mechanical process is the play with the derivatives of words. Thus
he reminds us that the journalist is, in the literal and derivative
sense, a _journalist_, while the missionary is an eternalist. Similarly
"lunatic," "evolution," "progress," "reform," are etymologically
tortured into the utterance of the most forcible and surprising truths.
This curious word-play was a favourite method with Ruskin; and it has
the disadvantage in Mr. Chesterton which it had in the earlier critic.
It appears too clever to be really sound, although it must be confessed
that it frequently has the power of startling us into thoughts that are
valuable and suggestive.

Another equally simple process is that of simply reversing sentences and
ideas. "A good bush needs no wine." "Shakespeare (in a weak moment, I
think) said that all the world is a stage. But Shakespeare acted on the
much finer principle that a stage is all the world." Perhaps the most
brilliant example that could be quoted is the plea for the combination
of gentleness and ferocity in Christian character. When the lion lies
down with the lamb, it is constantly assumed that the lion becomes
lamblike. "But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of
the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion, instead of the
lion eating the lamb."

By this process it is possible to attain results which are
extraordinarily brilliant in themselves and fruitful in suggestion. It
is a process not difficult to learn, but the trouble is that you have to
live up to it afterwards, and defend many curious propositions which may
have been arrived at by its so simple means. Take, for instance, the
sentence about the stage being all the world. That is undeniably clever,
and it contains an idea. But it is a haphazard idea, arrived at by a
short-cut, and not by the high road of reasonable thinking. Sometimes a
truth may be reached by such a short-cut, but such paradoxes are
occasionally no better than chartered errors.

Yet even when they are that, it may be said in their favour that they
startle us into thought. And truly Mr. Chesterton is invaluable as a
quickener and stimulator of the minds of his readers. Moreover, by
adopting the method of paradox, he has undoubtedly done one remarkable
thing. He has proved what an astonishing number of paradoxical surprises
there actually are, lying hidden beneath the apparent commonplace of the
world. Every really clever paradox astonishes us not