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"If red roses mysteriously maddened men to commit murder, we should make rules to cover them up."

If Euclid were demonstrating with diagrams for the first time and used the argument of the reductio ad absurdum, he would now only produce the impression that his own argument was absurd. I am well aware that I expose myself to this peril by extending my opponent’s argument to an extreme, which may be considered an extravagance.  The question is, why is it an extravagance? I know that in this case it will be answered that the social feature of cannibalism is rare in our culture.  So far as I know, there are no cannibal restaurants threatening to become fashionable in London like Chinese restaurants.  Anthropophagy is not like Anthroposophy, a subject of society lectures; and, varied as are the religions and moralities among us, the cooking of missionaries is not yet a mission. But if anyone has so little of logic as to miss the meaning of an extreme example, I should have no difficulty in giving a much more practical and even pressing example.  A few years ago, all sane people would have said that Adamitism was quite as mad as Anthropophagy. A banker walking down the streets with no clothes on, would have been quite as nonsensical as a butcher selling man instead of mutton. Both would be the outbreak of a lunatic, under the delusion that he was a savage.  But we have seen the New Adamite, or No Clothes Movement, start quite seriously in Germany; start indeed with a seriousness of which only Germans are capable.  Englishmen probably are still English enough to laugh at it and dislike it. But they laugh by instinct; and they only dislike by instinct. Most of them, with their present muddled moral philosophy, would probably have great difficulty in refuting the Prussian professor of nakedness, however heartily they might desire to kick him. For if we examine the current controversies, we shall find the same negative and defenceless condition, as in the case of the theory of cannibalism.  All the fashionable arguments used against Puritanism do in fact lead to Adamitism.  I do not mean, of course, that they are not often practically healthy as against Puritanism; still less do I mean that there are no better arguments against Puritanism. But I mean that in pure logic the civilised man has laid open his guard; and is, as it were, naked against the inroads of nakedness. So long as he is content merely to argue that the body is beautiful or that what is natural is right, he has surrendered to the Adamite in theory, though it may be, please God, a long time before he surrenders in practice.  Here again the modern theorist will have to defend his own sanity with a prejudice. It is the mediaeval theologian who can defend it with a reason. I need not go into that reason at length; it is enough to say that it is founded on the Fall of Man, just as the other instinct against cannibalism is founded on the Divinity of Man. The Christian argument can be put shortly, by saying that there is nothing the matter with the human body; what is the matter is with the human soul.

In other words, if man were completely a god, it might be true that all aspects of his bodily being were godlike; just as if he were completely a beast, we could hardly blame him for any diet, however beastly. But we say that experience confirms our theory of his human complexity. It has nothing to do with the natural things themselves. If red roses mysteriously maddened men to commit murder, we should make rules to cover them up; but red roses would be quite as pure as white ones.

Taken from "The Roots of Sanity", by G.K. Chesterton - - - -

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The Roots of Sanity

THE Dean of St. Paul’s, when he is right, is very right. He is right with all that ringing emphasis that makes him in other matters so rashly and disastrously wrong.  And I cannot but hail with gratitude the scorn with which he spoke lately of all the newspaper nonsense about using monkey-glands to turn old men into young men; or into young monkeys, if that is to be the next step towards the Superman.  Not unnaturally, he tried to balance his denunciation of that very experimental materialism which he is always accusing us of denouncing, by saying that this materialism is one evil extreme and that Christianity is the other.  In that connection he said some of the usual things which he commonly finds it easy to say, and we generally find it tolerably easy to answer.

For instance, it is a good example of the contradictory charges brought against Rome that the Dean apparently classes us with those who leave children entirely “unwarned” about the moral dangers of the body. Considering that we have been abused for decades on the ground that we forced on the young the infamous suggestions of the Confessional, this is rather funny.

Only the other day I noted that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle revived this charge of an insult to innocence; and I will leave Dean Inge and Sir Arthur to fight it out.  And when he charges us with indifference to Eugenics and the breeding of criminals and lunatics, it is enough that he has himself to denounce the perversion of science manifested in the monkey business.  He might permit others to resent equally the schemes by which men are to act like lunatics and criminals in order to avoid lunacy and crime.

There is, however, another aspect of this matter of being right or wrong, which is not so often associated with us, but which is equally consistent with our philosophy.  And it has a notable bearing on the sort of questions here raised by Dean Inge. It concerns not only the matters in which the world is wrong, but rather especially the matters in which the world is right. The world, especially the modern world, has reached a curious condition of ritual or routine; in which we might almost say that it is wrong even when it is right.  It continues to a great extent to do the sensible things.  It is rapidly ceasing to have any of the sensible reasons for doing them.  It is always lecturing us on the deadness of tradition; and it is living entirely on the life of tradition. It is always denouncing us for superstition; and its own principal virtues are now almost entirely superstitions.

