If it is true that we may be on the edge of a renaissance of heroic humanism, then it should also be the proper time to observe that, in a cultural sense, the word tradition has always carried within itself the weight of two inseparable meanings. The first has a bearing upon all that has been attempted in the unifying of mankind, the breaking down of barriers and the bridging of gulfs; it is international and universal in application; the second meaning relates to the regional and rural tradition which is the source of cultural variety. Culture, like society, is made up of many parts each contributing to the total effect, and Marx’s definition that history is nothing but the progressive transformation of human nature is a reminder of the fact that the transformation which is taking place now is away from all the limitations of nationality towards a world-view which recognises the need for co-operation and the fact of inter-dependence.

If only because of the social influences which bear upon creative artists at the present time, they stand in danger of being carried away on abstract themes which could lead them to forget the homely and common-place factors which shaped them as men. Certainly there are large numbers of writers who must see things whole and who will take little account of parts; yet the pattern of world-culture is made up of regional and national cultures and it is safe to say that the narrower meaning of tradition will retain its attraction for those who are by training and natural aptitude inclined towards it.

However we define genius, power and originality are inseparable from it. A genius often has more faults than the merely talented or competent. But power of thought and expression, and originality (not to be confused with novelty which can be manufactured) are always there. Now in Shaw’s words ‘Chesterton was a man of colossal genius’. Though he had many faults, in power and originality few writers have surpassed him. In some cases genius grows slowly: in others it develops suddenly late in life: in a few cases, such as Mozart, Keats, and Dickens, it emerges at once. Chesterton’s genius, his thought and style, was born complete in his earliest work. It matured; but there was no great increase of power, and the originality of style was there from the start. Perhaps the upheaval that took place in late adolescence, when he entered a period of doubt and depression and emerged triumphant, was the flame that fired the train of his genius; for his work was intimately bound up with his character—unlike so many men of genius whose characters are in pitiable contrast to their work, Chesterton’s mind and work were all of a piece.

The humility and charity and love of life that distinguished him, and impressed all who met him, were integrally one with his work. His humility, his sense of thankfulness for all creation, gave him a clarity of vision that can exist only when the ego is reduced to the fine point needed for sharp focus.

A Writer in the Times Literary Supplement (29 January, 1949) devoted the whole middle page to a study of Hilaire Belloc, and gave sufficient praise to his prose but seemed to think his historical writing of little importance. The writer is generous in his appreciation of Mr Belloc as a man and of much that he stood for: ‘It was an old joke against Mr Belloc that he not only spoke for Europe but he wrote as if he was Europe. Where is the joke now? The Europe he spoke for is shrinking fast, as he warned us. We may still reject his remedies: but Catholics and Protestants both now contemplate with dismay the threat to displace the icons of the Faith for the icons of the Kremlin, the Bible for Das Kapital.’ That is finely said and is worth repeating. He concedes that Mr Belloc had ideas, whether we think them right or wrong, and ‘Ideas are rare and become rarer, especially when they are based on experience, on a strong sense of fact’. That, too, is generously said, and is true. The writing of so many modern historians suggests nothing so much as the regurgitation of sawdust. But, the writer seems to think that Belloc’s History of England, his books on Wolsey, Cranmer and Cromwell are of little account: ‘ (they) have all the thrill that vigour of presentation can give to conviction. Still, they throw more light on their author than on the subject.’ (It is odd that the writer nowhere mentions Belloc’s French Revolution studies).

An avowed and open defence of Distributism is not often seen in the Catholic press, and yet there is in this country a larger number than ever before of convinced distributists, people convinced that our attempt to concentrate on the mass-production of secondary commodities in return for food from abroad, to remain the workshop—or at least one of the workshops—of the world, and to treat the world as our farm and garden is doomed to failure—and indeed to disaster. The time is ripe, then, for a re-examination of distributism as a Catholic thing; but beforehand it will be worth while to look at some recent developments in the non-Catholic sphere. For the situation is very different from the time, forty years ago, when distributists might have been confused with the more or less unpractical followers of William Morris, broadly labelled ‘arts and crafts’. The situation is even very different from that of ten years ago. The theory and application of distributism have not changed but the situation of this country has changed so as to reveal not only the practical nature of this social idea but the necessity of it.