Man Alive! The Wonder of G. K. Chesterton Brett Fawcett Burke vs Chesterton: Mistaking a Friend for an Enemy

A Canadian Catholic who believes in the Burke and Chesterton are two writers because in a gay moment I once called virtue of patriotism faces a similar problem who can be cited as proponents of “conser - an atheist. . . . Burke to that of G. K. Chesterton, during the peri - vatism”, and it is one of history’s ironies was certainly not an atheist in his con - od in which he deliberated becoming that neither identified as a Tory: scious cosmic theory, though he had Catholic. Chesterton’s dilemma was Chesterton always called himself a Liberal not a special and flaming faith in God, whether he simultaneously could be a patri - and a democrat (his prose slides past any ref - like Robespierre. . . . I mean that in the otic Englishman and a Catholic, given how erence to aristocracy with the icy chill of a quarrel over the French Revolution, closely tied British identity was to the dagger blade), and he defends tradition Burke did stand for the atheistic atti - Anglican Church. Yet Chesterton makes because it is “the democracy of the dead”. tude and mode of argument, as such a compelling case for the virtue of Burke, meanwhile, was a Whig MP who Robespierre stood for the theistic. The patriotism based on the need for a person wrote a letter to his fellow Whigs defending Revolution appealed to the idea of an to have something of his own to love. This his apparent “conservatism” on Whiggish abstract and eternal justice, beyond all is the animating spirit of his defense of grounds. Perhaps this is why they continue local custom or convenience. If there widely distributing private property; it is to sound persuasive today: Liberalism large - are commands of God, then there must what drove his case for a Jewish homeland; ly won as a civilizational force, and thus any be rights of man. Here Burke made his and it is the reason he stood opposed to defence of conservatism that will gain any brilliant diversion; he did not attack the British colonialism: both the colonizers and hearing must appeal on liberal grounds. Robespierre doctrine with the old the colonized already had their own nations Chesterton once said that Alexander Pope mediaeval doctrine of jus divinum of which they could be proud. “lived in a world in which even Toryism was (which, like the Robespierre doctrine, The Canadian patriot, then, must look Whiggish”; so, it appears, do we, and in was theistic), he attacked it with the at the spirit which gave birth, and conjunction with each other, Chesterton modern argument of scientific relativi - some of the most insightful commentary on and Burke can perhaps salve a Canadian ty; in short, the argument of evolution. this was issued by a literary and philosophi - Catholic conscience. He suggested that humanity was every - cal movement once known as “Red It is quite a dilemma, then, when one where molded by or fitted to its envi - Toryism”. Though that expression has taken discovers that Chesterton critiqued Burke ronment and institutions; in fact, that on different and even contrary connotations in What’s Wrong With the World , and the each people practically got, not only the in political discourse, originally it referred to problem becomes more painful when one tyrant it deserved, but the tyrant it a movement which recognized that Canada realizes that an in-depth study might reveal ought to have. "I know nothing of the was founded as a basically Conservative that Chesterton was wrong about some - rights of men," he said, "but I know nation, a compromise between English thing. But Chesterton himself nearly always something of the rights of Englishmen." Protestants and French Catholics who want - sneaks in some affectionate criticism, even There you have the essential atheist. ed to preserve a civilization based on “peace, when he speaks of any figure with apprecia - His argument is that we have got some order, and good government” rather than be tion, and one cannot imagine he would protection by natural accident and assimilated into the republican individual - take any objection to the same approach growth; and why should we profess to ism of the United States. This Tory tradition being applied to himself—indeed, the imag - think beyond it, for all the world as if found voice in a thinker like John Farthing, ination seems to insist that he would be we were the images of God! whose posthumous apologetic for this exper - delighted to laughter by it. Thus, the cri - iment of transplanting British conservatism tique itself, found at the beginning of the Before we investigate the justice, or to the vast and forbidding regions of the chapter “The Empire of the Insect”: injustice, of this charge, it’s important to frozen North, Freedom Wears a Crown , made note how Chesterton is positioning himself: an explicit appeal to the principles of A cultivated Conservative friend of He takes the stance as defender of natural Edmund Burke. mine once exhibited great distress law and divinely-given rights, in contrast to

