Month: November 2016

It is only ceasing to think

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From G.K. Chesterton’s St. Thomas Aquinas:

 

But many modern people talk as if what they call induction
were some magic way of reaching a conclusion, without using
any of those horrid old syllogisms. But induction does not lead
us to a conclusion. Induction only leads us to a deduction.
Unless the last three syllogistic steps are all right, the conclusion
is all wrong. Thus, the great nineteenth century men of science,
whom I was brought up to revere (“accepting the conclusions
of science”, it was always called), went out and closely
inspected the air and the earth, the chemicals and the gases,
doubtless more closely than Aristotle or Aquinas, and then
came back and embodied their final conclusion in a syllogism.
“All matter is made of microscopic little knobs which are indivisible.
My body is made of matter. Therefore my body is made of microscopic
little knobs which are indivisible.” They were not wrong in
the form of their reasoning; because it is the only way to reason.
In this world there is nothing except a syllogism–and a fallacy.
But of course these modern men knew, as the medieval men knew,
that their conclusions would not be true unless their
premises were true. And that is where the trouble began.
For the men of science, or their sons and nephews,
went out and took another look at the knobby nature of matter;
and were surprised to find that it was not knobby at all.
So they came back and completed the process with their syllogism;
“All matter is made of whirling protons and electrons.
My body is made of matter. Therefore my body is made of whirling
protons and electrons.” And that again is a good syllogism;
though they may have to look at matter once or twice more,
before we know whether it is a true premise and a true conclusion.
But in the final process of truth there is nothing else except
a good syllogism. The only other thing is a bad syllogism;
as in the familiar fashionable shape; “All matter is made of protons
and electrons. I should very much like to think that mind is much
the same as matter. So I will announce, through the microphone
or the megaphone, that my mind is made of protons and electrons.”
But that is not induction; it is only a very bad blunder
in deduction. That is not another or new way of thinking;
it is only ceasing to think.

I would rather have that Chrysostom manuscript

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From G.K. Chesterton’s St. Thomas Aquinas:

The new Paris ultimately left behind by St. Louis must have been a thing white like lilies and splendid as the oriflamme.  It was the beginning of the great new thing: the nation of France, which was to pierce and overpower the old quarrel of Pope and Emperor in the lands from which Thomas came.  But Thomas came very unwillingly and, if we may say it of so kindly a man, rather sulkily.  As he entered Paris, they showed him from the hill that splendour of new spires beginning, and somebody said something like, “How grand it must be to own all this.”  And Thomas Aquinas only muttered, “I would rather have that Chrysostom manuscript I can’t get hold of.”

This seems a near universal anecdote in the various vitae of Aquinas, though Chesterton, in typical fashion, polishes it up a bit from the drier phrasing of the originals, one of which is as follows:

“Once, coming from Saint Denis with his students, where he had gone to visit the holy relics and that holy college of monks, and when he had seen the city of Paris right at hand, his students said to him, thinking they would hear some edifying reply: “Master, see how beautiful a city Paris is!  Would you wish to be lord of this city?”  He responded: “With more pleasure would I have the homilies of Chrysostom on the Gospel of Saint Matthew.  For this city, if it were mine, would, on account of the concern given to ruling, carry off the contemplation of divine matters and inhibit the consolation of the soul.”(William of Tocco, Ystoria sancti Thome de Aquino 42, written 1323)

“semel ueniens de sancto Dyonisio cum suis studentibus,  quo iuerat sanctorum reliquias et sanctum illud monachorum collegium uisitare, et uidisset de propinquo ciuitatem Parisiensem, dixerunt ei studentes:  ‘Magister, uidete quam pulchra ciuitas est Parisius!  Velletis esse dominus huius ciuitatis?’, credentes ab eo aliquod uerbum edificationis audire.  Qui respondit:  ‘Libentius uellem habere Omelias Chrisostomi super Euangelium beati Mathei.  Ciuitas enim hec si esset mea, propter curam regiminis contemplationem michi diuinorum eriperet et consolationem animi impediret.'”

The homilies on Matthew do exist today, but I haven’t taken the time to figure out whether Aquinas simply couldn’t get a copy or whether (which seems unlikely, given the prominence of Chrysostom) they had been lost to circulation in the period.

 

 

 

I incline to Cain’s heresy

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:

“I incline to Cain’s heresy,” he used to say quaintly: “I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.”

The reference is to Cain’s reply to God when asked about his brother Abel – “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9).

I’ve said this at work when people ask about the progression of someone else’s project or their absence in a meeting.  Like most of my answers it confuses more than responds.

The receipt of letters is the death of all holiday feeling

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Robert Louis Stevenson’s An Inland Voyage:

No one should have any correspondence on a journey; it is bad enough to have to write; but the receipt of letters is the death of all holiday feeling.

‘Out of my country and myself I go.’  I wish to take a dive among new conditions for a while, as into another element.  I have nothing to do with my friends or my affections for the time; when I came away, I left my heart at home in a desk, or sent it forward with my portmanteau to await me at my destination.  After my journey is over, I shall not fail to read your admirable letters with the attention they deserve.  But I have paid all this money, look you, and paddled all these strokes, for no other purpose than to be abroad; and yet you keep me at home with your perpetual communications.  You tug the string, and I feel that I am a tethered bird.  You pursue me all over Europe with the little vexations that I came away to avoid.  There is no discharge in the war of life, I am well aware; but shall there not be so much as a week’s furlough?

Just so much gained upon the wholesale filcher

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Robert Louis Stevenson’s An Inland Voyage:

For I think we may look upon our little private war with death somewhat in this light.  If a man knows he will sooner or later be robbed upon a journey, he will have a bottle of the best in every inn, and look upon all his extravagances as so much gained upon the thieves.  And above all, where instead of simply spending, he makes a profitable investment for some of his money, when it will be out of risk of loss.  So every bit of brisk living, and above all when it is healthful, is just so much gained upon the wholesale filcher, death.  We shall have the less in our pockets, the more in our stomach, when he cries stand and deliver.  A swift stream is a favourite artifice of his, and one that brings him in a comfortable thing per annum; but when he and I come to settle our accounts, I shall whistle in his face for these hours upon the upper Oise.