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Quote by G.K. Chesterton

“It is the only way I can express in words my clear and definite perception that one thing is quite distinct from another; that there is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs. It is the man who talks about “a law” that he has never seen who is the mystic. Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen birds lay and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none. A forlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love; so the materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide. In both cases there is no connection, except that one has seen them together. A sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because, by a dark association of his own, it reminded him of his boyhood. So the materialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet a sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should not grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country.”

Quote by G.K. Chesterton

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Orthodoxy

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G.K. Chesterton

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“Overview of the Fallacy of Division by Austin Cline In critical thinking, we often come across statements that fall victim to the fallacy of division. This common logical fallacy refers to an attribution placed onto an entire class, assuming that each part has the same property as the whole. These can be physical objects, concepts, or groups of people. By grouping elements of a whole together and assuming that every piece automatically has a certain attribute, we are often stating a false argument. This falls into the category of a fallacy of grammatical analogy. It can apply to many arguments and statements we make, including the debate over religious beliefs. The fallacy of division is similar to the fallacy of composition but in reverse. This fallacy involves someone taking an attribute of a whole or a class and assuming that it must also necessarily be true of each part or member. The fallacy of division takes the form of: X has property P. Therefore, all parts (or members) of X have this property P. Here are some obvious examples of the Fallacy of Division: The United States is the richest country in the world. Therefore, everyone in the United States must be rich and live well. [So pointing out one poor American does not refute the proposition that the United States is a rich country.]”

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“Chesterton's topic is nothing less than the fundamental contrast between deductive logic, true of all possible worlds, and inductive logic, capable only of telling us how we may reasonably expect this world to behave. Let us hasten to add that Chesterton's analysis is in full agreement with the views of modern logicians. Perhaps his "test of the imagination" is not strictly accurate--who can "imagine" the four-dimensional constructions of relativity?-but in essence his position is unassailable. Logical and mathematical statements are true by definition. They are "empty tautologies," to use a current phrase, like the impressive maxim that there are always six eggs in half a dozen. Nature, on the other hand, is under no similar constraints. Fortunately, her "weird repetitions," as GK calls them, often conform to surprisingly low-order equations. But as Hume and others before Hume made clear, there is no logical reason why she should behave so politely.”