The Suicide of Thought

Amy and I are reading the spiritual autobiography of GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy, together this March.

Chapter 3 is titled "The Suicide of Thought" and I have to admit I don't think I have completely understood it. But I'll have a go at working it out here. At the very least, I'll attempt to follow his line of argument!

Chesterton begins the chapter describing how our humility has overgrown itself, and attached itself to something which it is not necessary to be humble about. That is, while we do not doubt ourselves (the true purpose of humility, to keep our arrogance in restraint), instead we doubt truth itself. The "new humility" has put us "on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table." (Or, I might add here, the rules of phonics as applied to written English.) The problem has arisen that, while "Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced." Chesterton describes the problem as a kind of "intellectual helplessness".

Chesterton says that this low opinion of our own ability to discern the truth means that, ultimately, "the human intellect is free to destroy itself." How? "One set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought."

At this point, Chesterton writes, "It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all." Brilliant quote!! Of course, if what evolutionists seek to prove is true, then as a randomly generated combination of atoms, any "thoughts", which are merely generated by electrical impulses running between said atoms, are purposeless, or meaningless. Including the "thoughts" about the "theory of evolution". Not a path that many evolutionists would like to go down, I don't think. Of course, some could argue that just because something is the construct of randomness, does not mean that the end result of meaninglessness, so let us continue to see what Chesterton has to say on the matter.

"In so far as religion is gone, reason is going. For they are both of the same primary and authoritative kind. They are both methods of proof which cannot themselves be proved. And in the act of destroying the idea of Divine authority we have largely destroyed the idea of that human authority by which we do a long-division sum." In other words, while we accepted that supernatural forces have no authority, we also admitted that natural forces can have no authority in determining right or wrong, even over matters of "fact", rather than "opinion", because any "fact" (such as the numerical relation which we rely upon when performing the mathematical operation of division) is merely a random event which may not always continue according to it's previously observed pattern (being random).

Chesterton points out that, "Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. ... it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such things as a man for him to change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. ... Thinking means connecting things, and stops if they cannot be connected." [my emphasis] I find this particular line of argument fascinating. It does go some way towards explaining the sad state of affairs in many educational institutions today... and also the rise in popularity of the "unschooling" movement among homeschoolers. If people accept the lie that the history of mankind is merely a statistical anomaly, there is no reason for anyone to bother to learn history. If the rules that connect written patterns and sound patterns in written English are merely a random construct, there is no reason to teach them. If a child is left alone to learn whatever they want, merely according to their natural inclinations, then we are only letting them pursue at an individual level what the species has done for millennia, according to evolutionary theory. When it comes right down to it, evolutionists would have us believe (if we can even be said to "believe") that the only thing worth knowing is myself, because I am the peak of my own particular evolutionary trail. Yurk!

From here, Chesterton moves on to attack "the false theory of progress, which maintains that we alter the test instead of trying to pass the test. We often hear it said, for instance, 'What is right in one age is wrong in another.'" He notes, "If the standard changes, how can there be improvement, which implies a standard? ... It would be like discussing whether Milton was more puritanical than a pig is fat." I love Chesterton's fabulous illustrations! "The main point here ... is that this idea of a fundamental alteration in the standard is one of the things that make thought about the past or future simply impossible. The theory of a complete change of standards in human history does not merely deprive us of the pleasure of honouring our fathers; it deprives us of the more modern and aristocratic pleasure of despising them."

Chesterton goes on, "I agree with the pragmatists that apparent objective truth is not the whole matter, that there is an authoritative need to believe the things that are necessary to the human mind. But I say that one of those necessities precisely is a belief in objective truth." In other words, in order to believe anything, one must first believe that there is some true thing in which to believe, and presumably that other things may not all be true. It is impossible to believe anything if you do not believe in belief!

To summarise, "we may say that the most characteristic current philosophies have not only a touch of mania, but a tough of suicidal mania." Scepticism "has no more questions to ask; it has questioned itself. ... It is time we gave up looking for questions and began looking for answers."

