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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why does Chesterton say that a man is bewildered when asked to summarize his belief in something?
(a) If he has no evidence for his belief other than his desire to believe.
(b) If everything he knows supports that belief.
(c) If he has only scattered evidence for that belief.
(d) If he must defend it to people who oppose him.

2. Chesterton names four standards by which people try to establish the ideals of equality and inequality. What is the first?
(a) God-given authority.
(b) Persuasive thinking, similar to Nietzsche's.
(c) The passage of time.
(d) The progression of creatures through evolution.

3. What reason does Chesterton give for the idea that love craves personality?
(a) Love desire reciprocation.
(b) Love desires difference and division.
(c) Love desires a human object.
(d) Love desires human quirks, including problems.

4. Why does Chesterton say that any discussion about the creation/sustaining principle in the world must be metaphorical?
(a) Because man can never prove the principle.
(b) Because it relates to God.
(c) Because man cannot truly understand creation.
(d) Because it is necessarily verbal.

5. According to Chesterton, what is the problem with moving slowly toward justice?
(a) People cannot make just decisions in a large amount of time.
(b) It does not allow a man to move swiftly toward a better state of things.
(c) The definition of justice changes too often in that time.
(d) A man will only be able to act on old ideas.

Short Answer Questions

1. What definition does Chesterton find BEST for optimist and pessimist?

2. What is Chesterton's second criterion for progress?

3. Why does Chesterton call suicide the greatest sin?

4. After studying the attacks on Christianity, what did Chesterton conclude?

5. Why did a typical nineteenth-century man not believe in Christ's resurrection, according to Chesterton?

Short Essay Questions

1. What nearly persuaded Chesterton to become a Christian? Why was this thought frightening?

2. Why did Chesterton begin to question the attacks on Christianity? What did he find as he questioned?

3. If Nature does improve man through impersonal means, as Chesterton claims, what must happen? What is happening in reality?

4. What are the pagan and Christian view of virtue? What is Chesterton's view of them?

5. How do Eastern and Western religions differ in their understanding of seclusion in worship, according to Chesterton? How does this affect their sense of community?

6. Why are liberals not free thinkers? What argument is made in Chapter VIII, The Romance of Orthodoxy, about confusion within language?

7. At the end of Chapter V, The Flag of the World, what transformation does Chesterton describe? How did the transformation address his question of optimism and pessimism?

8. What is the common view of Christianity and Buddhism, according to Chesterton? How are they similar and dissimilar? What is Chesterton's opinion of their differences?

9. As Chesterton argues, why does love seek individuality and personality? Is this true only in relation to man or also in relation to God?

10. What does Chesterton say is the most sensible ideal for nature? Is this a valid ideal? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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