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169 pages

English

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Only G.K. Chesterton could tackle some of the most persistent and complex questions about the Christian faith in such an engaging format. The Ball and the Cross presents a surprisingly good-humored take on timeless debates about faith, pairing plenty of witty repartee with deep and penetrating philosophical insights.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 février 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775451594
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE BALL AND THE CROSS
* * *
G. K. CHESTERTON

*

The Ball and the Cross First published in 1909 ISBN 978-1-775451-59-4 © 2011 The Floating Press
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
I - A Discussion Somewhat in the Air II - The Religion of the Stipendiary Magistrate III - Some Old Curiosities IV - A Discussion at Dawn V - The Peacemaker VI - The Other Philosopher VII - The Village of Grassley-In-The-Hole VIII - An Interlude of Argument IX - The Strange Lady X - The Swords Rejoined XI - A Scandal in the Village XII - The Desert Island XIII - The Garden of Peace XIV - A Museum of Souls XV - The Dream of MacIan XVI - The Dream of Turnbull XVII - The Idiot XVIII - A Riddle of Faces XIX - The Last Parley XX - Dies Irae
I - A Discussion Somewhat in the Air
*
The flying ship of Professor Lucifer sang through the skies like asilver arrow; the bleak white steel of it, gleaming in the bleakblue emptiness of the evening. That it was far above the earth was noexpression for it; to the two men in it, it seemed to be far above thestars. The professor had himself invented the flying machine, and hadalso invented nearly everything in it. Every sort of tool or apparatushad, in consequence, to the full, that fantastic and distorted lookwhich belongs to the miracles of science. For the world of science andevolution is far more nameless and elusive and like a dream than theworld of poetry and religion; since in the latter images and ideasremain themselves eternally, while it is the whole idea of evolutionthat identities melt into each other as they do in a nightmare.
All the tools of Professor Lucifer were the ancient human tools gonemad, grown into unrecognizable shapes, forgetful of their origin,forgetful of their names. That thing which looked like an enormous keywith three wheels was really a patent and very deadly revolver. Thatobject which seemed to be created by the entanglement of two corkscrewswas really the key. The thing which might have been mistaken for atricycle turned upside-down was the inexpressibly important instrumentto which the corkscrew was the key. All these things, as I say, theprofessor had invented; he had invented everything in the flying ship,with the exception, perhaps, of himself. This he had been born toolate actually to inaugurate, but he believed at least, that he hadconsiderably improved it.
There was, however, another man on board, so to speak, at the time. Him,also, by a curious coincidence, the professor had not invented, and himhe had not even very greatly improved, though he had fished him up witha lasso out of his own back garden, in Western Bulgaria, with the pureobject of improving him. He was an exceedingly holy man, almost entirelycovered with white hair. You could see nothing but his eyes, and heseemed to talk with them. A monk of immense learning and acute intellecthe had made himself happy in a little stone hut and a little stonygarden in the Balkans, chiefly by writing the most crushing refutationsof exposures of certain heresies, the last professors of which had beenburnt (generally by each other) precisely 1,119 years previously. Theywere really very plausible and thoughtful heresies, and it was reallya creditable or even glorious circumstance, that the old monk had beenintellectual enough to detect their fallacy; the only misfortunewas that nobody in the modern world was intellectual enough even tounderstand their argument. The old monk, one of whose names was Michael,and the other a name quite impossible to remember or repeat in ourWestern civilization, had, however, as I have said, made himself quitehappy while he was in a mountain hermitage in the society of wildanimals. And now that his luck had lifted him above all the mountains inthe society of a wild physicist, he made himself happy still.
"I have no intention, my good Michael," said Professor Lucifer,"of endeavouring to convert you by argument. The imbecility of yourtraditions can be quite finally exhibited to anybody with mere ordinaryknowledge of the world, the same kind of knowledge which teaches usnot to sit in draughts or not to encourage friendliness in impecuniouspeople. It is folly to talk of this or that demonstrating therationalist philosophy. Everything demonstrates it. Rubbing shoulderswith men of all kinds—"
"You will forgive me," said the monk, meekly from under loads of whitebeard, "but I fear I do not understand; was it in order that I might rubmy shoulder against men of all kinds that you put me inside this thing?"
