Orthodoxy is G. K. Chesterton's response to his critics' assertion that his earlier collection of essays, Heretics, had "merely criticised current philosophies without offering any alternative philosophy. " In his intellectual journey from pagan to agnostic to positivist philosopher, he had attempted to build a philosophy "some ten minutes in advance of the truth. " But when he compared his modern philosophy with Christian theology, he realized that he was "the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before.
" Thus, Orthodoxy is a work of Christian apologetics, where Chesterton tries to show that Christianity is a universal answer to the everyday needs of humanity, and not just an arbitrary philosophy handed down from on high.
