The object of the following lectures is twofold. They were delivered inthe first place for the purpose of directing the attention of readers tobooks whose literary charm and spiritual value have made themconspicuous in the vast literature of England. Such a task, however,tends to be so discursive as to lose all unity, depending absolutelyupon the taste of the individual, and the chances of his experience inreading.
I have accordingly taken for the general theme of the book that constantstruggle between paganism and idealism which is the deepest fact in thelife of man, and whose story, told in one form or another, provides thematter of all vital literature. This will serve as a thread to givecontinuity of thought to the lectures, and it will keep them near tocentral issues.
Having said so much, it is only necessary to add one word more by way ofexplanation. In quest of the relations between the spiritual and thematerial, or (to put it otherwise) of the battle between the flesh andthe spirit, we shall dip into three different periods of time: (1)Classical, (2) Sixteenth Century, (3) Modern. Each of these has acharacter of its own, and the glimpses which we shall have of them oughtto be interesting in their own right. But the similarity between thethree is more striking than the contrast, for human nature does notgreatly change, and its deepest struggles are the same in allgenerations.
LECTURE I
LECTURE II
LECTURE III
LECTURE IV
LECTURE V
LECTURE VI
LECTURE VII
LECTURE VIII
LECTURE IX
Mr. G.K. Chesterton's Point of View
LECTURE X
It has become fashionable to divide the rival tendencies of modernthought into the two classes of Hellenistic and Hebraistic. The divisionis an arbitrary and somewhat misleading one, which has done less thanjustice both to the Greek and to the Hebrew genius. It has associatedGreece with the idea of lawless and licentious paganism, and Israel withthat of a forbidding and joyless austerity. Paganism is an interestingword, whose etymology reminds us of a time when Christianity had won thetowns, while the villages still worshipped heathen gods. It is difficultto define the w