Quote Origin: When People Cease To Believe in God, They Do Not Then Believe in Nothing, But in Anything

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G. K. Chesterton? Malcolm Muggeridge? Émile Cammaerts? Umberto Eco? Apocryphal?

Illustration of meditation from geralt at Pixabay

Question for Quote Investigator: An individual who becomes skeptical about traditional belief systems does not automatically embrace careful thought and rationality. Instead, the individual may embrace more eccentric belief systems and superstitions. Consider the following related remark:

When people cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything.

This statement has been attributed to the prominent English writer and philosopher Gilbert K. Chesterton. However, I am uncertain because I have not found a solid citation. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Researchers have been unable to find this saying in the writings or speeches of G. K. Chesterton who died in 1936.

The earliest known linkage to the famous writer appeared in the 1937 biography “The Laughing Prophet: The Seven Virtues and G. K. Chesterton” by Émile Cammaerts. The biography discussed a story titled “The Oracle of the Dog” featuring Chesterton’s amateur detective character Father Brown during which the sleuth asserted that some modern thinkers had replaced their rationalism and skepticism with superstition. Cammaerts summarized the viewpoint as follows. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1

The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything …

Cammaerts was not quoting Chesterton; instead he was concisely representing a stance he ascribed to Chesterton and his character Father Brown.

In 1953 English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge attributed the full saying under examination to Chesterton:2

G. K. Chesterton once remarked that, contrary to the popular supposition, when men cease to believe in God they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything.

Muggeridge helped popularize the attribution to Chesterton by presenting it repeatedly, e.g., in 1953, 1955, 1963, and 1966. The credibility of this linkage was weak because the phrasing of the attributed statement varied.

Below is an overview showing excerpts and dates. The overview begins with thematically related statements from other thinkers and continues with remarks from Chesterton that were pertinent to this topic. The overview ends with versions of the saying that have been attributed to Chesterton after his death.

1844: When people cease to believe in God, they believe in ghosts. (Attributed to Georg Christoph Lichtenberg)

1867: When men cease to believe in God, they begin again to believe in ghosts, i. e. in shams. (George M. Grant)

1870: “When men cease to believe in GOD, they believe in ghosts.” Destroy the venerable edifice of belief in the sober and severely moral and orderly GOD of the Bible, and amidst the ruins will spring up superstitions, extravagant and obscene … (J. Rice Byrne)

1908: The man who cannot believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, are both insane. (G. K. Chesterton)

1914: There may have been a time when people found it easy to believe anything. But we are finding it vastly easier to disbelieve anything. Both processes save the human mind from the disgusting duty of distinguishing between one thing and another. (G. K. Chesterton)

1923: It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can’t see things as they are. A dog is an omen and a cat is a mystery and a pig is a mascot and a beetle is a scarab, calling up all the menagerie of polytheism from Egypt and old India. (Spoken by Father Brown in G. K. Chesterton’s short story “The Oracle of the Dog”)

1924: You all swore you were hard-shelled materialists; and as a matter of fact you were all balanced on the very edge of belief—of belief in almost anything. There are thousands balanced on it to-day; but it’s a sharp, uncomfortable edge to sit on. You won’t rest till you believe something. (Spoken by Father Brown in G. K. Chesterton’s short story “The Miracle Of Moon Crescent”)

1928: Men have always one of two things—either a complete and conscious  philosophy or the unconscious acceptance of the broken bits of some incomplete and shattered and often discredited philosophy. (G. K. Chesterton)

1937: The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything. (Émile Cammaerts’s depiction of G. K. Chesterton’s viewpoint)

1953: When men cease to believe in God they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything. (Malcolm Muggeridge’s depiction of G. K. Chesterton’s viewpoint)

1955: When people cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything. (Malcolm Muggeridge’s depiction of G. K. Chesterton’s viewpoint)

1963: When people cease to believe in a deity they do not then believe in nothing, but — what is much more calamitous — in anything. (Malcolm Muggeridge’s depiction of G. K. Chesterton’s viewpoint)

1989: When men stop believing in God, it isn’t that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. (Umberto Eco’s depiction of G. K. Chesterton’s viewpoint)

Here are details for selected citations in chronological order.

In 1844 the Danish–German historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr published “The History of Rome from the First Punic War to the Death of Constantine”. Niebuhr attributed a thematically pertinent statement to the German physicist and satirist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg:3

Lichtenberg says somewhere, “when people cease to believe in God, they believe in ghosts.”

The statement above used the phrase “believe in ghosts” instead of “believe in anything”, but the meaning was somewhat similar since the belief in ghosts was considered to be irrational or foolish.

In 1867 Canadian religious figure George Monro Grant published a lecture titled “Reformers of the Nineteenth Century” which contained the following passage:4

For with unbelief in the true there comes necessarily belief in the false, and bondage to it, which again is another and the worst phase of unbelief. When men cease to believe in God, they begin again to believe in ghosts, i. e. in shams.

