main problem for philosophers, and is in a manner the main problem of
this book. How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and
yet at home in it? How can this queer cosmic town, with its many-legged
citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give
us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour
of being our own town? To show that a faith or a philosophy is true from
every standpoint would be too big an undertaking even for a much bigger
book than this; it is necessary to follow one path of argument; and this
is the path that I here propose to follow. I wish to set forth my faith
as particularly answering this double spiritual need, the need for that
mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar which Christendom has rightly
named romance. For the very word "romance" has in it the mystery and
ancient meaning of Rome. Any one setting out to dispute anything ought
always to begin by saying what he does not dispute. Beyond stating what
he proposes to prove he should always state what he does not propose to
prove. The thing I do not propose to prove, the thing I propose to take
as common ground between myself and any average reader, is this
desirability of an active and imaginative life, picturesque and full of
a poetical curiosity, a life such as western man at any rate always
seems to have desired. If a man says that extinction is better than
existence or blank existence better than variety and adventure, then he
is not one of the ordinary people to whom I am talking. If a man prefers
nothing I can give him nothing. But nearly all people I have ever met in
this western society in which I live would agree to the general
proposition that we need this life of practical romance; the combination
of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so
to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of
welcome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being
merely comfortable. It is _this_ achievement of my creed that I shall
chiefly pursue in these pages.