What's Wrong with the World G. K. Chesterton Author

There is a popular philosophical joke intended to typify the endless and useless arguments ofphilosophers; I mean the joke about which came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not sure thatproperly understood, it is so futile an inquiry after all. I ... Read more

There is a popular philosophical joke intended to typify the endless and useless arguments ofphilosophers; I mean the joke about which came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not sure thatproperly understood, it is so futile an inquiry after all. I am not concerned here to enter on thosedeep metaphysical and theological differences of which the chicken and egg debate is a frivolous,but a very felicitous, type. The evolutionary materialists are appropriately enough represented in thevision of all things coming from an egg, a dim and monstrous oval germ that had laid itself byaccident. That other supernatural school of thought (to which I personally adhere) would be notunworthily typified in the fancy that this round world of ours is but an egg brooded upon by asacred unbegotten bird; the mystic dove of the prophets. But it is to much humbler functions that Ihere call the awful power of such a distinction. Whether or no the living bird is at the beginning ofour mental chain, it is absolutely necessary that it should be at the end of our mental chain. The birdis the thing to be aimed at-not with a gun, but a life-bestowing wand. What is essential to our rightthinking is this: that the egg and the bird must not be thought of as equal cosmic occurrencesrecurring alternatively forever. They must not become a mere egg and bird pattern, like the egg anddart pattern. One is a means and the other an end; they are in different mental worlds. Leaving thecomplications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only existsto produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. Hemay also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist.Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself. Now our modern politics are full of anoisy forgetfulness; forgetfulness that the production of this happy and conscious life is after all theaim of all complexities and compromises. We talk of nothing but useful men and workinginstitutions; that is, we only think of the chickens as things that will lay more eggs. Instead of seekingto breed our ideal bird, the eagle of Zeus or the Swan of Avon, or whatever we happen to want, wetalk entirely in terms of the process and the embryo. The process itself, divorced from its divineobject, becomes doubtful and even morbid; poison enters the embryo of everything; and our politicsare rotten eggs. Less