The Everlasting Man

Chesterton begins his second chapter with the statement that “Science is weak about these prehistoric things” (61), setting the stage for the argument that will follow: as much stock and trust that we put in scientific inquiry, history is simply not the kind of thing that can be studied in that empirically verifiable manner to which we might like to set it up. It is not like chemistry, nor physics, nor biology—sciences in which knowledge advances through empirically verifiable data and experiments that can be replicated and proven to be either true or false. Because of this, history is vulnerable to misinterpretation, to mistranslation, to preconceived notions and biases. Chesterton’s principal argument is that the history of humankind has been subject to a gross misinterpretation due to a lack of objectivity and the existence of certain preconceived notions illogically carried over from the theory of evolution and applied to the progress of humanity.

Rather than seeing history progress in a straight line from humble, irrational, and uncivilized beginnings, we should view history rather as an undulating vector, progressing and regressing at various intervals based on time, culture, place, and circumstances. This means that contrary to popular belief, “the prehistoric period need not mean the primitive period, in the sense of the barbaric or bestial period” (68-69).