# Liberal conviction and the practical man

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH04.P001](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P001/#char=1303,1395): "I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals."

The distinction continues an argument already made in *Heretics* (first published 1905). In its concluding chapter Chesterton says that Liberals once accepted Liberalism as an obvious truth but, after its principles were challenged, held it more fiercely as a faith. Earlier in the same chapter he reverses the supposed opposition between the practical businessman and the dangerous idealist: men unused to examining ideas can surrender to whichever vision happens to attract them, including Cecil Rhodes’s imperial vision. The businessman is therefore no impartial judge of the office-boy’s ideals. See [*Heretics*, chapter XX](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/470), paragraphs beginning “There are people, however, who dig somewhat deeper” and “Truths turn into dogmas.”

Read against that argument, losing confidence in Liberals means becoming more exacting about the relation between principles and their political representatives. It does not itself announce the abandonment of democratic Liberalism. That distinction gives the nursery philosophy which follows its opening warrant: growing older can expose the inadequacy of supposedly practical authorities while strengthening convictions acquired in childhood. The inspected *Heretics* witness is Gutenberg #470, explicitly derived from John Lane’s twelfth edition (1919); its wording has not here been collated against the 1905 first edition.

## Sources

- [G. K. Chesterton, Heretics (1905), Gutenberg #470, derived from the twelfth edition (1919)](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/470), XX, Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy; paragraphs beginning ‘There are people, however, who dig somewhat deeper’ and ‘Truths turn into dogmas’; Source statement

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