“But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy.  This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period.  General theories are everywhere contemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man.  Atheism itself is too ideological for us today.  Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint.  We will have no generalizations.  Mr Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram:  ‘The golden rule is that there is no golden rule.’  We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature.  A man’s opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter.  He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost.  Everything matters – except everything.

But there are some people, nevertheless – I am one of them – who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe.  We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy.  We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy’s numbers, but still more important to know the enemy’s philosophy.  We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether, in the long run, anything else affects them.

Neither in the world of politics nor that of literature, then, has the rejection of general theories proved a success.  It may be that there have been many moonstruck and misleading ideals that have from time to time perplexed mankind.  But assuredly there has been no ideal in practice so moonstruck and misleading as the ideal of practicality.  Nothing has lost so many opportunities as the opportunism of Lord Rosebury.  He is indeed, a standing symbol of this epoch – the man who is theoretically a practical man, and practically more unpractical than any theorist.  Nothing in this universe is so unwise as that kind of worship of worldly wisdom.  A man who is perpetually thinking of whether this race or that race is strong, of whether this cause or that cause is promising, is the man who will never believe in anything long enough to make it succeed.  The opportunist politician is like a man who should abandon billiards because he was beaten at billiards, and abandon golf because he was beaten at golf.  There is nothing which is so weak for working purposes as this enormous importance attached to immediate victory.  There is nothing that fails like success.

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamppost, which many influential persons desire to pull down.  A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached on 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 lamppost, the lamppost is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmedieval practicality.  But as things go on they do not work out so easily.  Some people have pulled the lamppost 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 not enough of a lamppost, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they 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 a 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 the gas lamp, we must now discuss in the dark.”

G.K. Chesterton, Heretics