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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. As the reader can infer from the beginning of Chapter Two, what is Hanwell?
(a) An insane asylum.
(b) A hospital.
(c) A prestigious church.
(d) The author's neighborhood.

2. According to Chesterton, what effect does the moralists' attitude have on the cosmos?
(a) Fairy tales cannot explain the cosmos.
(b) God has no part in the cosmos or its creation.
(c) There can never be anything interesting.
(d) There are exciting possibilities.

3. What does Chesterton name as the chief pleasure?
(a) Money.
(b) Love.
(c) Security.
(d) Surprise.

4. Why, earlier in Chapter One, does Chesterton tell the story of the sailor?
(a) He is that sailor.
(b) The sailor will appear throughout the book.
(c) To explain his picture of God.
(d) To illustrate his idea of wonder.

5. In Chapter III, The Suicide of Thought, what is the problem with modern philosophers?
(a) They have no hope of finding the answer.
(b) They cannot see the riddle.
(c) They are intellectually lazy.
(d) They cannot find the answer.

6. What examples does Chesterton give of lunatic thinking?
(a) A man conspired against, the King of England, and Jesus Christ.
(b) A lonely woman and her lonely child.
(c) Two competing maggots in a chunk of bread.
(d) A crushed moth and a live one.

7. In Chesterton's story about the sailor, what mistake does the man make?
(a) He does not take enough fresh water.
(b) From the harbor, he sets out in the wrong direction.
(c) He navigates by the sun rather than by the stars.
(d) He thinks England is a new island in the South Seas.

8. What is the title of the essay that H. G. Wells wrote on skepticism?
(a) The Creeds and Hierarchies.
(b) Understanding the Skeptical Mind.
(c) Skepticism from a Philosophical Viewpoint.
(d) Doubts of the Instrument.

9. What does Chesterton say is losing its authority in the modern mind?
(a) Argumentation.
(b) Religion.
(c) Scientific absolutes.
(d) First principles.

10. Who is Mr. Street?
(a) A philosopher who probably opposes Chesterton.
(b) A journalist who first reviewed the book Orthodoxy.
(c) The man most affected by the book.
(d) A character in one of Chesterton's tales.

11. In a person's pursuit for truth, what might happen, according to Chesterton?
(a) He searches for extraordinary truths.
(b) He loses hope that truth exists.
(c) He loses hope that he, a mortal, can ever find the truth.
(d) He finds great, unsearchable truths.

12. What does Chesterton assert as a necessity for the human mind?
(a) Belief in the Christian God.
(b) Some type of religious grounding.
(c) Belief in the power of progress.
(d) Belief in objective truth.

13. What does Chesterton think is the only cure for madness?
(a) Not thinking.
(b) Being isolated.
(c) Shock therapy.
(d) Not feeling.

14. According to Chesterton, at the beginning of Chapter Two, what happens to the men who believe in themselves?
(a) They achieve far more than other men do.
(b) They have difficulty maintaining that belief.
(c) They end up in insane asylums.
(d) They are never properly appreciated.

15. How does today's skeptic compare to the skeptic of the French Revolution, according to Chesterton?
(a) Today's skeptic is not a Jacobin.
(b) Today's skeptic cannot even define what he trusts.
(c) Today's skeptic is a true revolutionary.
(d) Today's skeptic is not nearly so violent.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Chesterton, what characteristics do madmen share with many respected teachers and scientists?

2. "[T]he happiness depended on not doing something which you could at any moment do and which, very often, it was not obvious why you should not do." (Chesterton 2000, pg 215) What is Chesterton's opinion of this condition for happiness?

3. In the same story of the sailor, what is better than discovering a new land?

4. Why does Chesterton say that someone might be entertained by reading the book Orthodoxy?

5. Why does Chesterton say that the Christian virtues have become crazy?

(see the answer keys)

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