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Consultants
Christi Blair, DNP, RN
Contributors
Tracey Bousquet, BSN, RN
Honey C. Holman, MSN, RN
Jenni L. Hoffman, DNP,
Debborah Williams, MSN, RN FNP-C, CLNC, FAANP
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Online media: Brant Stacy, Ron Hanson, Britney Fuller, Barry Wilson
User’s Guide
Welcome to the Assessment Technologies Institute® ACTIVE LEARNING SCENARIOS
Fundamentals for Nursing Review Module Edition 9.0. The AND APPLICATION EXERCISES
mission of ATI’s Content Mastery Series® Review Modules
Each chapter includes opportunities for you to test your
is to provide user-friendly compendiums of nursing
knowledge and to practice applying that knowledge. Active
knowledge that will:
Learning Scenario exercises pose a nursing scenario and
● Help you locate important information quickly.
then direct you to use an ATI Active Learning Template
● Assist in your learning efforts.
ORGANIZATION
This Review Module is organized into units covering the NCLEX® CONNECTIONS
NCLEX® major client needs categories: Safe, Effective Care
To prepare for the NCLEX, it is important to understand
Environment, Health Promotion, Psychosocial Integrity,
how the content in this Review Module is connected to
and Physiological Integrity. Chapters within these
the NCLEX test plan. You can find information on the
units conform to one of four organizing principles for
detailed test plan at the National Council of State Boards
presenting the content.
of Nursing’s website, www.ncsbn.org. When reviewing
● Nursing concepts
content in this Review Module, regularly ask yourself,
● Growth and development
“How does this content fit into the test plan, and what
● Procedures
types of questions related to this content should I expect?”
● System Disorders
To help you in this process, we’ve included NCLEX
Nutritional considerations for specific Nursing concepts
Connections at the beginning of each unit and with each
chapters begin with an overview describing the central
question in the Application Exercises Answer Keys. The
concept and its relevance to nursing. Subordinate themes
NCLEX Connections at the beginning of each unit point
are covered in outline form to demonstrate relationships
out areas of the detailed test plan that relate to the content
and present the information in a clear, succinct manner.
within that unit. The NCLEX Connections attached to the
Application Exercises Answer Keys demonstrate how each
Nutritional considerations for specific Growth and
exercise fits within the detailed content outline.
development chapters cover expected growth and
These NCLEX Connections will help you understand how
development, including physical and psychosocial
the detailed content outline is organized, starting with
development, age-appropriate activities, and health
major client needs categories and subcategories and
promotion, including immunizations, health screenings,
followed by related content areas and tasks. The major
nutrition, and injury prevention.
client needs categories are:
● Safe and Effective Care Environment
Procedures chapters include an overview describing ◯ Management of Care
the procedure(s) covered in the chapter. These ◯ Safety and Infection Control
chapters provide nursing knowledge relevant to each ● Health Promotion and Maintenance
procedure, including indications, nursing considerations, ● Psychosocial Integrity
interpretation of findings, and complications. ● Physiological Integrity
nutritional needs of clients who have the given disorder. ◯ Basic Care and Comfort
These chapters cover assessments and data collection, ◯ Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies
Teamwork and Collaboration: The delivery of client care This icon appears at the top-right of pages
in partnership with multidisciplinary members of the and indicates availability of an online media
health care team to achieve continuity of care and positive supplement (a graphic, animation, or video).
client outcomes. If you have an electronic copy of the Review
Module, this icon will appear alongside clickable
links to media supplements. If you have a
hard copy version of the Review Module, visit
www.atitesting.com for details on how to access
these features.
FEEDBACK
ATI welcomes feedback regarding this Review Module.
Please provide comments to comments@atitesting.com.
Table of Contents
NCLEX® Connections 1
NCLEX® Connections 47
NCLEX® Connections 83
References 367
Diagnostic Procedure A3
Medication A7
Nursing Skill A9
NCLEX® Connections
When reviewing the following chapters, keep in mind the
relevant topics and tasks of the NCLEX outline, in particular:
Management of Care
CONCEPTS OF MANAGEMENT: Identify roles/
responsibilities of health care team members.
CONTINUITY OF CARE
Perform procedures necessary to safely admit,
transfer, or discharge a client.
Provide and receive off of care (report) on assigned clients.
ETHICAL PRACTICE
Recognize ethical dilemmas and take appropriate action.
Practice in a manner consistent with a code of ethics for nurses.
REFERRALS: Assess the need for referrals and obtain necessary orders.
