THE MATERIALIST.

As an explanation of the world, materialism has
a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality
of the madman's argument; we have a sense of it
covering everything and the sense of it leaving
everything out. Contemplate some able and
sincere materialist, as, for instance Mr McCabe
[a noted anti-Christian rationalist of his day],
and you will have exactly this unique sensation.

He understands everything, and everything does
not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may
be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, but still
his cosmos is smaller than our world. Somehow
his scheme, like the lucid scheme of the madman,
seems unconscious of the alien energies and the
large indifference of the earth, of fighting peoples
or proud mothers, or first love or fear upon the
sea. The earth is so very large, and the cosmos is
so very small. The cosmos is about the smallest
hole that a man can hide his head in.

GK Chesterton (1874-1936) from his book
"Orthodoxy", published 1908.