Jan 14 2007
Silly little relativists
(To view my notes on the Bible, St Thomas, and other stuff see the categories to the right or go to the MENU PAGE on my other site)
Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the schoolmen, “Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If light be in itself good–” At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval parcticality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it was not much of a lamp-post, some thought it too much of a lamp-post; some acted because they just wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they just wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, today, tomorrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under thegas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark. (GK Chesterton-Heretics. This work is in the public domain)
