The first few chapters of this book are about the difference between animals and humans. (Setup for the difference between Christ and humans, but interesting on its own.) I had randomly brought up this topic as a bit of a game for my sisters before I even purchased this book, guessing what the accepted difference was between an animal and a person. It was Christmas and I thought it would be interesting to puzzle out. I won't say what "scientists have decided" and you can play for yourself, it's sort of fun depending on your social context to see what people come up with.

Chesterton is a more .... Baroque writer than Lewis is; like most people probably I came to him from Lewis who often writes about Chesterton's influence on his writing and his conversion. He also is writing for a contemporary audience so some of the references to popular arguments or his gripes with Christian Scientists were oblique to me. But he really knows how to end a chapter with a sentence to scare you.

But if anyone fancies the contrast of monotheism and polytheism is only a matter of some people having one god and others a few more, for him it will be far nearer the truth to plunge into the elephantine extravagance of Brahmin cosmology; that he may feel a shudder going through the veil of things, the many-handed creators, and the throned and haloed animals and all the network of entangled stars and rulers of the night, as the awful eyes of Brahma open like dawn upon the death of all.

Hard to argue with that..