Humility was largely meant as a restraint upon the arrogance and infinity
of the appetite of man. He was always outstripping his mercies with his own newly invented needs. His very power of enjoyment destroyed half his
joys. By asking for pleasure, he lost the chief pleasure; for the chief pleasure is surprise. Hence it became evident that if a man would make his
world large, he must be always making himself small. Even the haughty visions, the tall cities, and the toppling pinnacles are the creations of
humility. Giants that tread down forests like grass are the creations of humility. Towers that vanish upwards above the loneliest star are the
creations of humility. For towers are not tall unless we look up at them; and giants are not giants unless they are larger than we. All this
gigantesque imagination, which is, perhaps, the mightiest of the pleasures of man, is at bottom entirely humble. It is impossible without humility to
enjoy anything—even pride. But what we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has
settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the
truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert—himself. The
part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt—the Divine Reason. Huxley preached a humility content to learn from Nature. But the
new sceptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical
of our time. The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility
than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented
him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a
man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.
Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here.
Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.
Musings on science, the Bible, and fantastic literature (and sometimes basketball and other stuff).
God speaks to us through the Bible and the findings of science, and we should listen to both types of revelation.
The title is from Psalm 84:11.
The Wikipedia is usually a pretty good reference. I mostly use the World English Bible (WEB), because it is public domain. I am grateful.
License
I have written an e-book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which is free to anyone. To download that book, in several formats, go here.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
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