In 1870 English School Inspector J. Rice Byrne published a book containing the following passage. The first sentence was enclosed in quotations which signaled that Byrne was repeating an existing saying:5

“When men cease to believe in GOD, they believe in ghosts.” Destroy the venerable edifice of belief in the sober and severely moral and orderly GOD of the Bible, and amidst the ruins will spring up superstitions, extravagant and obscene as those which, germinating out of the decay of Pagan creeds, offended the fine fastidious sense of outward decency, and provoked the loud derision of the satirists of ancient Rome.

In 1908 G. K. Chesterton published the book “Orthodoxy”. He wrote about the world beyond the senses. He presented two extreme viewpoints and rejected both:6

The man who cannot believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, are both insane, but their insanity is proved not by any error in their argument, but by the manifest mistake of their whole lives. They have both locked themselves up in two boxes, painted inside with the sun and stars; they are both unable to get out, the one into the health and happiness of heaven, the other even into the health and happiness of the earth.

In 1914 Chesterton published an essay in “The Illustrated London News”. He discussed credulity and skepticism:7

There may have been a time when people found it easy to believe anything. But we are finding it vastly easier to disbelieve anything. Both processes save the human mind from the disgusting duty of distinguishing between one thing and another. There may have been, though I never came across them in life or literature, some kind of clodhoppers who believed that every legend was true. But we shall be a much stupider kind of clodhoppers if we believe that every legend is legendary.

In 1923 Chesterton published a short story titled “The Oracle of the Dog” in “Hearst’s International” magazine. The tale was a murder mystery featuring the amateur detective Father Brown. A friend of Brown suggested that the behavior of a dog indicated that it had supernatural powers. Brown ultimately explained the actions of the dog without resorting to the paranormal. Brown also suggested that disbelief in God had led some people to become superstitious:8

“It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can’t see things as they are. A dog is an omen and a cat is a mystery and a pig is a mascot and a beetle is a scarab, calling up all the menagerie of polytheism from Egypt and old India …

In 1924 Chesterton published the short story “The Miracle of Moon Crescent” which also featured Father Brown. The sleuth delivered the following brief speech:9

“By the way,” went on Father Brown, “don’t think I blame you for jumping to preternatural conclusions. The reason’s very simple, really. You all swore you were hard-shelled materialists; and as a matter of fact you were all balanced on the very edge of belief — of belief in almost anything. There are thousands balanced on it to-day; but it’s a sharp, uncomfortable edge to sit on. You won’t rest till you believe something; that’s why Mr. Vandam went through new religions with a tooth-comb and Mr. Alboin quotes Scripture for his religion of breathing exercises and Mr. Fenner grumbles at the very God he denies.”

In 1928 Chesterton published an essay in “The New York Times” about the desirability of consciously selecting a philosophy to follow:10

That means that a man who refuses to have his own philosophy will not even have the advantages of a brute beast and be left to his own instincts. He will only have the used-up scraps of somebody else’s philosophy, which the beasts do not have to inherit; hence their happiness.

Men have always one of two things — either a complete and conscious philosophy or the unconscious acceptance of the broken bits of some incomplete and shattered and often discredited philosophy.

In 1937 Émile Cammaerts published the biography “The Laughing Prophet: The Seven Virtues and G. K. Chesterton”. Cammaerts quoted text from “The Oracle of the Dog”. Cammaerts also included his own statement with which he attempted to summarize the viewpoint of Chesterton. The summary statement from Cammaerts was not enclosed in quotation marks because he was not quoting Chesterton:11

‘It’s drowning all your old rationalism and scepticism, it’s coming in like a sea ; and the name of it is superstition.’ The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything …

In 1953 Malcolm Muggeridge published “Ciano’s Hidden Diary: 1937–1938”. He attributed to Chesterton a version of the adage under analysis:12

G. K. Chesterton once remarked that, contrary to the popular supposition, when men cease to believe in God they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything. In the same way, when men cease to govern their conduct by principles, however derived, they do not then become more rational, but less.

In 1955 Muggeridge published an essay in “The New Statesman” of London. He credited Chesterton with a slightly different version of the adage using the word “people” instead of “men”:13

The probability is, I suppose, that the monarchy has become a kind of ersatz religion. Chesterton once remarked that when people cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything.

In 1963 Muggeridge published another piece in “The New Statesman”. He credited Chesterton with a variant using the word “deity” instead of “God”:14

When Chesterton first saw the lights of Broadway he remarked that the spectacle would be marvellous if only one couldn’t read. And somewhere or other he writes that when people cease to believe in a deity they do not then believe in nothing, but — what is much more calamitous — in anything.

In 1966 the collection “The Most of Malcolm Muggeridge” included another version of the saying:15

G. K. Chesterton remarked once that when men cease to believe in a deity they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything.

In 1988 Italian philosopher Umberto Eco published “Il Pendolo di Foucault”. An English translation by William Weaver appeared in 1989 under the title “Foucault’s Pendulum”. The book tentatively credited Chesterton with an instance of the saying:16

Someone — Rubinstein, maybe — once said, when asked if he believed in God: “Oh, no, I believe … in something much bigger.” And someone else — was it Chesterton? — said that when men stop believing in God, it isn’t that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.

