uestions. For instance, I have
known a man ask seriously, "Does Democracy help the Empire?" Which is
like saying, "Is art favourable to frescoes?"

I say that there are many such questions asked. But if the world
ever runs short of them, I can suggest a large number of questions of
precisely the same kind, based on precisely the same principle.

"Do Feet Improve Boots?"--"Is Bread Better when Eaten?"--"Should
Hats have Heads in them?"--"Do People Spoil a Town?"--"Do Walls
Ruin Wall-papers?"--"Should Neckties enclose Necks?"--"Do Hands Hurt
Walking-sticks?"--"Does Burning Destroy Firewood?"--"Is Cleanliness Good
for Soap?"--"Can Cricket Really Improve Cricket-bats?"--"Shall We Take
Brides with our Wedding Rings?" and a hundred others.

Not one of these questions differs at all in intellectual purport or in
intellectual value from the question which I have quoted from the
purple poster, or from any of the typical questions asked by half of the
earnest economists of our times. All the questions they ask are of this
character; they are all tinged with this same initial absurdity. They do
not ask if the means is suited to the end; they all ask (with profound
and penetrating scepticism) if the end is suited to the means. They do
not ask whether the tail suits the dog. They all ask whether a dog is
(by the highest artistic canons) the most ornamental appendage that can
be put at the end of a tail. In short, instead of asking whether our
modern arrangements, our streets, trades, bargains, laws, and concrete
institutions are suited to the primal and permanent idea of a healthy
human life, they never admit that healthy human life into the discussion
at all, except suddenly and accidentally at odd moments; and then they
only ask whether that healthy human life is suited to our streets and
trades. Perfection may be attainable or unattainable as an end. It may
or may not be possible to talk of imperfection as a means to perfection.
But surely it passes toleration to talk of perfection as a means to
imperfection. The New Jerusalem may be a reality. It may be a dream. But
surely it is too outrageous to say that the New Jerusalem is a reality
on the road to Birmingham.

.....

This is the most enormous and at the same time the most secret of the
modern tyrannies of materialism. In theory the thing ought to be simple
enough. A really human human being would always put the spiritual
things first. A walking and speaking statue of God