{
  "id": "CH04.P005",
  "oid": 70,
  "kind": "paragraph",
  "label": null,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "work_metadata": {
    "title": "Orthodoxy",
    "authors": [
      "G. K. Chesterton"
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    "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"
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  "prev": "CH04.P004",
  "next": "CH04.P006",
  "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P005",
  "text": "I have first to say, therefore, that if I have had a bias, it was always a bias in favour of democracy, and therefore of tradition. Before we come to any theoretic or logical beginnings I am content to allow for that personal equation; I have always been more inclined to believe the ruck of hard-working people than to believe that special and troublesome literary class to which I belong. I prefer even the fancies and prejudices of the people who see life from the inside to the clearest demonstrations of the people who see life from the outside. I would always trust the old wives' fables against the old maids' facts. As long as wit is mother wit it can be as wild as it pleases.",
  "length_cp": 685,
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      "revision_oid": 165067,
      "created_at": "2026-11-07T16:59:22Z",
      "updated_at": "2026-11-07T16:59:22Z",
      "title": "Giving 'old wives’ fables' a new hearing",
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      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "anchors": [
        {
          "unit": "CH04.P005",
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          "paragraph": "CH04.P005",
          "exact": "I would always trust the old wives' fables against the old maids' facts.",
          "start": 551,
          "end": 623,
          "prefix": " who see life from the outside. ",
          "suffix": " As long as wit is mother wit it",
          "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P005#char=551,623"
        }
      ],
      "metadata": {
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        "paragraph_investigator": "P005",
        "task": [
          {
            "approach": "Biblical references",
            "question": "Does 'old wives’ fables' recall 1 Timothy 4:7, and what changes when Chesterton gives that phrase a favourable meaning?"
          },
          {
            "approach": "Assumed knowledge and unusual language",
            "question": "How does the concluding language of wives, maids and mother wit prepare the chapter’s appeal to nurses and nursery tales?"
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      "updated_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z",
      "title": "A world that might not have been: wonder, gratitude, and the discipline of joy",
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        "task": "Developing argument of chapter IV, The Ethics of Elfland",
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