{ "id": "CH02.P017", "oid": 35, "kind": "paragraph", "label": null, "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "work_metadata": { "title": "Orthodoxy", "authors": [ "G. K. Chesterton" ], "description": "G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy (1908), his account of how he came to Christian belief: the full text with annotations, cited sources and commentary.", "original_publication_year": 1908, "alternate_titles": [], "subjects": [ "Christian apologetics", "Christianity", "Philosophy of religion", "Paradox", "G. K. Chesterton", "English literature, 20th century" ], "metadata_version": 2, "metadata_updated_at": "2026-11-07T20:29:57Z" }, "parent": "CH02", "ancestors": [ "CH02" ], "prev": "CH02.P016", "next": "CH02.P018", "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH02.P017", "text": "Of course it is not only of the materialist that all this is true. The same would apply to the other extreme of speculative logic. There is a sceptic far more terrible than he who believes that everything began in matter. It is possible to meet the sceptic who believes that everything began in himself. He doubts not the existence of angels or devils, but the existence of men and cows. For him his own friends are a mythology made up by himself. He created his own father and his own mother. This horrible fancy has in it something decidedly attractive to the somewhat mystical egoism of our day. That publisher who thought that men would get on if they believed in themselves, those seekers after the Superman who are always looking for him in the looking-glass, those writers who talk about impressing their personalities instead of creating life for the world, all these people have really only an inch between them and this awful emptiness. Then when this kindly world all round the man has been blackened out like a lie; when friends fade into ghosts, and the foundations of the world fail; then when the man, believing in nothing and in no man, is alone in his own nightmare, then the great individualistic motto shall be written over him in avenging irony. The stars will be only dots in the blackness of his own brain; his mother's face will be only a sketch from his own insane pencil on the walls of his cell. But over his cell shall be written, with dreadful truth, \"He believes in himself.\"", "length_cp": 1504, "sha256": "cccc241472a1dd362656d1305a13bcc26fb806d466587e51e2b1f190b1f0a160", "children": [], "annotations": [ { "id": "a_xs4qr7d4", "oid": 164940, "revision": 1, "revision_oid": 164941, "created_at": "2026-11-07T16:10:56Z", "updated_at": "2026-11-07T16:10:56Z", "title": "The Superman in the mirror", "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "anchors": [ { "unit": "CH02.P017", "oid": 35, "role": null, "edition": "pg16769-r1", "paragraph": "CH02.P017", "exact": "those seekers after the Superman who are always looking for him in the looking-glass", "start": 680, "end": 764, "prefix": "if they believed in themselves, ", "suffix": ", those writers who talk about i", "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH02.P017#char=680,764" } ], "metadata": { "run": "chapter-02-restart-2026-11-07", "paragraph_investigator": "P017", "task": [ { "approach": "Philosophical contextualization: then and since", "question": "What distinguishes the self-created world described here from philosophical immaterialism, particularly Berkeley's account of other minds?" }, { "approach": "Interlocutors and historical debates", "question": "How does the looking-glass Superman compare with Nietzsche's presentation of the ideal, and how precisely can Chesterton's target be identified?" } ], "model": "gpt-6.1-sol" }, "url": "/a/a_xs4qr7d4" }, { "id": "a_k7mmcf2v", "oid": 164938, "revision": 1, "revision_oid": 164939, "created_at": "2026-11-07T16:10:56Z", "updated_at": "2026-11-07T16:10:56Z", "title": "A world made by one mind: the limit of the comparison with idealism", "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "anchors": [ { "unit": "CH02.P017", "oid": 35, "role": null, "edition": "pg16769-r1", "paragraph": "CH02.P017", "exact": "For him his own friends are a mythology made up by himself.", "start": 388, "end": 447, "prefix": " the existence of men and cows. ", "suffix": " He created his own father and h", "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH02.P017#char=388,447" } ], "metadata": { "run": "chapter-02-restart-2026-11-07", "paragraph_investigator": "P017", "task": [ { "approach": "Philosophical contextualization: then and since", "question": "What distinguishes the self-created world described here from philosophical immaterialism, particularly Berkeley's account of other minds?" }, { "approach": "Interlocutors and historical debates", "question": "How does the looking-glass Superman compare with Nietzsche's presentation of the ideal, and how precisely can Chesterton's target be identified?" } ], "model": "gpt-6.1-sol" }, "url": "/a/a_k7mmcf2v" } ], "annotations_next_cursor": null, "cited_by": [ { "id": "a_avnsjprz", "oid": 165694, "revision": 1, "revision_oid": 165695, "created_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z", "updated_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z", "title": "What a complete explanation can leave out", "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "anchors": [ { "unit": "CH02", "oid": 5, "role": null, "edition": "pg16769-r1", "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH02" } ], "metadata": { "run": "argument-articles-restart-2026-11-07", "pass": "argument", "task": "Developing argument of chapter II, The Maniac", "object": "CH02", "model": "gpt-6.1-sol" }, "url": "/a/a_avnsjprz" } ], "cited_by_next_cursor": null }