Chesterton on birth control/population control: In 1925 Chesterton wrote an introduction to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in which he said that “The answer to anyone who talks about the surplus population is to ask him, whether he is part of the surplus population; or if not, how he knows he is not.”
Would have been interesting to see Dickens insert Chesterton into his short story in order to ask Scrooge that very question. I can only picture Scrooge brushing the question aside, which would result in Chesterton launching into a rather impassioned rebuttal about how he knows many of the unemployed that had to seek out workhouse assistance and/or ended up in debtors’ prison and subsequently precisely outline the circumstances that resulted in good people ending up in those situations, i.e. without excusing the bad.
I love GK.
My favorite:”If there were no God,there would be no atheists”