How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.
Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.
“There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.”
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908), ch. III, “The Suicide of Thought” (public domain, Project Gutenberg #130).public domain
The Thought That Stops Thought
AnthropologyArgument · power 94 · 100% accurateIn the gameThe sceptic says he has a right to think for himself, and Chesterton agrees. Then he watches the sceptic go on to doubt his own right to think at all. There is a thought that stops thought, and it is the only thought that ought to be stopped.
Strong against
×4The Complete Sceptican argument · why?
Chesterton met this man in 1908 and gave him his due. He has a right to think for himself. But the complete sceptic ends up saying he has no right to think at all, which is a thought that stops thought, and the only one that ought to be stopped.
“We are accustomed to see a table or catalogue of the world’s great religions in parallel columns, until we fancy they are really parallel. We are accustomed to see the names of the great religious founders all in a row: Christ; Mahomet; Buddha; Confucius. But in truth this is only a trick; another of these optical illusions by which any objects may be put into a particular relation by shifting to a particular point of sight.”
G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (1925), Part II, ch. 5 (public domain, Project Gutenberg #65688).public domain
A Trick of the Row
HistoryArgument · power 90 · 100% accurateIn the gameThe religions of the world are printed in parallel columns and the founders listed in a row: Christ, Mahomet, Buddha, Confucius. Chesterton says the row is a trick of the eye. Put things side by side and they look alike. Look at them closely and they are not the same kind of thing.
Strong against
×3The Many Faiths, One Realan argument · why?
Hick’s hypothesis needs the religions to look like a row of the same thing. Chesterton says the row is an optical illusion: line up any objects and they seem to belong together. Put Confucius beside Christ and you have put a philosopher beside a claim that a man rose from the dead. They are not alternatives in the same list.
“Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a god who knew the way out of the grave.”
G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (1925), Part II, ch. 6, “The Five Deaths of the Faith” (public domain, Project Gutenberg #65688).public domain
A God Who Knew the Way Out of the Grave
HistoryArgument · power 96 · 100% accurateIn the gameEurope has been turned upside down again and again, and each time Christianity has been counted dead, and each time it has been found on top. Chesterton’s reason is short. The faith has died many times, and it has risen again each time, because its God knew the way out of the grave.
Strong against
×3No Big Storyan argument · why?
Lyotard’s century thought the big stories were finished. Chesterton points at the one that has been declared dead over and over and has come up each time. He does not claim it is stronger than the others. He says its God knew the way out of the grave.
“The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.”
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908), ch. II, “The Maniac” (public domain, Project Gutenberg #130).public domain
Everything Except His Reason
AnthropologyArgument · power 90 · 100% accurateIn the gameThe madman, Chesterton says, is not a man who has lost his reason. He has kept it and lost everything else: the sense of proportion, the humour, the sense that he might be wrong. A theory can be complete, unanswerable and mad.
Strong against
×2.5Nothing Outside the Textan argument · why?
Chesterton says the madman is not the man who has lost his reason. He is the man who has lost everything except his reason. A theory with no fixed meaning can be complete and unanswerable, and still be a man talking to himself in a locked room.
