Chesterton: "Mysticism Keeps Men Sane"

Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight:  he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand... The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious and everything else becomes lucid... A symbol from physical nature will express sufficiently well the real place of mysticism before mankind. The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything.   G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Chesterton: The Meaning Of Love

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/02/chesterton-meaning-of-love.html

G.K. Chesterton: "The Anarchy of The Rich"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/10/gk-chesterton-anarchy-of-rich.html

G.K. Chesterton and Warren Buffett's Class War

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/01/gk-chesterton-and-warren-buffetts-class.html

Chesterton Viewed The Rich As "Oppressive" "Scum" And Failures

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/chesterton-considered-rich-oppressive.html

G.K. Chesterton On Charity, Hope And Universal Salvation

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/10/chesterton-on-charity-and-universal.html

G.K. Chesterton Quotations... And More

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/12/chesterton-quotations.html

Pax On Both Houses: Compendium Of G.K. Chesterton Posts

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/10/pax-on-both-houses-gk-chesterton-posts.html

GK Chesterton's Universalism

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/02/gk-chestertons-universalism-by-edward-t.html

The Rich Are The Real Anarchists And Sully The World With Their Scum

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/02/chesterton-considered-rich-real.html

Chesterton Considered The Rich "Oppressive" "Scum" And "Failures"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/chesterton-considered-rich-oppressive.html

Chesterton: Many Books Denouse Lust But What Of Those That Encourage Greed?

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/02/chesterton-plenty-of-books-denounce.html

Chesterton Calls For A New Kind Of Priesthood

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/02/chestertons-call-for-new-kind-of.html

Why Fairy Tales Are More Than True

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/02/chesterton-why-fairy-tales-are-more.html