Health Care
●
Delivery Systems
● Complementary therapy centers
● Urgent and emergent care centers
● Public health agencies
● Crisis centers
Diagnostic centers
Health care delivery systems incorporate
●
Primary health care emphasizes health promotion and Safety: The minimization of risk factors that could cause
includes prenatal and well-baby care, family planning, injury or harm while promoting high-quality care and
nutrition counseling, and disease control. This level maintaining a secure environment for clients, self,
of care is a sustained partnership between clients and others
and providers. Examples include office or clinic visits,
Patient-Centered Care: The provision of caring and
community health centers, and scheduled school- or
compassionate, culturally sensitive care that addresses
work-centered screenings (vision, hearing, obesity).
clients’ physiological, psychological, sociological, spiritual,
Secondary health care includes the diagnosis and and cultural needs, preferences, and values. The client is
treatment of acute illness and injury. Examples include included in the decision-making process.
care in hospital settings (inpatient and emergency
Evidence Based Practice: The use of current knowledge
departments), diagnostic centers, and urgent and
from research and other credible sources on which to base
emergent care centers.
clinical judgment and client care
Tertiary health care, or acute care, involves the provision
Informatics: The use of information technology as a
of specialized and highly technical care. Examples include
communication and information-gathering tool that
intensive care, oncology centers, and burn centers.
supports clinical decision-making and scientifically-based
Restorative health care involves intermediate follow-up nursing practice
care for restoring health and promoting self-care.
Quality Improvement: Care-related and organizational
Examples include home health care, rehabilitation centers,
processes that involve the development and
and skilled nursing facilities.
implementation of a plan to improve health care services
Continuing health care addresses long-term or chronic and better meet clients’ needs
health care needs over a period of time. Examples include
Teamwork and Collaboration: The delivery of client care
end-of-life care, palliative care, hospice, adult day care,
in partnership with interprofessional members of the
assisted living, and in-home respite care.
health care team to achieve continuity of care and positive
client outcomes
A. Home health care RELATED CONTENT: List the six QSEN competencies,
B. Rehabilitation facilities along with a brief description of each.
C. Diagnostic centers
D. Skilled nursing facilities
E. Oncology centers
discipline overlaps with the scope of practice or Example of when to refer: Following hip
arthroplasty, a client requires assistance
set of skills for another profession. For example, learning to ambulate and regain strength.
the nurse and the respiratory care therapist both Provider: Assesses, diagnoses, and treats disease and
possess the knowledge and skill to perform injury. Providers include medical doctors (MDs), doctors
of osteopathy (DOs), advanced practice nurses (APNs),
chest physiotherapy (using postural drainage, and physician assistants (PAs). State regulations vary in
percussion, and vibration to promote drainage their requirements for supervision of APNs and PAs by a
physician (MDs and DOs).
of secretions from the lungs).
Example of when to refer: A client has a
The interprofessional health care team works temperature of 39º C (102.2º F), is achy
and shaking, and reports feeling cold.
collaboratively to provide holistic care to clients.
Radiologic technologist: Positions clients and performs
The nurse is most often the manager of care and x-rays and other imaging procedures for providers to
review for diagnosis of disorders of various body parts.
must understand the roles and responsibilities of
Example of when to refer: A client reports
other health care team members to collaborate severe pain in their hip after a fall, and the
and make appropriate referrals. provider prescribes an x-ray of the client’s hip.
Respiratory therapist: Evaluates respiratory status and
provides respiratory treatments including oxygen therapy,
INTERPROFESSIONAL PERSONNEL chest physiotherapy, inhalation therapy, and mechanical
(NON-NURSING) ventilation.
Spiritual support staff: Provides spiritual care (pastors,
Example of when to refer: A client who
rabbis, priests).
has respiratory disease is short of breath
Example of when to refer: A client requests and requests a nebulizer treatment.
communion, or the family asks for prayer prior
Social worker: Works with clients and families by
to the client undergoing a procedure.
coordinating inpatient and community resources to meet
Registered dietitian: Assesses, plans for, and educates psychosocial and environmental needs that are necessary
regarding nutrition needs. Designs special diets, and for recovery and discharge.
supervises meal preparation.
Example of when to refer: A client who has terminal
Example of when to refer: A client has a low albumin cancer wishes to go home but is no longer able to
level and recently had an unexplained weight loss. perform many ADLs. The client’s partner needs
medical equipment in the home to care for the client.