[I think I have understood Chesterton's argument up to this point, and hopefully my quote selections and commentary have made it clearer than mud for you as well. Reading the chapter through another time (well, reading the bits I underlined the first time) has helped me to see where he went. But the last bit of the chapter was the hardest for me to engage with when I read it before. So please forgive me if the final bit I will post on this chapter doesn't completely make sense. If you can't work it out from what I am about to write, go and read the whole chapter for your self and help me out in the comments!]

Chesterton now turns to the idea of Will.

First, Chesterton describes the argument of the proponents of the will: "They see that reason destroys; but Will, they say, creates. The ultimate authority, they say, is in will, not in reason. The supreme point is not why a man demands a thing, but that he does demand it. ... The main defence of these thinkers is that they are not thinkers; they are makers. They say that choice itself is a divine thing."

Second, Chesterton explains why this focus on will is necessary: "For by this doctrine of the divine authority of will, they think they can break out of the doomed fortress of rationalism. They think they can escape."

Thirdly, he rebuts this attempt to escape the endpoint of evolutionary theory's demand for intellectual humility: "Pure praise of volition ends in the same break up and blank as the mere pursuit of logic. Exactly as complete free thought involves the doubting of thought itself, so the acceptation of mere 'willing' really paralyses the will."

Next, Chesterton discusses Bernard Shaw's version whereby he argued for the value of will over happiness. "The real difference between the test of happiness and the test of will is simply that the test of happiness is a test and the other isn't." Here Chesterton gives an example. "You can discuss whether a man's act in jumping over a cliff was directed towards happiness; you cannot discuss whether it was derived from will. Of course it was." And then a generalisation: "You can praise an action by saying that it is calculated to bring pleasure or pain to discover truth or to save the soul. But you cannot praise an action because it shows will; for to say that is merely to say that it is an action. By this praise of will you cannot really choose one course as better than another. And yet choosing one course as better than another is the very definition of the will you are praising."

Fourthly, Chesterton states "You cannot admire will in general, because the essence of will is that it is particular." Continuing this line of thought, he attacks (Scottish poet and playwright, "a brilliant anarchist") John Davidson's attempt to promote will: he "feels an irritation against ordinary mortality, and therefore he invokes will - will to anything. He only wants humanity to want something. But humanity does want something. It wants ordinary morality. He rebels against the law and tells us to will something or anything. But we have willed something. We have willed the law against which he rebels." I am not sure exactly who is the present-day equivalent of this Davidson fellow. Perhaps the Feminists, who demand that women take upon themselves any and every role, so long as it was previously fulfilled by men and is not the single role most befitting their biological prerogative of being a mother who expends time, energy and love to the benefit of her offspring. Any ideas for another modern day equivalent, Amy? Anyone else who has managed to read this far have any ideas?

Fifthly, Chesterton argues that "Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. ... When you choose anything, you reject everything else." Again, Chesterton attacks Davidson's ideaology in saying "have nothing to do with 'Thou shalt not'" because "it is surely obvious that 'Thou shalt not' is only one of the necessary corollaries of 'I will.'" Slightly later on, Chesterton uses an example from the French Revolution. "the Jacobins willed something definite and limited. They desired the freedoms of democracy, but also all the vetoes of democracy. They wished to have votes and not to have titles."

Sixthly, Chesterton brings this discussion of the value of will to a close by stating the importance of dealing with reality, rather than our own frivolous image of it. "The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into a world of limits. You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature. You may, if you like, free a tiger from his bars; but do not free him from his stripes. Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump: you may be freeing him from being a camel."

Seventhly (is that even a word? Perhaps I should say,) In the seventh place, Chesterton says that "the new rebel is a Sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything. ... the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind." An illustration or two of the problems this brings up in everyday life follows. "The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages were treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. ... By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything."

Chesterton concludes with "Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot. Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain." And then, "This last attempt to evade intellectualism [that is, through the advocacy of will] ends in intellectualism, and therefore in death. ... The wild worship of lawlessness and the materialist worship of law end in the same void."

[Image source koorong.com.]