18 July/August 2019 StAR Burke, whom he depicts as an apologist for are slaves, and it is not ours if we are Aristotelian realism, acknowledging both merely human customs that happen to have snobs. Thus, long before Darwin universals and particulars, and this is what piled up like so much debris. This is quin - struck his great blow at democracy, the the jus divinum meant to communicate. tessential Chesterton, posing Christianity essential of the Darwinian argument With Rousseau and with the as the true guarantor of human dignity over had been already urged against the Enlightenment, however, the baby is split in against the uncertainties of society. But, French Revolution. Man, said Burke in two: rather than society being part of interestingly, it is almost identical to the cri - effect, must adapt himself to every - human nature, Rousseau imaginatively tique that the Canadian philosopher of reli - thing, like an animal; he must not try strips the human being from all civilization, gion George Grant made of Burke—from a to alter everything, like an angel. The language, or history down to Mowglian Red Tory perspective—in English-Speaking last weak cry of the pious, pretty, half- innocence, which he calls man’s purely Justice . Grant claims that Burke “was in artificial optimism and deism of the “natural” state, leaving society as an artifice practice a Rockingham Whig, and did not eighteenth century came in the voice of other than nature. It is this “noble savage” depart from Locke in fundamental matters, Sterne, saying, “God tempers the wind who is possessed of rights from “nature”, except to surround his liberalism with a to the shorn lamb.” And Burke, the which he must surrender in order to enter touch of romanticism”. From two different iron evolutionist, essentially answered, the social contract. Ever since that blow perspectives, then, comes the same charge “No; God tempers the shorn lamb to against the Scholastic and Thomistic idea of that Burke is essentially a cultural relativist the wind.” It is the lamb that has to “nature”, equivocation surrounding that who happens to have a long memory. adapt himself. That is, he either dies or word has abounded. (In his essays on We can see Belloc’s influence in becomes a particular kind of lamb who Shakespeare, Northrop Frye helpfully dis - Chesterton’s sympathetic treatment of the likes standing in a draught. tinguishes “higher nature”—the sort of French Revolution, but we can also see why thing Aquinas was talking about—from he was sympathetic: The Revolutionaries Thus the prosecution, and an important “lower nature”, or the wordless, nameless appealed, as did Catholicism, to “an point to note right away is that, if Chesterton barbarity to which King Lear is reduced.) abstract and eternal justice”. He takes, as he is wrong, that is to Burke’s credit; it means When Burke expresses his skepticism of so often does, the role of the resuscitator of that Burke has the distinguished status of the idea of rights coming from nature as long-lost medieval wisdom which speaks rel - agreeing with Chesterton. But before doing opposed to society and history, it is this evantly to the modern world. Finally, he this, we ought to consider exactly what the Roussean concept of nature, not the Catholic alludes to the idea that rights are God- Catholic teaching on the natural law and our medieval one, that he is combatting. This is given; elsewhere, he would say that he did natural rights truly is, so that we may speak the sort of “nature” he is referring to in the not believe so much in natural rights as he precisely and fittingly about it. title of his satiric essay A Vindication of Natural did “in supernatural rights (and Jefferson In Prima Secondae Partis of the Summa , Society , in which he likens this idea of a socie - certainly states them as supernatural)". q. 94, a. 2, St. Thomas identifies the “ends” ty without the supposedly artificial con - This last quote from him is noteworthy, of human nature based on our three natural trivances of government to the “natural reli - because he seems to use the word “nature” inclinations: Self-preservation, propagation gion” of the Deists. He does not intend the differently than would have the Scholastics: and reproduction, and—the one that he comparison as a compliment. In that tradition, what was “natural” per - explicitly says comes from man’s nature as In fact, elsewhere, he acknowledges that tained to our status as rational creatures, rational—the “natural inclination to know it is more accurate to call civilized society while “supernatural” described that which the truth about God, and to live in society”. “natural”: “The state of civil society… is a came from grace. Yet Chesterton is using Society being therefore identified as proper state of nature; and much more truly so these in a more distinctly modern way, to human nature, Aquinas elsewhere dis - than a savage and incoherent mode of life. using “supernatural” to denote divine ori - cusses the virtues which enable full human For man is by nature reasonable; and he is gins in contrast to “natural”. Chesterton is flourishing. The chief, or charioteer, of the never perfectly in his natural state, but talking like a modern, not a medieval, and, natural or cardinal virtues is prudence: when he is placed where reason may be best as we shall see, it was his failure to recognize While speculative reason or wisdom has to cultivated, and most predominates.” And, that Burke talks the same way that led to his do with understanding moral principles in a letter to an unknown recipient (perhaps misunderstanding. (Secunda Secundae Partis, q. 45, a. 1 and 3), this was Providential; was its ultimate audi - For now, the rest of his charge: prudence, or practical reason, applies right ence, in the mind of God, supposed to be reason to action; like conscientia applying syn - Chesterton?), he is unmistakably specific: We are born under a House of Lords, deresis , though there is one eternal law which "Man is a gregarious animal. He will by as birds under a house of leaves; we live holds true in all situations, the specific appli - degrees provide some convenience suitable under a monarchy as niggers live under cation can vary from one circumstance to to this his natural disposition; and this a tropic sun; it is not their fault if they another. This is not relativism; it is strange thing may, some time or other,

