Name: The Everlasting Man
ISBN: 9781504064927

The Everlasting Man

The Everlasting Man is inspired by H. G. Wells’ The Outline of History, which explains the history of mankind and religion as solely a product of natural selection and other material causes. In contrast, G. K. Chesterton presents the case for Christianity throughout history, by illustrating firstly, the uniqueness of man amongst the animals, and secondly, the uniqueness of Christ and the Church amongst other religions and philosophies. Written in Chesterton’s typical style, already familiar to readers of Orthodoxy and Heretics, and ripe with humor and symbolism, The Everlasting Man doesn’t aim to be a scholarly history treatise. Rather, like the title of Wells’ work, Chesterton merely presents us his outline of history. It is in this outline that his Christian, specifically Catholic, perspective contrasts with secular views common in modern times.

What Hacker News says

flanked-everglSep 2025

I don't really enjoy the fiction of C. S. Lewis at all, really, and even G. K. Chesterton's fiction is not that good, it feels very contrived and it feels like preaching to the choir. As part of the choir there is a lot I agree with, but I don't quite get the point of his fiction.

But Chesterton's non-fiction books, The Everlasting Man, Orthodoxy, What's Wrong With the World and Heretics are some of the best and most insightful books I have ever read, and they really took me by surprise because I did not expect them to be what they are. They are full of speculation, and misunderstandings, but they are also full of very deep insights into humanity.

I do, however, think the fiction of Tolkien is historic and unsurpassed, nothing written since really comes close IMO.

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flanked-everglJun 2025

I have taken boatloads of psychedelics in my life. If I could do my life over again I would have traded every single trip for having read Orthodoxy and the Everlasting Man by Chesterton before I was 25. Tripping gives you zero insights into the divine, it is not revelation, you don't get closer to God. There are real answers, but we as civilization have been deliberately moving away from under false premises, and the world has gotten worse and worse. Drugs can't fix this. If you want a better world, you should not dull your perception of it.

Something that would be much more beneficial for all humanity is if more of the clergy actually preached the bible, instead of trying to explain it away, which is almost exclusively what the clergy I have engaged with tries to do.

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gwdNov 2024

OK, I think I see what you meant: Not that the "misnomer" arose in the Victorian era, but that the Victorian era was the last era in which you would expect to encounter this "misnomer".

As a counterpoint, I recommend reading Everlasting Man, by G. K. Chesterton. If humans are just animals, they're the most bizarre animal we've ever seen.

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eYrKEC2Oct 2024

The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton.

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svieiraNov 2023

May I suggest Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis or The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton?

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armitronOct 2022

Besides Dostoevsky, there is abundant wisdom and deep truths to be found in the classics of Christianity. The apologetics of C.S. Lewis (Screwtape Letters, The Problem with Pain, The Great Divorce), Augustine's Confessions and City of God, Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton and G.K. Chesterton's Everlasting Man.

These are seldom read (or known) by young people today and I see that as a tragedy. Western spirituality was demolished and nothing substantial has emerged to fill the void left, besides a coterie of self-help charlatans and intellectual tricksters, with the predictable results that we see all around us today.

This is also something that Nassim Taleb (a voracious reader and lifelong student of the Western classics but also an Orthodox Christian) frequently outlines.

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