In 1997 British quotation expert Nigel Rees published the “Cassell Companion to Quotations”. His valuable exploration of this quotation pointed to germane passages in Chesterton’s stories “The Oracle of the Dog” and “The Miracle Of Moon Crescent”. Rees also pointed to the first instance of the saying in Cammaerts biography.17

In conclusion, there is no substantive evidence that G. K. Chesterton employed this quotation. He did publish thematically related remarks. The earliest close match appeared in a 1937 book about Chesterton by Émile Cammaerts.

Image Notes: Illustration of a person meditating from geralt at Pixabay. The image has been cropped and resized.

Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Ian Grattidge and Eccles whose twitter thread on this topic led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Grattidge highlighted the connection to Cammaerts. Also, thanks to Nigel Rees for his helpful entry about this quotation in the “Cassell Companion to Quotations”. Additional thanks to The Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Their website at chesterton.org contains an insightful essay about this saying titled “When Man Ceases to Worship God” which lists several germane citations.

Update History: On May 10, 2024 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated. Also, the full article was placed on this website.

  1. 1937, The Laughing Prophet: The Seven Virtues and G. K. Chesterton by Émile Cammaerts, Quote Page 211, Published by Methuen & Co. Ltd., London. (Verified on paper) ↩︎
  2. 1953, Ciano’s Hidden Diary: 1937-1938, Translation and Notes by Andreas Mayor, Section: Introduction by Malcolm Muggeridge, Start Page vii, Quote Page ix, E. P. Dutton & Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  3. 1844, The History of Rome from the First Punic War to the Death of Constantine, by B. G. Niebuhr (Barthold Georg Niebuhr), Series of Lectures Edited by Leonhard Schmitz, Volume 2, Lecture LXI, Quote Page 203, Printed by S. Bentley and Company for Taylor and Walton, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  4. 1867, Reformers of the Nineteenth Century: A Lecture Delivered Before the Young Men’s Christian Association of Halifax, Nova Scotia by Reverend G. M. Grant (George M. Grant), Date: January 29, 1867, Quote Page 17, Printed by James Bowes & Sons, Halifax, Nova Scotia. (archive.org of Internet Archive) link ↩︎
  5. 1870, Diocesan School-Inspection by Reverend J. Rice Byrne (One of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools), Quote Page 4, Macmillan and Company, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  6. 1909 (1908 Copyright), Orthodoxy by Gilbert K. Chesterton, Chapter 2: The Maniac, Quote Page 46 and 47, John Lane Company, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  7. 1914 March 14, The Illustrated London News, Our Notebook by G. K. Chesterton, Quote Page 4, Column 1 and 3, London, England. (British Newspaper Archive) ↩︎
  8. 1923 December, Hearst’s International, A Father Brown Story: The Oracle of the Dog by Gilbert K. Chesterton, Start Page 16, Quote Page 146, International Magazine Company, New York. (HathiTrust Full View) link ↩︎
  9. 1926, The Incredulity of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (Gilbert Keith Chesterton), Chapter 4: The Miracle of Moon Crescent, Quote Page 130, (“The Miracle Of Moon Crescent” was first published in Nash’s Magazine, May 1924) Dodd, Mead and Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  10. 1928 August 12, New York Times, Section: The New York Times Magazine, Our Age Cries Out for a Philosophy: We Live by Quoting Catchwords, Not by Thinking by G. K. Chesterton, Start Page 3, Quote Page 3, Column 1, New York. (ProQuest) ↩︎
  11. 1937, The Laughing Prophet: The Seven Virtues and G. K. Chesterton by Émile Cammaerts, Quote Page 211, Published by Methuen & Co. Ltd., London. (Verified on paper) ↩︎
  12. 1953, Ciano’s Hidden Diary: 1937–1938, Translation and Notes by Andreas Mayor, Section: Introduction by Malcolm Muggeridge, Start Page vii, Quote Page ix, E. P. Dutton & Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  13. 1955 October 22, The New Statesman and Nation, Royal Soap Opera by Malcolm Muggeridge, Start Page 499, Quote Page 499, Column 2, London, England. (ProQuest) ↩︎
  14. 1963 August 23, New Statesman, Books in General: G.K.C. by Malcolm Muggeridge, Quote Page 226, Column 1, London, England. (ProQuest) ↩︎
  15. 1966, The Most of Malcolm Muggeridge by Malcolm Muggeridge, Chapter: The Passion of Saint Eatherly, Quote Page 250, Source note: “The Passion of St. Eatherly” (1964), Sunday Telegraph, Simon and Schuster, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  16. 1989 (1988 Copyright) Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco, Translated from the Italian by William Weaver, Chapter 118, Quote Page 620, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  17. 1997, Cassell Companion to Quotations by Nigel Rees, Entry: G. K. Chesterton, Quote Page 158 and 159, A Cassell Book, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
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