"An entertaining retort, in the narrow and deductive manner of theMiddle Ages," replied the Professor, calmly, "but even upon your ownbasis I will illustrate my point. We are up in the sky. In your religionand all the religions, as far as I know (and I know everything), the skyis made the symbol of everything that is sacred and merciful. Well, nowyou are in the sky, you know better. Phrase it how you like, twist ithow you like, you know that you know better. You know what are a man'sreal feelings about the heavens, when he finds himself alone in theheavens, surrounded by the heavens. You know the truth, and the truthis this. The heavens are evil, the sky is evil, the stars are evil. Thismere space, this mere quantity, terrifies a man more than tigers or theterrible plague. You know that since our science has spoken, the bottomhas fallen out of the Universe. Now, heaven is the hopeless thing,more hopeless than any hell. Now, if there be any comfort for all yourmiserable progeny of morbid apes, it must be in the earth, underneathyou, under the roots of the grass, in the place where hell was of old.The fiery crypts, the lurid cellars of the underworld, to which you oncecondemned the wicked, are hideous enough, but at least they are morehomely than the heaven in which we ride. And the time will come when youwill all hide in them, to escape the horror of the stars."
"I hope you will excuse my interrupting you," said Michael, with aslight cough, "but I have always noticed—"
"Go on, pray go on," said Professor Lucifer, radiantly, "I really liketo draw out your simple ideas."
"Well, the fact is," said the other, "that much as I admire yourrhetoric and the rhetoric of your school, from a purely verbal pointof view, such little study of you and your school in human history as Ihave been enabled to make has led me to—er—rather singular conclusion,which I find great difficulty in expressing, especially in a foreignlanguage."
"Come, come," said the Professor, encouragingly, "I'll help you out. Howdid my view strike you?"
"Well, the truth is, I know I don't express it properly, but somehowit seemed to me that you always convey ideas of that kind with mosteloquence, when—er—when—"
"Oh! get on," cried Lucifer, boisterously.
"Well, in point of fact when your flying ship is just going to runinto something. I thought you wouldn't mind my mentioning it, but it'srunning into something now."
Lucifer exploded with an oath and leapt erect, leaning hard upon thehandle that acted as a helm to the vessel. For the last ten minutes theyhad been shooting downwards into great cracks and caverns of cloud. Now,through a sort of purple haze, could be seen comparatively near to themwhat seemed to be the upper part of a huge, dark orb or sphere, islandedin a sea of cloud. The Professor's eyes were blazing like a maniac's.
"It is a new world," he cried, with a dreadful mirth. "It is a newplanet and it shall bear my name. This star and not that other vulgarone shall be 'Lucifer, sun of the morning.' Here we will have nochartered lunacies, here we will have no gods. Here man shall beas innocent as the daisies, as innocent and as cruel—here theintellect—"
"There seems," said Michael, timidly, "to be something sticking up inthe middle of it."
"So there is," said the Professor, leaning over the side of the ship,his spectacles shining with intellectual excitement. "What can it be? Itmight of course be merely a—"
Then a shriek indescribable broke out of him of a sudden, and he flungup his arms like a lost spirit. The monk took the helm in a tired way;he did not seem much astonished for he came from an ignorant part of theworld in which it is not uncommon for lost spirits to shriek when theysee the curious shape which the Professor had just seen on the top ofthe mysterious ball, but he took the helm only just in time, and bydriving it hard to the left he prevented the flying ship from smashinginto St. Paul's Cathedral.
A plain of sad-coloured cloud lay along the level of the top of theCathedral dome, so that the ball and the cross looked like a buoy ridingon a leaden sea. As the flying ship swept towards it, this plain ofcloud looked as dry and definite and rocky as any grey desert. Hence itgave to the mind and body a sharp and unearthly sensation when the shipcut and sank into the cloud as into any common mist, a thing withoutresistance. There was, as it were, a deadly shock in the fact that therewas no shock. It was as if they had cloven into ancient cliffs like somuch butter. But sensations awaited them which were much stranger thanthose of sinking through the solid earth. For a moment their eyes andnostrils were stopped with darkness and opaque cloud; then the darknesswarmed into a kind of brown fog. And far, far below them the brown fogfell until it warmed into fire. Through the dense London atmosphere theycould see below them the flaming London lights; lights which lay beneaththem in squa