The Everlasting Man

The phenomenon of superstition “recurs in all ages, and especially in rationalistic ages” (222), as a result of a fear (or a knowledge) that we do not understand the way that the universe truly works, and that irrational processes might run the world. There are many different kinds of superstition, but most of superstition is harmless both to its adopter and to bystanders. Another kind of superstition, however, has more power: the kind only done in the dark, for “the man consulting a demon felt as many a man has felt in consulting a detective, especially a private detective; that it was dirty work but the work would really be done” (226).

Ever since the events narrated in the New Testament gospels, “the demons have really been in hiding” (228). Before this, many ancient cultures enthroned demonic figures as gods and offered public and elaborate sacrifices to them. When we rightly condemn them, we must remember the various atrocities of our own age: “it is absurd to pretend that they fell lower than the other races and religions that professed the very opposite standards and ideals” (233). Still, the fact that we can condemn the failure of any culture is proof that human nature has not changed.

Philosophy made a distinction between worship of the gods and the pursuit of truth within reality. The greatest thinkers never confused devotion to the pagan gods with anything resembling the truth of things: “Aristotle would [not] have set up the Absolute side by side with the Apollo of Delphi” (240). By contrast, the Christian Church empowered the intellect to be the center of spirituality, so demons and mythology began to diminish and to disappear.

History should not simply be a study of material ends and economic struggle; just because economics is an aspect of civilization does not mean that is the principal concern for human beings: “Even those dry pedants who think that ethics depend on economics must admit that economics depend on existence. And any number of normal doubts and day-dreams are about existence; not about how we can live, but about why we do” (269). Material goods are never the principal goal for anyone: Material goods are only desirable for the sake of things like peace, security, pleasure, wellbeing, etc.

This is most obvious in time of war. Staring death in the face will quickly prove that a man will die for his ideals—what is truly important in life, which is the love of home and family. This is why, in the final stages of any civilization, what is closest to the human heart begins to decay and be distorted. In Carthage, for instance, “the god who got things done bore the name of Moloch, who was perhaps identical with the other deity whom we know as Baal” (283). Far from seeing any kind of moral progress consonant with economic and political progress, the opposite was the case: “the worshippers of Moloch […] were members of a mature and polished civilisation, abounding in refinements and luxuries,” but they “really met together to invoke the blessing of heaven on their empire by throwing hundreds of their infants into a large furnace” (283).

After paganism grew to the greatest heights it could reach, a specific kind of pessimism took root—the pessimism of “being tired of good” (301). Chesterton argues that a society’s decline lies in a surfeit of pleasure: “Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy” (301). In the great cities of Carthage and Rome, society became complex and decadent, while the simplicity of country living became ever more apparent. The vices of Rome grew stronger and stranger. While “vices, hints of the old horrors of the Semitic demons, began to fill the fancies of decaying Rome” (314), the sensibilities of the common folk grew more dull. Because of this, atheism became more acceptable even though it was “the reversal of a subconscious assumption in the soul; the sense that there is a meaning and a direction in the world” (322). Despair took root, and the old ways and systems offered no solution.