Chesterton's Intuition

Chesterton - "There are no bad things, but only bad uses of things. If you will, there are no bad things but only bad thoughts; and especially bad intentions ... but it is possible to have bad intentions about good things; and good things, like the world and the flesh, have been twisted by a bad intention called the devil. But the devil cannot make things bad; they remain as on the first day of creation. The work of heaven alone is material - the making of a material world. The work of hell is entirely spiritual."

According to Simon Leys, it was 'poetry that finally preserved (Chesterton's) sanity. For the gift of the poet (which is also the gift of a child) is an ability to connect with the real world, to look at things with rapt attention. Both the poet and the child are blessed with what Chesterton called "the mystical minimum": the awareness that things are - full stop. "If a thing is nothing else, that is good; it is - and that is good."

Christianity, Simon says, 'has reversed the old Platonic belief that matter is evil and immaterial spirits are good.'

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