Laboratory technician: Obtains specimens of body fluids,
and performs diagnostic tests. Speech-language pathologist: Evaluates and makes
recommendations regarding the impact of disorders or
Example of when to refer: A provider
injuries on speech, language, and swallowing. Teaches
needs to see a client’s complete blood
techniques and exercises to improve function.
count (CBC) results immediately.
Example of when to refer: A client is having difficulty
swallowing a regular diet after trauma to the head
and neck.
EDUCATIONAL PREPARATION
● Must meet the state board of nursing’s requirements
● Requires vocational or community college education
prior to taking the licensure exam (licensed)
1. A nurse is caring for a group of clients on a 3. A client who is postoperative following knee
medical-surgical unit. For which of the following arthroplasty is concerned about the adverse effects of
client care needs should the nurse initiate a referral the medication prescribed for pain management. Which
for a social worker? (Select all that apply.) of the following members of the interprofessional
A. A client who has terminal cancer care team can assist the client in understanding
requests hospice care in the home. the medication’s effects? (Select all that apply.)
Ethical one choice and stem from differences in the values and
CHAPTER 3 beliefs of the decision makers. These are common in
Responsibilities health care, and nurses must apply ethical theory and
decision-making to ethical problems.
● A problem is an ethical dilemma when:
◯ A review of scientific data is not enough to solve it.
Ethics is the study of conduct and character, and ◯ It involves a conflict between two moral imperatives.
a code of ethics is a guide for the expectations ◯ The answer will have a profound effect on the
1. A nurse is caring for a client who decides not to A nurse is teaching a group of newly licensed nurses about
have surgery despite significant blockages of the process of resolving ethical dilemmas. Use the ATI Active
the coronary arteries. The nurse understands Learning Template: Basic Concept to complete this item.
that this client’s choice is an example of
UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES: Define the
which of the following ethical principles?
ethical decision-making process.
A. Fidelity
NURSING INTERVENTIONS: List the steps
B. Autonomy
of making an ethical decision.
C. Justice
D. Nonmaleficence
NURSING INTERVENTIONS
●
Identifying whether the issue is an ethical dilemma
●
Gathering as much relevant information
as possible about the dilemma
●
Reflecting on one’s own values as they relate to the dilemma
●
Stating the ethical dilemma, including all surrounding
issues and individuals it involves
●
Listing and analyzing all possible options for resolving
the dilemma with implications of each option
●
Selecting the option that is in concert with the ethical principle
that applies to this situation, the decision maker’s values
and beliefs, and the profession’s values for client care
●
Justifying the selection of one option in light of relevant variables
NCLEX® Connection: Management of Care, thical Practice
Responsibilities ●
of nursing.
In turn, the boards of nursing have the authority to
adopt rules and regulations that further regulate
nursing practice. Although the practice of nursing is
Understanding the laws governing nursing similar among states, it is critical that nurses know the
laws and rules governing nursing in the state in which
practice helps nurses protect clients’ rights and they practice.
reduce the risk of nursing liability. ● Boards of nursing have the authority to issue and revoke
a nursing license.
Nurses are accountable for practicing nursing ● Boards also set standards for nursing programs and
further delineate the scope of practice for RNs, practical
within the confines of the law to shield nurses (PNs), and advanced practice nurses.
themselves from liability; advocate for clients’ ● All states have some type of Good Samaritan law that
protects health care workers from liability when they
rights; provide care that is within the nurse’s intervene at the scene of an emergency.
scope of practice; discern the responsibilities
of nursing in relationship to the responsibilities LICENSURE
of other members of the health care team; and In general, nurses must have a current license in every
state in which they practice. The states (about half of
provide safe, proficient care consistent with them) that have adopted the nurse licensure compact are
standards of care. exceptions. This model allows licensed nurses who reside
in a compact state to practice in other compact states
under a multistate license. Within the compact, nurses
SOURCES OF LAW must practice in accordance with the statues and rules of
the state in which they provide care.
FEDERAL REGULATIONS
Federal laws affecting nursing practice
● Health Insurance Portability and
4.1 Types of torts
Accountability Act (HIPAA)
● Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
and evaluations.
◯ Being familiar with and following a facility’s policies
and procedures.
