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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Chesterton assume as common ground between him and any reader?
(a) The presumption of skepticism toward religion.
(b) The desire for religious answers.
(c) The desire for an imaginative, interesting life.
(d) The presumption that Christianity is right.

2. What does Bernard Shaw assert about the idea of choice?
(a) Choice has replaced free will as the standard of desire in a man's life.
(b) Choice has replaced happiness as the standard of desire in a man's life.
(c) Choice was an effective contrivance in past ages but not in the modern age.
(d) Choice has little effect in a man's philosophical thinking.

3. Chesterton boils democracy down to one ideal. What is this?
(a) Man's ability to rule himself extends only to the limit that he does not violate cultural mores.
(b) The most important things must be done by individuals.
(c) Only a man can rule himself.
(d) Individual beliefs take precedence over societal concerns.

4. What words does Chesterton prefer when referring to nature?
(a) Necessity, order, tendency.
(b) Charm, spell, enchantment.
(c) Law, necessity, order.
(d) Law, theory, science.

5. What document does Chesterton refer to by the word "orthodoxy"?
(a) The Disciples' Creed.
(b) The Apostles' Creed.
(c) The Athanasian Creed.
(d) The Nicene Creed.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Chesterton end Chapter One?

2. What is the title of Chapter I?

3. How does Chesterton describe a madman's reasoning?

4. In Chapter One, what has Christianity named the mixture of the well-known and the unknown?

5. Why does Chesterton say that the Christian virtues have become crazy?

Short Essay Questions

1. According to Chesterton, the complete skeptic knows that he cannot think anything. How does this differ from the young skeptic? How does the complete skeptic show a true awareness of where he is?

2. Humility is chiefly understood chiefly as a restraint on a man's arrogance and boasting. What is Chesterton's argument concerning humility? What example does he give to illustrate a humble view of the world?

3. What does Chesterton say is the spirit of the law in fairy land? Why is this not inconsistent?

4. In the example of the explorer who only discovers his own land, Chesterton says that his first emotion might be foolishness. This should not be the sole emotion, though. Why does Chesterton name foolishness as the first emotion and how might this fit the religious explorer?

5. Chapter II, The Maniac, begins with the idea that man believing in himself is a weakness. Chesterton asserts this in the face of modern thinking, which says believing in oneself is the strongest way to live. What reasons does Chesterton give for asserting this statement?

6. What role does Mr. G. S. Street play in the book?

7. Chesterton asserts that though the world has its share of evils, the modern virtues actually have a more devastating effect. How does he support this radical idea? What relationship does this have to Christianity?

8. Poetry is the only thing that keeps a man sane, while reason drives him insane. How does Chesterton support this argument, and is it plausible?

9. In Chapter IV, The Ethics of Elfland, what does Chesterton give as the first two principles of democracy? How does he convey a sense of wonder even in these principles?

10. Materialism is a much narrower belief than Christianity, in fact, more than any religion. What reasons does Chesterton give for this? How does it relate to the discussion of madness and sanity?

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