Orthodoxy

G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908)

G. K. Chesterton — English journalist, novelist and defender of the faith

Round, cheerful, cluttered with paradoxes, and enormously pleased with them.

Catch rate: 58 / 255
Base research: 262
Stat total: 354

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina90

Contend94

Defend82

Popularity88

Total354

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 90

STAMINA — Solid. It is a short book, and it never runs out of paradoxes.

Contend 94

CONTEND — High. It turns the sceptic’s own weapons round, and the turn arrives before he sees it coming.

Defend 82

DEFEND — Moderate. It is a personal book, not a system, and it can be caught out on its details.

Popularity 88

POPULARITY — High. It is among the most quoted books of the century, and people who have never read it can recite it.

Cited for this book

G. K. Chesterton wrote Orthodoxy in 1908 as an answer to people who asked what he believed and why. He argued that the sceptic goes wrong because his doubt devours itself, and that the old faith turns out to be the only thing that makes the world both sane and worth being astonished at. It is one of the few books in this game that many readers will laugh aloud at.

Development

A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.

Orthodoxy→
Lv 65

The Works of Chesterton

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
1	The Thought That Stops Thought	Anthropology	Argument	94	100%	10
14	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
26	The Old Virtues Gone Mad	Anthropology	Argument	84	100%	15
30	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
40	Doubtful About Himself, Sure of the Truth	Anthropology	Argument	82	100%	15
52	Everything Except His Reason	Anthropology	Argument	90	100%	10

The quotes behind its moves

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% accurate

In 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.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

“The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad.”
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908), ch. III, “The Suicide of Thought” (public domain, Project Gutenberg #130).public domain

The Old Virtues Gone Mad

AnthropologyArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate

In the gameChesterton’s diagnosis of the age, in eleven words. The modern world is not short of good things. It is full of them, cut loose from what held them, and running wild.

“A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.”
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908), ch. III, “The Suicide of Thought” (public domain, Project Gutenberg #130).public domain

Doubtful About Himself, Sure of the Truth

AnthropologyArgument · power 82 · 100% accurate

In the gameA man is supposed to be humble about himself and confident about what is true. Chesterton says the age has turned that round. People are now sure of themselves and unsure whether anything is true.

“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% accurate

In 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.