INFORMED CONSENT ● A competent adult must sign the form for informed
consent. The person who signs the form must be capable
● Informed consent is a legal process by which a client
of understanding the information from the health care
or the client’s legally appointed designee has given
professional who will perform the service (a surgical
written permission for a procedure or treatment.
procedure) and the person must be able to communicate
Consent is informed when a provider explains and the
with the health care professional. When the person
client understands:
giving the informed consent is unable to communicate
◯ The reason the client needs the treatment
form and to ensure that the provider has obtained the ◯ Court-specified representative
informed consent responsibly. ◯ An individual who has durable power of attorney
nurse notifies the provider and discusses with the with this process.
client the risks to expect when leaving the facility prior
to discharge. Types of advance directives
● The nurse asks the client to sign an Against Medical
Living will
Advice form and documents the incident. ● A living will is a legal document that expresses the
◯ Published standards of nursing practice from Durable power of attorney for health care
professional organizations and specialty groups, A durable power of attorney for health care is a document
including the American Nurses Association (ANA), the in which clients designate a health care proxy to make
American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN), health care decisions for them if they are unable to do so.
and the American Association of Occupational Health The proxy can be any competent adult the client chooses.
Nurses (AAOHN).
◯ Health care facilities’ policies and procedures, which
Provider’s orders
Unless a provider writes a “do not resuscitate” (DNR) or
establish the standard of practice for employees of
“allow natural death” (AND) prescription in the client’s
that facility. They provide detailed information about
medical record, the nurse initiates cardiopulmonary
how the nurse should respond to or provide care
resuscitation (CPR) when the client has no pulse or
in specific situations and while performing client
respirations. The provider consults the client and the
care procedures.
family prior to administering a DNR or AND.
● Standards of care define and direct the level of care
nurses should give, and they implicate nurses who did NURSING ROLE IN ADVANCE DIRECTIVES
not follow these standards in malpractice lawsuits. Nursing responsibilities include the following.
● Nurses should refuse to practice beyond the legal scope ● Provide written information about advance directives.
of practice or outside of their areas of competence ● Document the client’s advance directives status.
regardless of reason (staffing shortage, lack of ● Ensure that the advance directives reflect the client’s
appropriate personnel). current decisions.
● Nurses should use the formal chain of command to ● Inform all members of the health care team of the
verbalize concerns related to assignment in light of client’s advance directives.
current legal scope of practice, job description, and area
of competence.
MANDATORY REPORTING
Health care providers have a legal obligation to report
IMPAIRED COWORKERS their findings in accordance with state law in the
Impaired health care providers pose a significant risk to following situations.
client safety.
● A nurse who suspects a coworker of any behavior that
ABUSE
Nurses must report any suspicion of abuse (child or elder
jeopardizes client care or could indicate a substance
abuse, adult violence) following facility policy.
use disorder has a duty to report the coworker to the
appropriate manager.
● Many facilities’ policies provide access to assistance
programs that facilitate entry into a treatment program.
● Each state has laws and regulations that govern the
disposition of nurses who have substance use disorders.
Criminal charges could apply.
Application Exercises
1. A nurse observes an assistive personnel (AP) 4. A nurse is caring for a client who is about to undergo
reprimanding a client for not using the urinal an elective surgical procedure. The nurse should
properly. The AP tells the client that diapers will take which of the following actions regarding
be used next time the urinal is used improperly. informed consent? (Select all that apply.)
Which of the following torts is the AP committing? A. Make sure the surgeon obtained
A. Assault the client’s consent.
B. Battery B. Witness the client’s signature on the consent form.
C. False imprisonment C. Explain the risks and benefits of the procedure.
D. Invasion of privacy D. Describe the consequences of
choosing not to have the surgery.
E. Tell the client about alternatives
2. A nurse is caring for a competent adult client who
to having the surgery.
tells the nurse, “I am leaving the hospital this morning
whether the doctor discharges me or not.” The
nurse believes that this is not in the client’s best 5. A nurse has noticed several occasions in the past
interest, and prepares to administer a PRN sedative week when another nurse on the unit seemed
medication the client has not requested along with drowsy and unable to focus on the issue at hand.
the scheduled morning medication. Which of the Today, the nurse was found asleep in a chair in
following types of tort is the nurse about to commit? the break room not during a break time. Which
A. Assault of the following actions should the nurse take?
B. False imprisonment A. Alert the American Nurses Association.
C. Negligence B. Fill out an incident report.
D. Breach of confidentiality C. Report the observations to the
nurse manager on the unit.
D. Leave the nurse alone to sleep.
3. A nurse in a surgeon’s office is providing preoperative
teaching for a client who is scheduled for surgery
the following week. The client tells the nurse that
“I plan to prepare my advance directives before
I come to the hospital.” Which of the following
statements made by the client should indicate to
the nurse an understanding of advance directives?