StAR July/August 2019 19 assume a more habitable form. The fish will resent “the general bank and capital of The very fact that Burke was such a at length make a shell which will fit him." nations and of ages”. reformer in so many ways, not only criticiz - This last metaphor is so strikingly a refuta - There is a certain slipperiness in lan - ing British policy in India but also opposing tion of Chesterton’s image of the lamb guage here, in that Burke does speak of sur - the slave trade (and suggesting giving prop - adapting itself to the wind that one almost rendering our natural rights of self-defense erty to Negroes to fortify their freedom—a suspects a divine deliberateness about it. and self-governance in order for society to very Distributist idea) and even standing for Thus the question of natural rights as operate, but notice that he says men have a Catholic emancipation, a stance which got opposed to the rights of Englishmen. right to a government and society that can him accused of crypto-Catholicism, puts the Burke’s precise position must be under - provide their wants. Men have a right to lie to Chesterton’s notion of him as a reflex - stood carefully; he phrased his position this, but the exact nature of how each indi - ive proponent of the status quo. thusly in his Reflections on the Revolution in vidual will be able to exercise his rights, But do the holes and inconsistencies in : such as “the share of power, authority, and Chesterton’s critique make it valueless? direction which each individual ought to God forbid! Just because Chesterton some - Government is not made in virtue of have in the management of the state, that I times portrayed his opponents wrongly does natural rights, which may and do exist in must deny to be amongst the direct original not mean his critiques are without value. total independence of it , and exist in rights of man”. Some people will say Nestorius was inno - much greater clearness and in a much This, surprisingly, is almost exactly what cent of the heresy he was charged with. greater degree of abstract perfection; Chesterton held. Perhaps he was, but we can still be glad that but their abstract perfection is their In A Short History of and the error called “Nestorianism” was con - practical defect. By having a right to Orthodoxy , Chesterton speaks of ballot-box demned, even if he did not deserve to be everything they want everything. voting as a right with the odour of sanctity identified with it. Chesterton gets Poe Government is a contrivance of human about it. Yet, in his 1902 essay “The Indian wrong on chess (actually, Poe’s views on wisdom to provide for human wants. Nationalist Movement”, he criticizes those chess are almost identical to Chesterton’s), Men have a right that these wants should proponents of “Indian nationalism” who but his insight about madness in the erring be provided for by this wisdom (emphasis want India to be free of British rule, but to passage is still a brilliant one. added). retain British institutions, such as ballot- The accurate insight in this passage does box democracy. He gently suggests to those not refute Burke, whose thinking was The argument is clear: Natural rights do who would say, “Give me a ballot box . . . I shaped by the “Gothic and monkish educa - exist, but in abstract, they are too vague and have a natural right to be Prime Minister”, tion” and the “old ecclesiastical modes and general to be useful to us; thus, society that, if this right “is so very certain and fashions of institution” which he saw as the (which is natural to man, as we have seen) divine (which I am inclined rather to doubt main vessel for preserving British culture must contrive specific laws and customs to myself)”, they should venerate British impe - since the fourteenth century, but it does instantiate these rights: “What is the use of rialists as religious saviours for introducing respond to a kind of conservatism without discussing a man's abstract right to food or it to them. transcendence which takes Burke as its medicine? The question is upon the But he insists that he does believe in nat - patron. In Chesterton’s day, fascist states method of procuring and administering ural rights, such as “[t]he right of a people claimed a kind of national conservatism, them. In that deliberation I shall always to express itself, to be itself in arts and but also claimed to be the source of rights, advise to call in the aid of the farmer and action”. “The test of a democracy”, he and in so doing lost all right they may have the physician rather than the professor of explains, “is that the national tone and spir - had. In our day, Andrew Sullivan can make metaphysics.” In hearty eighteenth-century it of the typical citizen is apparent in the a “conservative” argument for same-sex mar - English prose, this is a clear paraphrase of actions of the State.” Thus, for Chesterton, riage which explicitly claims the sanction of Aquinas’ ideas of prudence as application an Indian who believes in “dynastic wars” Burkean principles. Edmund Burke may of wisdom, and it is this implicit philosophy and the “despotism” of a “king whom I have been appalled by this, but all that which bolsters Burke’s defense of “preju - hardly ever see” is a true Indian nationalist means is that, though Chesterton may have dice”—literally, the judgments that have and a true Indian democratic. For been wrong about Burke, Burke is perhaps been made before I came along. Where Chesterton, this is not the same thing as best read as a Chestertonian. Chesterton used the image of democracy, being born “under a house of leaves” and Burke employed the language of economics: being stuck with it; on the contrary, it is a Brett Fawcett is a columnist and teacher from while each individual has “his own private question of natural rights and democracy— Canada working at an international school in stock of reason . . . [and] we suspect that this just as it was for Burke, who also opposed Asia. He has a Master's of Theological Studies stock in each man is small”, prejudices rep - British interference in India. from Newman Theological College.

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