They had their faults and they made their mistakes; but I do not think that anything is more needed in the modern world than the spirit they had, the spirit of independence, of thrift, of belief that the individual should earn his own living and stand on his own feet, that he should not be swept away into systems which I call systems of servility, what idealistic writers of advertisements call the spirit of service. In other words, there is a great deal in those old writers, and they are well worth reading, the men of that time, Bentham and Mill and the rest, because they believed profoundly in the independence of a man. They were chiefly asserting it against old feudal or episcopal or other schemes with which they disagreed. They did not see the evil against which we have to defend it.
My only purpose this afternoon is to bear my testimony to the fact that there never was a time in the whole history of the human race when it was more necessary to defend the intellectual independence of man than this hour in which we live. (Loud and continued applause.)
The Chairman: I will only just put into words what you have already expressed by your applause, namely, our thanks to Mr. Chesterton for his address. Like most things that Mr. Chesterton does, it was unexpected. I do not suppose that any one of us reading the title of his address was able to forecast at all accurately what he has so brilliantly said, and for that very reason we have all enjoyed it immensely. We thank you very much.