A. “I’d rather have my brother make decisions
for me, but I know it has to be my wife.”
B. “I know they won’t go ahead with the
surgery unless I prepare these forms.”
C. “I plan to write that I don’t want them to
keep me on a breathing machine.”
D. “I will get my regular doctor to approve my
plan before I hand it in at the hospital.”
For weeks and months it would seem Mr. Belloc has walked
about Sussex accumulating first-hand material for these
disputations, and all this time the Pigs have remained Pigs. When he
prodded them they squealed. They remained pedestrian in spite of
his investigatory pursuit. Not one did he find “scuttling away” with a
fore-limb, “half-leg, half-wing.” He has the evidence of his senses
also, I may remind him, that the world is flat. And yet when we take a
longer view we find the world is round, and Pigs are changing, and
Sus Scrofa is not the beast it was two thousand years ago.
Mr. Belloc is conscious of historical training, and I would suggest
to him that it might be an improving exercise to study the Pig
throughout history and to compare the Pigs of the past with the Pigs
of a contemporary agricultural show. He might inform himself upon
the bulk, longevity, appetites, kindliness, and general disposition of
the Pig to-day. He might realise then that the Pig to-day, viewed not
as the conservative occupant of a Sussex sty, but as a species, was
something just a little different as a whole, but different, definably
different, from the Pig of two thousand or five thousand years ago.
He might retort that the Pig has been the victim of selective breeding
and is not therefore a good instance of Natural Selection, but it was
he who brought Pigs into this discussion. Dogs again have been
greatly moulded by man in a relatively short time, and, again, horses.
Almost all species of animals and plants that have come into contact
with man in the last few thousand years have been greatly modified
by his exertions, and we have no records of any detailed
observations of structure or habits of creatures outside man’s range
of interest before the last three or four centuries. Even man himself,
though he changes with relative slowness because of the slowness
with which he comes to sexual maturity, has changed very
perceptibly in the last five thousand years.
A Magnificent Generalisation
The third argument is essentially a display of Mr. Belloc’s inability
to understand the nature of the record of the rocks. I will assume that
he knows what “strata” are, but it is clear that he does not
understand that any uniform stratum indicates the maintenance of
uniform conditions while it was deposited and an absence of
selective stresses, and that when it gives place to another different
stratum, that signifies a change in conditions, not only in the
conditions of the place where the stratum is found, but in the supply
of material. An estuary sinks and gives place to marine sands, or
fresh water brings down river gravels which cover over an
accumulation of shingle. Now if he will think what would happen to-
day under such circumstances, he will realise that the fauna and
flora of the stratum first considered will drift away and that another
fauna and flora will come in with the new conditions. Fresh things will
come to feed and wade and drown in the waters, and old types will
no longer frequent them. The fossil remains of one stratum are very
rarely directly successive to those below it or directly ancestral to
those above it. A succession of forms is much more difficult and
elusive to follow up, therefore, than Mr. Belloc imagines. And then if
he will consider what happens to the rabbits and rats and mice on
his Sussex estate, and how they die and what happens to their
bodies, he may begin to realise just what proportion of the remains
of these creatures is ever likely to find its way to fossilisation.
Perhaps years pass without the bones of a single rabbit from the
whole of England finding their way to a resting-place where they may
become fossil. Nevertheless the rabbit is a very common animal.
And then if Mr. Belloc will think of palæontologists, millions of years
after this time, working at the strata that we are forming to-day,
working at a gravel or sand-pit here or a chance exposure there, and
prevented from any general excavation, and if he will ask himself
what proportion of the rare few rabbits actually fossilised are likely to
come to light, I think he will begin to realise for the first time in his life
the tremendous “gappiness” of the geological record and how very
childish and absurd is his demand for an unbroken series of forms.
The geological record is not like an array of hundreds of volumes
containing a complete history of the past. It is much more like a few
score crumpled pages from such an array, the rest of the volumes
having either never been printed, or having been destroyed or being
inaccessible.
In his Third Argument from Evidence Mr. Belloc obliges us with a
summary of this record of the rocks, about which he knows so little. I
need scarcely note here that the only evidence adduced is his own
inspired conviction. No “European” palæontologist or biologist is
brought out of the Humbert safe and quoted. Here was a chance to
puzzle me dreadfully with something “in French,” and it is
scandalously thrown away. Mr. Belloc tells us, just out of his head,
that instead of there being that succession of forms in the geological
record the Theory of Natural Selection requires, there are
“enormously long periods of stable type” and “(presumably) rapid
periods of transition.” That “presumably” is splendid; scientific
caution and all the rest of it—rapid periods when I suppose the
Creative Spirit got busy and types woke up and said, “Turn over; let’s
change a bit.”
