that they are always
difficult to define. But the later phase of his work, which has become
famous in connection with the word "Superman," is due in large part to
Nietzsche, whose strange influence has reversed the Christian ideals for
many disciples on both sides of the North Sea. So this idealist, who, in
_Major Barbara_, protests so vigorously against paganism, has become one
of its chief advocates and expositors. One of his characters somewhere
says, "I wish I could get a country to live in where the facts were not
brutal and the dreams were not unreal." It may be admitted that there
are many brutal facts and perhaps more unreal dreams; but, for our part,
that which keeps us from becoming pagans is that we have found facts
that are not brutal and dreams which are the realest things in life.

LECTURE IX

MR. G.K. CHESTERTON'S POINT OF VIEW

There is on record the case of a man who, after some fourteen years of
robust health, spent a week in bed. His illness was apparently due to a
violent cold, but he confessed, on medical cross-examination, that the
real and underlying cause was the steady reading of Mr. Chesterton's
books for several days on end.

No one will accuse Mr. Chesterton of being an unhealthy writer. On the
contrary, he is among the most wholesome writers now alive. He is
irresistibly exhilarating, and he inspires his readers with a constant
inclination to rise up and shout. Perhaps his danger lies in that very
fact, and in the exhaustion of the nerves which such sustained
exhilaration is apt to produce. But besides this, he, like so many of
our contemporaries, has written such a bewildering quantity of
literature on such an amazing variety of subjects, that it is no wonder
if sometimes the reader follows panting, through the giddy mazes of the
dance. He is the sworn enemy of specialisation, as he explains in his
remarkable essay on "The Twelve Men." The subject of the essay is the
British jury, and its thesis is that when our civilisation "wants a
library to be catalogued, or a solar system discovered, or any trifle of
that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done
which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing
round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of
Christianity." For the judging of a criminal or the propagation of the
gospel, it is necessary to procure inexpert people--people who come to
their task with a virg