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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Chesterton boils democracy down to one ideal. What is this?
(a) Only a man can rule himself.
(b) Individual beliefs take precedence over societal concerns.
(c) Man's ability to rule himself extends only to the limit that he does not violate cultural mores.
(d) The most important things must be done by individuals.

2. How does Chesterton feel about the book Orthodoxy once it is completed?
(a) It is not perfect but he's happy.
(b) He wants to write a sequel.
(c) He would never read it.
(d) He is very proud of it.

3. What does Chesterton say concerning the boundaries of the will?
(a) The will defines a man's actions fully.
(b) The will frees a man.
(c) The will has boundaries only if it is not a free action.
(d) The will is limiting to the man.

4. What does Chesterton assume as common ground between him and any reader?
(a) The desire for an imaginative, interesting life.
(b) The desire for religious answers.
(c) The presumption that Christianity is right.
(d) The presumption of skepticism toward religion.

5. What problem, according to Chesterton, is the central issue in the book?
(a) Being simultaneously surprised by and at home in the world.
(b) Defending tradition in the face of unnecessary change.
(c) Constantly seeking the new idea.
(d) Showing, through every facet, that the Christian faith is true.

6. How does Chesterton define tradition in political terms?
(a) Defining the past as an oligarchy.
(b) Allowing one's ancestors to vote.
(c) Defining the past as a democracy that is long gone.
(d) Thinking of one's ancestors as kings.

7. In Chapter One, what has Christianity named the mixture of the well-known and the unknown?
(a) Romance.
(b) Mystery.
(c) Incarnation.
(d) Transubstantiation.

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

9. What does Bernard Shaw assert about the idea of choice?
(a) Choice has replaced happiness as the standard of desire in a man's life.
(b) Choice was an effective contrivance in past ages but not in the modern age.
(c) Choice has replaced free will as the standard of desire in a man's life.
(d) Choice has little effect in a man's philosophical thinking.

10. How does Chesterton describe a madman's reasoning?
(a) As an infinite line.
(b) As a tangle of threads.
(c) As a small, perfect circle.
(d) As a precise box.

11. Who does Chesterton name as the only great English poet to go mad?
(a) Dryden.
(b) Poe.
(c) Cowper.
(d) Shakespeare.

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

13. According to Chesterton in Chapter Two, what is comparable to curing a madman?
(a) Arguing with a learned philosopher.
(b) Tilting the earth on its axis.
(c) Casting out a demon.
(d) Shifting the foundations of the sea.

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 are never properly appreciated.
(c) They end up in insane asylums.
(d) They have difficulty maintaining that belief.

15. Why does Chesterton not claim this new-found philosophy as his own?
(a) He did not really find or invent it.
(b) He is too modest to claim his own work.
(c) It belongs to God and humanity.
(d) It is a way of living rather than a philosophy.

Short Answer Questions

1. In fairy tales and fiction, what change does Chesterton name that makes the stories monotonous?

2. According to Chesterton, when is a disease beautiful?

3. How does today's skeptic compare to the skeptic of the French Revolution, according to Chesterton?

4. Why does Chesterton think that materialism is much narrower than Christianity?

5. As the reader can infer from the beginning of Chapter Two, what is Hanwell?

(see the answer keys)

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