His guidance, support and generosity with his time and wisdom were immeasurably useful. I am grateful to have received financial support from an Australian Postgraduate Award as well as from UWA. In particular, the UWA Frank Broeze Postgraduate Scholarship supported my archival research in the United Kingdom. It is fortunate indeed to receive funding for pure humanities research at a time when universities have faced ever-increasing financial pressure, especially in unprofitable disciplines such as my own. The UWA Postgraduate Teaching Internship Scheme was a valuable opportunity to relieve the isolation of research and work with enthusiastic undergraduates. In both the United Kingdom and Australia, ‘Chestertonians’ have been generous in their support of my work, sharing contacts and otherwise unavailable archival material. In particular, Stratford Caldecott in Oxford and Karl Schmude in Sydney were 6 both kind and helpful. Staff at the British Library, where a mass of Chesterton’s papers are located, and at the UWA Library were ever courteous, professional and knowledgeable. Parts of this thesis have been published in Lucas Journal and The Chesterton Review. I thank the editors and anonymous readers for their comments. I am grateful to my teachers at UWA – particularly Iain Brash, Richard Bosworth and Ethan Blue – for their rigorous commitment to intellectual endeavour and to the practice of teaching itself. Fellow candidates in the History PhD program have been reliable sources of collegiality, solidarity and empathy. Similarly, my colleagues at the now-abolished Australian Agency for International Development, where I have worked for the past three years, have offered encouragement and gentle ridicule in appropriate measures. I am extremely lucky to have had the love and support of dear friends throughout my PhD candidacy, including Esther Perry, Jonathan McManus, Jessica Panegyres, Frances Flanagan, David Ritter, Elizabeth Gralton, Sarah Burnside, David Hodgkinson, Lucy Young, Emeline Gaske and Mathew Chuk. These friends and comrades have reminded me of the desire for justice that drives intellectual enquiry. My family has been extremely open-hearted and supportive throughout my years of study. Without their love and their help, this work would not have been finished. Finally, I am deeply grateful to my husband Andrew, whose curiosity, compassion, intellect and depth have always been astonishing, comforting and inspiring. Whatever I have learned about ‘what it has all been for’, I have learned from and with you. 7 Introduction On 14 June 1936, Gilbert Keith Chesterton died at the age of sixty-two. At the time of his demise, he was a colossal figure in England’s literary and journalistic circles. Posthumously, he has been subjected to curious critical treatment, characterised by an outpouring of hagiography (unceasing in the eighty-or-so years since his death) interspersed with exposés of his anti-Semitism and the occasional passing mention in the academic histories that cover his era.1 In recent years he has frequently been drafted into ideological debates and mobilised to serve both progressive and conservative causes.2 One such cause is environmentalism. Despite expressing only tangential concerns with the specifically environmental issues of his day, Chesterton recently inspired a doctoral thesis on the application of his ‘philosophy of nature’ to ecology, an initiative in which he was posthumously paired with Hannah Arendt.3 Chesterton’s philosophy of nature 1 Examples of Chesterton hagiography include C. Clemens, Chesterton as seen by his contemporaries, Webster Groves, Missouri, 1939; R. Las Vergnas, Chesterton, Belloc, Baring, Sheed & Ward, London, 1938; and M. Reckitt, G.K. Chesterton: A Christian Prophet for EnglanD ToDay, S.P.C.K., London, 1950. Academic histories which have included passing mention of Chesterton include G. Lebzelter, ‘Anti- Semitism - A Focal Point for the British Radical Right?’, in P. Kennedy and A. Nicholls (eds), Nationalist and Racialist Movements in Britain and Germany before 1914, Macmillan, London, 1981, pp. 88-105; K. Lunn, ‘Political Anti-Semitism before 1914: Fascism’s Heritage?’, in K. Lunn and R. Thurlow (eds), British Fascism: Essays on the RaDical Right in Inter-War Britain, Croom Helm, London, 1980, pp. 20-40; and Richard Griffiths’ Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany 1933-39, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1983, pp. 18, 59. 2 See for example L. Cunningham on the possibility that Chesterton’s work could be the foundation for a new concern for ecology: ‘Chesterton as Mystic’, American BeneDictine Review, Vol. 26(1), 1975, pp. 16- 24; E. Block Jr on the possibility that Chesterton’s OrthoDoxy might refute ‘some of the most pernicious claims of late twentieth-century post-modernism’: ‘G.K. Chesterton’s OrthoDoxy as intellectual biography’, Renascence, Vol. 49(1), Fall 1996, p. 41; and J. McNamara and D. O’Keeffe on bringing Chesterton’s insights to bear on some of the ‘wilder’ ideological ‘incantations’ of the twentieth century, such as that ‘all cultures are equal’: ‘Roots of Madness: G.K. Chesterton on the Twentieth Century’, Encounter, vol. 71(3), 1988, p. 46. 3 R.J. Gill, The Wonder of the World: Hannah Arendt, G.K. Chesterton and Ecological Populism, PhD 8 did not translate to any great degree into involvement on his part in environmental movements. He was only hurriedly and absent-mindedly involved in conservation issues, although on any given question appeared likely to choose preservation over development.4 Nevertheless, his textual legacy (including over 100 books, countless newspaper articles and a large archive held by the British Library) contains much musing on the proper relationship between humanity and the natural world. An examination of Chesterton’s writing reveals much new material on his approach to the natural
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