I mean that when we are right, we are right by principle; and when they are right, they are right by prejudice. We can say, if they prefer it so, that they are right by instinct. But anyhow, they are still restrained by healthy prejudice from many things into which they might be hurried by their own unhealthy logic. It is easiest to take very simple and even extreme examples; and some of the extremes are nearer to us than some may fancy.

Thus, most of our friends and acquaintances continue to entertain a healthy prejudice against Cannibalism.  The time when this next step in ethical evolution will be taken seems as yet far distant. But the notion that there is not very much difference between the bodies of men and animals — that is not by any means far distant, but exceedingly near.  It is expressed in a hundred ways, as a sort of cosmic communism.  We might almost say that it is expressed in every other way except cannibalism.

It is expressed, as in the Voronoff notion, in putting pieces of animals into men.  It is expressed, as in the vegetarian notion, in not putting pieces of animals into men.  It is expressed in letting a man die as a dog dies, or in thinking it more pathetic that a dog should die than a man.  Some are fussy about what happens to the bodies of animals, as if they were quite certain that a rabbit resented being cooked, or that an oyster demanded to be cremated. Some are ostentatiously indifferent to what happens to the bodies of men; and deny all dignity to the dead and all affectionate gesture to the living.  But all these have obviously one thing in common; and that is that they regard the human and bestial body as common things. They think of them under a common generalisation; or under conditions at best comparative.  Among people who have reached this position, the reason for disapproving of cannibalism has already become very vague. It remains as a tradition and an instinct.  Fortunately, thank God, though it is now very vague, it is still very strong. But though the number of earnest ethical pioneers who are likely to begin to eat boiled missionary is very small, the number of those among them who could explain their own real reason for not doing so is still smaller.

The real reason is that all such social sanities are now the traditions of old Christian dogmas.  Like many other Christian dogmas, they are felt in some vague way even by heathens, so long as they are healthy heathens. But when it is a question of their not being merely felt but formulated, it will be found to be a formula of the Faith. In this case it is all those ideas that Modernists most dislike, about “special creation” and that Divine image that does not come merely by evolution, and the chasm between man and the other creatures. In short, it is those very doctrines with which men like Dean Inge are perpetually reproaching us, as things that forbid us a complete confidence in science or a complete unity with animals. It is these that stand between men and cannibalism — or possibly monkey glands.  They have the prejudice; and long may they retain it! We have the principle, and they are welcome to it when they want it.

If Euclid were demonstrating with diagrams for the first time and used the argument of the reductio ad absurdum, he would now only produce the impression that his own argument was absurd. I am well aware that I expose myself to this peril by extending my opponent’s argument to an extreme, which may be considered an extravagance.  The question is, why is it an extravagance? I know that in this case it will be answered that the social feature of cannibalism is rare in our culture.  So far as I know, there are no cannibal restaurants threatening to become fashionable in London like Chinese restaurants.  Anthropophagy is not like Anthroposophy, a subject of society lectures; and, varied as are the religions and moralities among us, the cooking of missionaries is not yet a mission. But if anyone has so little of logic as to miss the meaning of an extreme example, I should have no difficulty in giving a much more practical and even pressing example.  A few years ago, all sane people would have said that Adamitism was quite as mad as Anthropophagy. A banker walking down the streets with no clothes on would have been quite as nonsensical as a butcher selling man instead of mutton. Both would be the outbreak of a lunatic under the delusion that he was a savage.  But we have seen the New Adamite or No Clothes Movement start quite seriously in Germany; start indeed with a seriousness of which only Germans are capable.  Englishmen probably are still English enough to laugh at it and dislike it. But they laugh by instinct; and they only dislike by instinct. Most of them, with their present muddled moral philosophy, would probably have great difficulty in refuting the Prussian professor of nakedness, however heartily they might desire to kick him. For if we examine the current controversies, we shall find the same negative and defenceless condition as in the case of the theory of cannibalism.  All the fashionable arguments used against Puritanism do in fact lead to Adamitism.  I do not mean, of course, that they are not often practically healthy as against Puritanism; still less do I mean that there are no better arguments against Puritanism. But I mean that in pure logic the civilised man has laid open his guard; and is, as it were, naked against the inroads of nakedness. So long as he is content merely to argue that the body is beautiful or that what is natural is right, he has surrendered to the Adamite in theory, though it may be, please God, a long time before he surrenders in practice.  Here again the modern theorist will have to defend his own sanity with a prejudice. It is the mediaeval theologian who can defend it with a reason. I need not go into that reason at length; it is enough to say that it is founded on the Fall of Man, just as the other instinct against cannibalism is founded on the Divinity of Man. The Christian argument can be put shortly by saying that there is nothing the matter with the human body; what is the matter is with the human soul.

