G K Chesterton

What's Wrong with the World G K Chesterton

The fallacy is one of the fifty fallacies that come from the modern madness forbiological or bodily metaphors. It is convenient to speak of the Social Organism, justas it is convenient to speak of the British Lion. But Britain is no more an organismthan Britain is a lion. The moment we begin to give a nation the unity and simplicityof an animal, we begin to think wildly. Because every man is a biped, fifty men arenot a centipede. This has produced, for instance, the gaping absurdity ofperpetually talking about "young nations" and "dying nations," as if a nation had afixed and physical span of life. Thus people will say that Spain has entered a finalsenility; they might as well say that Spain is losing all her teeth. Or people will saythat Canada should soon produce a literature; which is like saying that Canada mustsoon grow a new moustache. Nations consist of people; the first generation may bedecrepit, or the ten thousandth may be vigorous. Similar applications of the fallacyare made by those who see in the increasing size of national possessions, a simpleincrease in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. These people, indeed, even fall short in subtlety of the parallel of a human body. They do not evenask whether an empire is growing taller in its youth, or only growing fatter in its oldage. But of all the instances of error arising from this physical fancy, the worst isthat we have before us: the habit of exhaustively describing a social sickness, andthen propounding a social drug