the theory incarnate in Father Brown, that he who can
read the human soul knows all things. The detestation of science (of
which, one gathers, Chesterton knows nothing) is carried to the same
absurd length as in _The Ball and the Cross_. In the very first story,
Father Brown calls on a criminologist ostensibly in order to consult
him, actually in order to show the unfortunate man, who had retired from
business fourteen years ago, what an extraordinary fool he was.

The Father Brown of these stories--moon-faced little man--is a peculiar
creation. No other author would have taken the trouble to excogitate
him, and then treat him so badly. As a detective he never gets a fair
chance. He is always on the spot when a murder is due to be committed,
generally speaking he is there before time. When an absconding banker
commits suicide under peculiar circumstances in Italian mountains, when
a French publicist advertises himself by fighting duels with himself
(very nearly), when a murder is committed in the dressing-room corridor
of a theatre, when a miser and blackmailer kills himself, when a lunatic
admiral attempts murder and then commits suicide, when amid much
incoherence a Voodoo murder takes place, when somebody tries to kill a
colonel by playing on his superstitions (and by other methods), and when
a gentleman commits suicide from envy, Father Brown is always there. One
might almost interpret the Father Brown stories by suggesting that their
author had written them in order to illustrate the sudden impetus given
to murder and suicide by the appearance of a Roman priest.

Here we may suspend our reviews of Chestertonian romance. There remains
yet _The Flying Inn_, which shall be duly considered along with the
other debris of its author. In summing up, it may be said of Chesterton
that at his best he invented new possibilities of romance and a new and
hearty laugh. It may be said of the decadents of the eighteen nineties,
that if their motto wasn't "Let's all go bad," it should have been. So
one may say of Chesterton that if he has not selected "Let's all go mad"
as a text, he should have done. Madness, in the Chestertonian, whatever
it is in the pathological sense, is a defiance of convention, a
loosening of visible bonds in order to show the strength of the
invisible ones; perhaps, as savages are said to regard lunatics with
great respect, holding them to be nearer the Deity than most, so
Chesterton believes of his own ma