{ "id": "CH09.P016", "oid": 236, "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": "CH09", "ancestors": [ "CH09" ], "prev": "CH09.P015", "next": "CH09.P017", "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH09.P016", "text": "As a common-sense conclusion, such as those to which we come about sex or about midnight (well knowing that many details must in their own nature be concealed) I conclude that miracles do happen. I am forced to it by a conspiracy of facts: the fact that the men who encounter elves or angels are not the mystics and the morbid dreamers, but fishermen, farmers, and all men at once coarse and cautious; the fact that we all know men who testify to spiritualist incidents but are not spiritualists; the fact that science itself admits such things more and more every day. Science will even admit the Ascension if you call it Levitation, and will very likely admit the Resurrection when it has thought of another word for it. I suggest the Regalvanisation. But the strongest of all is the dilemma above mentioned, that these supernatural things are never denied except on the basis either of anti-democracy or of materialist dogmatism--I may say materialist mysticism. The sceptic always takes one of the two positions; either an ordinary man need not be believed, or an extraordinary event must not be believed. For I hope we may dismiss the argument against wonders attempted in the mere recapitulation of frauds, of swindling mediums or trick miracles. That is not an argument at all, good or bad. A false ghost disproves the reality of ghosts exactly as much as a forged banknote disproves the existence of the Bank of England--if anything, it proves its existence.", "length_cp": 1466, "sha256": "034f8a9ee8b52da17da6b7dc95f1c2d0ef4f053354c115bb2dab9b1eebcf7360", "children": [], "annotations": [ { "id": "a_c74wzwmg", "oid": 165650, "revision": 1, "revision_oid": 165651, "created_at": "2026-11-07T18:51:18Z", "updated_at": "2026-11-07T18:51:18Z", "title": "What a false ghost can and cannot show", "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "anchors": [ { "unit": "CH09.P016", "oid": 236, "role": null, "edition": "pg16769-r1", "paragraph": "CH09.P016", "exact": "A false ghost disproves the reality of ghosts exactly as much as a forged banknote disproves the existence of the Bank of England", "start": 1298, "end": 1427, "prefix": "n argument at all, good or bad. ", "suffix": "--if anything, it proves its exi", "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH09.P016#char=1298,1427" } ], "metadata": { "run": "chapter-09-restart-2026-11-07", "paragraph_investigator": "P016", "task": [ { "approach": "Interlocutors and historical debates", "question": "What scientific testimony makes the reference to levitation intelligible, and what did that testimony claim?" }, { "approach": "Philosophical contextualization: then and since", "question": "What can exposed fraud establish about other reports, and does a counterfeit require a real original?" } ], "model": "gpt-6.1-sol" }, "url": "/a/a_c74wzwmg" }, { "id": "a_uglfbwex", "oid": 165648, "revision": 1, "revision_oid": 165649, "created_at": "2026-11-07T18:51:18Z", "updated_at": "2026-11-07T18:51:18Z", "title": "Levitation as a scientific claim", "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "anchors": [ { "unit": "CH09.P016", "oid": 236, "role": null, "edition": "pg16769-r1", "paragraph": "CH09.P016", "exact": "Science will even admit the Ascension if you call it Levitation", "start": 570, "end": 633, "prefix": "things more and more every day. ", "suffix": ", and will very likely admit the", "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH09.P016#char=570,633" } ], "metadata": { "run": "chapter-09-restart-2026-11-07", "paragraph_investigator": "P016", "task": [ { "approach": "Interlocutors and historical debates", "question": "What scientific testimony makes the reference to levitation intelligible, and what did that testimony claim?" }, { "approach": "Philosophical contextualization: then and since", "question": "What can exposed fraud establish about other reports, and does a counterfeit require a real original?" } ], "model": "gpt-6.1-sol" }, "url": "/a/a_uglfbwex" } ], "annotations_next_cursor": null, "cited_by": [ { "id": "a_5hvc6pyt", "oid": 165710, "revision": 1, "revision_oid": 165711, "created_at": "2026-11-07T19:11:19Z", "updated_at": "2026-11-07T19:11:19Z", "title": "A home large enough for discovery: the developing argument of Orthodoxy", "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "anchors": [ { "scope": "work", "role": null, "edition": "pg16769-r1", "oid": 2, "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1" } ], "metadata": { "run": "argument-articles-restart-2026-11-07", "pass": "argument", "task": "Developing argument of the whole of Orthodoxy", "object": "BOOK", "model": "gpt-6.1-sol" }, "url": "/a/a_5hvc6pyt" }, { "id": "a_x37jsdlc", "oid": 165708, "revision": 1, "revision_oid": 165709, "created_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z", "updated_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z", "title": "Learning to trust the garden: authority, evidence, and the recovery of joy", "work": "orthodoxy", "edition": "pg16769-r1", "anchors": [ { "unit": "CH09", "oid": 12, "role": null, "edition": "pg16769-r1", "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH09" } ], "metadata": { "run": "argument-articles-restart-2026-11-07", "pass": "argument", "task": "Developing argument of chapter IX, Authority and the Adventurer", "object": "CH09", "model": "gpt-6.1-sol" }, "url": "/a/a_x37jsdlc" } ], "cited_by_next_cursor": null }