Whence

"பரிபூரண சுத்த சுயம்புவாம் எம் ஹிந்துமதம்" என்று பிதற்றும் முரட்டு பிரஹஸ்பதிகளுக்கும் "எம்மை கபளீகரஞ் செய்ததழித்த சழக்கர்காள்.." என்று அலறும் முயங்கியல் அறியாத முழுமூடர்களுக்கும் நடுவில் சிக்கி உழலும் சுடர்மிகு  அறிவுடை சோதரரே; எம் ஐ  Gilbert Keith Chestretonஐ படிமின். அவர்தம் தெளிவை ருசிமின்.


Excerpts from his collection of essays: Heretics

The primary fact about Christianity and Paganism is that one came after the other.
...........
There is only one thing in the modern world that has been face to face with Paganism; there is only one thing in the modern world which in that sense knows anything about Paganism: and that is Christianity. That fact is really the weak point in the whole of that hedonistic neo-Paganism of which I have spoken. All that genuinely remains of the ancient hymns or the ancient dances of Europe, all that has honestly come to us from the festivals of Phoebus or Pan, is to be found in the festivals of the Christian Church. If any one wants to hold the end of a chain which really goes back to the heathen mysteries, he had better take hold of a festoon of flowers at Easter or a string of sausages at Christmas. Everything else in the modern world is of Christian origin, even everything that seems most anti-Christian. The French Revolution is of Christian origin.........The attack on Christianity is of Christian origin. There is one thing, and one thing only, in existence at the present day which can in any sense accurately be said to be of pagan origin, and that is Christianity.
......

தொகுந்து முயங்கி முன்செல்லும் கலாசார வரலாற்றின் போக்கை இதை விட எளிமையாக சொல்லமுடியும் என்று தோன்றவில்லை.


அதே நேரம் இப்புரிதல்களைக் கொண்டு இன்று நாம் என்ன செய்யலாம்? ஒன்றும் செய்ய இயலாது. புரிந்துகொள்ளலாம், அவ்வளவே.

கறந்தபாலை மடிபுடிகுத்தி, சுத்த ஆதி கலாசார வரலாற்றை மீட்டுருவாக்க முனையும் கோமாளித்தனங்களை அரங்கேற்ற முடியாது. ஏனென்றால் நாம் வாழ்வது இன்று.

Now the old pagan world went perfectly straightforward until it discovered that going straightforward is an enormous mistake. It was nobly and beautifully reasonable, and discovered in its death-pang this lasting and valuable truth, a heritage for the ages, that reasonableness will not do. The pagan age was truly an Eden or golden age, in this essential sense, that it is not to be recovered. And it is not to be recovered in this sense again that, while we are certainly jollier than the pagans, and much more right than the pagans, there is not one of us who can, by the utmost stretch of energy, be so sensible as the pagans. That naked innocence of the intellect cannot be recovered by any man after Christianity; and for this excellent reason, that every man after Christianity knows it to be misleading. Let me take an example, the first that occurs to the mind, of this impossible plainness in the pagan point of view. The greatest tribute to Christianity in the modern world is Tennyson's "Ulysses." The poet reads into the story of Ulysses the conception of an incurable desire to wander. But the real Ulysses does not desire to wander at all. He desires to get home. He displays his heroic and unconquerable qualities in resisting the misfortunes which baulk him; but that is all. There is no love of adventure for its own sake; that is a Christian product. There is no love of Penelope for her own sake; that is a Christian product. Everything in that old world would appear to have been clean and obvious. A good man was a good man; a bad man was a bad man. For this reason they had no charity; for charity is a reverent agnosticism towards the complexity of the soul.


இந்த புஸ்தகம் வெளிவந்தது 1905ல்.


தொன்றே பாடினார் ஞானக்கூத்தன்


வேற்று நாட்டுச் சரக்குகளோடு
உள்ளூர்ச் சரக்கை ஒப்பிட்டால்
தலையில் தலையில் அடித்துக் கொண்டால்
தேவலாம் போல இருக்குது