Darwin and Marx

“WHAT Darwin had supplied to Materialism in biology, Marx supplied to it in sociology; and the two combined not to form as causes but to present as symptoms, the common Materialism which in the later XIXth century was to sweep over the cultivated mind of Europe.”

~Hilaire Belloc: The Crisis of Civilization

Economic freedom

“OUR fathers rightly thought of a free society as being made up of men economically free. One can only be fully free if he owns the means by which one lives. These owners who made up the bulk of the old society, before Industrial capitalism and Big business arrived, were what we call today “small owners.”

~Hilaire Belloc: The Way Out.

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"The Catholic philosophy"

“INDEED, to our race, save when it is trained in the Catholic philosophy, wealth and power appear as being almost self-evidently the objects of life. St. Thomas has discussed that illusion in his famous question: “Whether money be the main good?” and all men not caring to pursue the reasoning to its conclusion, answer “Yes.” Even where the Faith is preserved men pursue wealth and power inordinately. Where the Faith is lost they pursue nothing else.”

~Hilaire Belloc: Survivals and New Arrivals.

"Democracy is the noblest form of government”

“DEMOCRACY, that is government of the community by the community: a state wherein a man stands equal with his fellows, and has to suffer neither subservience nor the corruption of flattery and power; a state in which office alone commands, and not the being clothed with office—that is the ideal at the back of every man’s mind who cares for right in public affairs, and who has within himself anything left of private honor. It is simplest put by saying that democracy is the noblest form of government.”

~Hilaire Belloc: The Cruise of the "Nona"

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The Sailor's Carol

The Sailor─

"Noël ! Noël ! Noël ! Noël !

A Catholic tale have I to tell !

And a Christian song have I to sing

While all the bells in Arundel ring.

"I pray good beef and I pray good beer

This holy night of all the year,

But I pay detestable drink for them

That give no honour to Bethlehem.

"May all good fellows that here agree

Drink Audit Ale in heaven with me

And may all my enemies go to hell!

Noël ! Noël ! Noël ! Noël !

May all my enemies go to hell !

Noël ! Noël !"

~Hilaire Belloc: from The Four Men: A Farrago

"His remark has no intellectual value"

“WHEN a man tells you that it “stands to reason” that such and such a thing, to which he is unaccustomed, cannot have taken place, his remark has no intellectual value whatever.”

~Hilaire Belloc: Essays of a Catholic.

Poem: December

Hoar Time about the house betakes him slow, 
Seeking an entry for his weariness; 
And in that dreadful company Distress 
And the sad Night with silent footsteps go. 
On my poor fire the brands are scarce aglow, 
And in the woods without what memories press; 
Where, waning in the trees from less to less, 
Mysterious bangs the hornèd moon, and low. 

For now December, full of aged care, 
Comes in upon the yea and weakly grieves, 
Mumbling his lost desires and his despair; 
And with mad trembling hand still interweaves 
The dank sear flower-stalks tangled in his hair, 
While round about him whirl the rotten leaves.

~Hilaire Belloc

Photo: Hilaire Belloc, at his home in King's Land, Shipley, West Sussex.