An interesting essay might be written on the possession of an atheistic literary style. There is such a thing. The mark of it is that wherever anything is named or described, such words are chosen as suggest that the thing has not got a soul in it. Thus they will talk not of love or passion, which imply a purpose and a desire. They will talk of the “relations” of the sexes, as if they were simply related to each other in a certain way, like a chair and a table. Thus they will not talk of the waging of war (which implies a will), but of the outbreak of war — as if it were a sort of boil. Thus they will not talk of masters paying more or less wages, which faintly suggests some moral responsibility in the masters; they will talk of the rise and fall of wages, as if the thing were automatic, like the tides of the sea.
G. K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News (7 December 1912)
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