There is really nothing to be said about this magnificent
generalisation except that it is pure Bellocking. Wherever there is a
group of strata, sufficiently thick and sufficiently alike to witness to a
long-sustained period of slight alterations in conditions, there we find
the successive species approximating. This is not a statement à la
Belloc. In spite of the chances against such a thing occurring, and in
defiance of Mr. Belloc’s assertion that it does not occur, there are
several series of forms in time, giving a practically direct succession
of species. Mr. Belloc may read about it and at the same time
exercise this abnormal linguistic gift which sits upon him so
gracefully, his knowledge of the French language, in Deperet’s
Transformations du Monde Animal, where all these questions are
conveniently summarised. There he will get the results of Waagen
with a succession of Ammonites and also of Neumayr with Paludina,
and there also he will get information about the sequence of the
species of Mastodon throughout the Tertiary age and read about the
orderly progress of a pig group, the Brachyodus of the Eocene and
Oligocene. There is a touch of irony in the fact that his own special
protégé, the Pig, should thus turn upon him and rend his Third
Argument from Evidence.
More recondite for Mr. Belloc is the work of Hilgendorf upon
Planorbis, because it is in German; but the drift of it is visible in the
Palæontology wing of the London Natural History Museum, Room
VIII. A species of these gasteropods was, during the slow processes
of secular change, caught in a big lake, fed by hot springs. It
underwent progressive modification into a series of successive new
species as conditions changed through the ages. Dr. Klähms’
specimens show this beautifully. Rowe’s account of the evolutionary
series in the genus Micraster (Q.J.M.S., 1899) is also accessible to
Mr. Belloc, and he will find other matter to ponder in Goodrich’s
Living Organisms, 1924. The finest series of all, longer in range and
completer in its links, is that of the Horse. There is an excellent little
pamphlet by Matthew and Chubb, well illustrated, The Evolution of
the Horse, published by the American Museum of Natural History,
New York, so plain, so simple, so entirely and humiliatingly
destructive of Mr. Belloc’s nonsensical assertions, that I pray him to
get it and read it for the good of his really very unkempt and
neglected soul.
Thus we observe that Mr. Belloc does not know the facts in this
case of Natural Selection, and that he argues very badly from such
facts as he misconceives. It is for the reader to decide which at the
end is more suitable as a laughing-stock—the Theory of Natural
Selection or Mr. Belloc. And having thus studied this great Catholic
apologist as an amateur biologist and arrived at the result, we will
next go on to consider what he has to say about the origins of
mankind—and Original Sin.
IV
MR. BELLOC’S ADVENTURES AMONG THE
SUB-MEN: MANIFEST TERROR OF THE
NEANDERTHALER
He has not even observed that the chief figures in that picture
are copied directly from the actual rock paintings of Palæolithic men
although this is plainly stated.
I AM glad to say that we are emerging now from the worst of the
controversial stuff, irritating and offensive, in which Mr. Belloc is so
manifestly my master, and coming to matters of a more honest
interest.
I have stuck to my argument through the cut and slash, sneer
and innuendo of Mr. Belloc’s first twelve papers. I have done my best
to be kind and generous with him. I have made the best excuses I
can for him. I have shown how his oddities of bearing and style arise
out of the difficulties of his position, and how his absurd reasonings
about Natural Selection and his deliberate and tedious
bemuddlement of the early Palæolithic sub-men with the late
Reindeer men and the Capsian men are all conditioned by the
necessity he is under to declare and believe that “man” is, as he puts
it, a “Fixed Type,” the same in the past and now and always. He is
under this necessity because he believes that otherwise the
Christian faith cannot be made to stand up as a rational system, and
because, as I have shown by a quotation of his own words, he
makes their compatibility with his idea of Catholic teaching his
criterion in the acceptance or rejection of facts.
I will confess I do not think that things are as bad as this with
Christianity. I believe a far better case could be made for Catholicism
by an insistence that its value and justification lie in the change and
in the direction of the human will, in giving comfort and consolation
and peace, in producing saints and beautiful living; and that the truth
of the history it tells of space and time is entirely in relation to the
development of these spiritual aspects, and has no necessary
connection whatever with scientific truth. This line of thought is no