loved with an undivided heart,
and when he thought of them his thoughts grew harsh towards the rich
who were collectively their oppressors.

I doubt if he allowed enough for the degree of stupidity required to
amass a fortune. He would have agreed that love of money narrowed the
mind: I doubt if he fully grasped that only a mind already narrow can
love money so exclusively as to pursue it successfully. And I am
pretty sure he did not allow enough for the fact that rich like poor
are caught today in the machinery they have created. He saw the
bewildered, confused labourer who has lost his liberty: he failed to
see the politician also bewildered, the millionaire also confused,
afraid to let go for fear he might be submerged. And yet at moments
he did see it. He wrote in the paper a short series of articles on
men of the nineteenth century who had created the confusion of today;
on Malthus, Adam Smith and Darwin. Far from its being true that
supernatural religion had first been destroyed and morality lost in
consequence, it had been the Christian morality that was first
destroyed in the mind. G.K. summarised Adam Smith's teachings as:
"God so made the world that He could achieve the good if men were
sufficiently greedy for the goods." Thus the man of today "whenever
he is tempted to be selfish half remembers Smith and self-interest.
Whenever he would harden his heart against a beggar, he half
remembers Malthus and a book about population; whenever he has
scruples about crushing a rival he half remembers Darwin and his
scruples become unscientific." Because none of these theories were in
their own day seen as heresies and denounced as heresies they have
lived on vaguely to poison the atmosphere and the mind of today.

English Conservatives had been shocked when Chesterton began: Mr.
Nickerson was shocked when he was ending: because he demanded a
revolution. Surely, Mr. Nickerson said, if he looked at Communism
closely he would prefer Capitalism. He not only would, he constantly
said he did. But he wanted a Revolution from both: he preferred that
it should not be "nasty" for what he wanted was the Christian
Revolution. Like all revolutions however it must begin in the mind
and he felt less and less hopeful as he watched that blank space.

But I do not believe that Chesterton failed because he had not at his
command the weapon of hatred. Here Belloc surely makes the same
mistake that Swift (whom he instances) made and for