Fancies Versus FadsChesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
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Fancies Versus Fads
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
English essays -- 20th century
What is his real personality? These philosophers talk as if there was a
complete and complex animal curled up inside every baby, and we had
nothing to do but to let it come out with a yell. As a matter of fact,
we all know, in the case of the finest and most distinguished
personalities, that it would be very difficult to disentangle them from
the trials they have suffered, as well as from the truths they have
found. But, anyhow, these thinkers must give us some guidance as to how
they propose to tell whether their transcendental notion of a true self
has been realized or no. As it is, anybody can say of any part of any
personality that it is or is not an artificial addition obscuring that
personality. In fiction, most of the wild and anarchical characters
strike me as entirely artificial. In real life they would no doubt be
much the same, if they could ever be met with in real life. But anyhow,
they would be the products of experience as well as of elemental
impulses; they would be influenced in some way by all they had gone
through; and anybody would be free to speculate on what they would have
been like if they had never had such experiences. Anybody might amuse
himself by trying to subtract the experiences and find the self; anybody
who wanted to waste his time.
Therefore, without feeling any fixed fanaticism for all the old methods,
whether coercive or persuasive, I do think they both had a basis of
common sense which is wanting in this third theory. The parent, whether
persuading or punishing the child, was at least aware of one simple
truth. He knew that, in the most serious sense, God alone knows what the
child is really like, or is meant to be really like. All we can do to
him is to fill him with those truths which we believe to be equally true
whatever he is like. We must have a code of morals which we believe to
be applicable to all children, and impose it on this child because it is
applicable to all children. If it seems to be a part of his personality
to be a swindler or a torturer, we must tell him that we do not want any
personalities to be swindlers and torturers. In other words, we must
believe in a religion or philosophy firmly enough to take the
responsibility of acting on it, however much the rising generations may
knock, or kick, at the door. I know all about the word education meaning
drawing things out, and mere instruction meaning putting things in. And
I respectfully reply that God alone knows what there is to draw out; but
we can be reasonably responsible for what we are ourselves putting in.
The Innocence of the Criminal
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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