In other words, if man were completely a god, it might be true that all aspects of his bodily being were godlike; just as if he were completely a beast, we could hardly blame him for any diet, however beastly. But we say that experience confirms our theory of his human complexity. It has nothing to do with the natural things themselves. If red roses mysteriously maddened men to commit murder, we should make rules to cover them up; but red roses would be quite as pure as white ones.

In most modern people there is a battle between the new opinions, which they do not follow out to their end, and the old traditions, which they do not trace back to their beginning.  If they followed the new notions forward, it would lead them to Bedlam.  If they followed the better instincts backward, it would lead them to Rome. At the best they remain suspended between two logical alternatives, trying to tell themselves, as does Dean Inge, that they are merely avoiding two extremes.  But there is this great difference in his case, that the question on which he is wrong is, in however perverted a form, a matter of science, whereas the matter in which he is right is by this time simply a matter of sentiment.  I need not say that I do not use the word here in a contemptuous sense, for in these things there is a very close kinship between sentiment and sense. But the fact remains that all the people in his position can only go on being sensible.  It is left for us to be also reasonable.

 

Taken from "The Thing," by G.K. Chesterton - - G. K. Chesterton, was a towering figure in the first half of the twentieth century. He was a journalist,  a theologian, a philosopher, a poet, a novelist, among many other things. What does he have to say about the need to return to common sense, to battle the moral ills of our day?  Standing at six foot four inches and weighing 300 pounds, Chesterton was a big man.Born in England in the late 19th century, Chesterton was a prolific writer, with hundreds of books or stories, and over 4,000 essays, all marked by his style of great wit and humor. But Chesterton didn't just write; he debated with the greatest intellectuals of his time, like George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells. He argued passionately against 20th century ills, like materialism, scientific determinism, moral relativism. He defended the common man and common sense. He defended the poor, the family, beauty, and Christianity. [Read More Here]

 

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The Blood of the Covenant

by Charles Reed -
(Editorial, Reflections, March 2003)

    • "The price of our redemption is full of unfathomable mysteries. We cannot hope to understand them all. That single divine law, that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin, is beyond our grasp." -- Father William Faber, The Precious Blood

    ONE of the great themes of Sacred Scripture is: God makes a covenant, and seals it with blood. God made a covenant with the patriarch Abraham: "My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. And I will make thee increase exceedingly: and I will make nations of thee; and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and between thy seed after thee in their generations, by a perpetual covenant: to be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee."

    The covenant was to be ratified by the shedding of blood: "This is my covenant that you shall observe, between me and you, and thy seed after thee: All the male kind of you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin: that it may be for a sign of the covenant between me and you. And my covenant shall be in your flesh, for a perpetual covenant.

    "And Abraham took Ismael his son, and all that were born in his house, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskin forthwith, the very same day, as God had commanded him. Abraham was 99 years old, when he circumcised the flesh of his foreskin. And Ismael his son was full 13 years old at the time of his circumcision. The selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and Ismael his son." (Genesis, Ch. 17) --  (Read More Here)

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• See other pages • Writings of Charles Reed • Spiritual Meadow, by John Moschus • 

Notice: Charles Reed is the pseudonym of John Henderson Stansberry, a former religious brother in the congregation of the Franciscan Minims in Mexico City. In the year 1978, (one year before the death of Maria Concepcion), a tragic incident happened in the congregation. Many years later John still felt guilty about it, and determined to write a report. Eventually the document turned into a short book, named "Mount Zion Revisited." The pseudonym Charles was used to protect the good reputation of all the persons involved. It is available in PDF format on the web. Writings of Charles Reed also include translations and short antholigies that he made, and editorials of the magazine "Reflections from the Franciscan Minims" published in English in Mexico City from 1990 to 2005. The magazine had a circulation of about 300, in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa.
"Mount Zion Revisited" was written as a roman a clef (novel with a key), in order to make known controversial topics, and to report inside information about scandal and abuse of power, without harming the good reputation of those involved, living and deceased.
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