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Abstract

Although Chesterton is not what would normally be considered a systematic thinker, his writings exhibit a marked consistency of thought by means of a series of recurrent images. In order to understand how Chesterton thinks, therefore, it is best to follow these series of images. An examination of the contrasting images he uses to critique as modes of madness both Impressionism in The Man Who Was Thursday and Rationalism in The Flying Inn will demonstrate the validity of this approach to Chesterton. A brief conclusion will argue that epistemological sanity for Chesterton entails three crucial elements: externality, commonality and Christian orthodoxy.

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