"G.K.Chesterton. The man who was Thursday. A nightmare (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Syme struck his hands together.
"How true that is," he cried. "I have felt it from my boyhood, but
never could state the verbal antithesis. The common criminal is a bad man,
but at least he is, as it were, a conditional good man. He says that if only
a certain obstacle be removed-- say a wealthy uncle--he is then prepared to
accept the universe and to praise God. He is a reformer, but not an
anarchist. He wishes to cleanse the edifice, but not to destroy it. But the
evil philosopher is not trying to alter things, but to annihilate them. Yes,
the modern world has retained all those parts of police work which are
really oppressive and ignominious, the harrying of the poor, the spying upon
the unfortunate. It has given up its more dignified work, the punishment of
powerful traitors the in the State and powerful heresiarchs in the Church.
The moderns say we must not punish heretics. My only doubt is whether we
have a right to punish anybody else."
"But this is absurd!" cried the policeman, clasping his hands with an
excitement uncommon in persons of his figure and costume, "but it is
intolerable! I don't know what you're doing, but you're wasting your life.
You must, you shall, join our special army against anarchy. Their armies are
on our frontiers. Their bolt is ready to fall. A moment more, and you may
lose the glory of working with us, perhaps the glory of dying with the last
heroes of the world."
"It is a chance not to be missed, certainly," assented Syme, "but still
I do not quite understand. I know as well as anybody that the modern world
is full of lawless little men and mad little movements. But, beastly as they
are, they generally have the one merit of disagreeing with each other. How
can you talk of their leading one army or hurling one bolt. What is this
anarchy?"
"Do not confuse it," replied the constable, "with those chance dynamite
outbreaks from Russia or from Ireland, which are really the outbreaks of
oppressed, if mistaken, men. This is a vast philosophic movement, consisting
of an outer and an inner ring. You might even call the outer ring the laity
and the inner ring the priesthood. I prefer to call the outer ring the
innocent section, the inner ring the supremely guilty section. The outer
ring-- the main mass of their supporters--are merely anarchists; that is,
men who believe that rules and formulas have destroyed human happiness. They
believe that all the evil results of human crime are the results of the
system that has called it crime. They do not believe that the crime creates
the punishment. They believe that the punishment has created the crime. They
believe that if a man seduced seven women he would naturally walk away as
blameless as the flowers of spring. They believe that if a man picked a
pocket he would naturally feel exquisitely good. These I call the innocent
section."
"Oh! " said Syme.
"Naturally, therefore, these people talk about 'a happy time coming';
'the paradise of the future'; 'mankind freed from the bondage of vice and
the bondage of virtue,' and so on. And so also the men of the inner circle
speak--the sacred priesthood. They also speak to applauding crowds of the
happiness of the future, and of mankind freed at last. But in their
mouths"-- and the policeman lowered his voice--"in their mouths these happy
phrases have a horrible meaning. They are under no illusions; they are too