Links of Note

 * Christopher Kaczor, Magical Thinking: Free Will Is an Illusion, at "Word on Fire"; a humorous story.

* David Corey, Politics, Friendship, and the Search for Meaning, at "Comment"

* There has been a fair amount of controversy recently over Pierre Manent's MacIntyre's Flight from Politics. I think MacIntyre has more resources for addressing the issue than Manent's summary suggests, but the MacIntyreans who are criticizing it are often glossing over the important (and, I think, deliberate) ways in which MacIntyre certainly is an 'Aristotelianism of the opposition' in contrast to what we find in Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas.

* Alice MacLachlan, Fiduciary Duties and the Ethics of Public Apology (PDF)

* Daniel McCarthy, Remembering Michael Oakeshott

* James Mumford, Are Human Rights Merely a Matter of Perception?

* Ed Lamb, Civil Disobedience: A Puzzle in Plato's Crito, at "Antigone"

* James Franklin, Resurrecting logical probability (PDF)

* Oliver D. Crisp, Infant baptism and the disposition to saving faith, on the Reformed theology of infant baptism; this was a very interesting paper.

* Huaping Lu-Adler, Kant on Language and the (Self-)Development of Reason (PDF)

* Jonas Faria Costa, On Gregariousness, looks at human sociality in contexts in which we are not directly interacting, like at a coffee shop to which one might go to be around people, but in which one mostly does one's own thing. As the author notes, this is not considered very often, and most accounts of human sociality don't really shed any light on it.

* Jonathan Simon and Colin Marshall, Mendelssohn, Kant, and the Mereotopology of Immortality

* Giulia Martina, How we talk about smells (PDF)

Dashed Off XXVII

This begins the notebook that was started in December 2021.

****** 

incipit/desinit as constructed by comparison of changes

Metaphysics 1056b4-5: If 'many' is placed in contrariety to 'one', impossible things follow.
1056b33-35: "The one is opposed to the many as measure is to measurable."

the child "guided by the inner teacher" (Montessori)

the joy of strolling as a mild exercise in learning

the charm of social life as diversity of people in harmonious interaction

Historically, secularization is always accompanied by (but not caused by) a kind of atrophy of reason.

the regrounding or re-radicating of passions and virtues as part of evangelism

barbarism as "the absence of standards to which appeal can be made" (Ortega y Gassett)

beauty as something that invites thought

Acts 4:31 -- filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Logos of God boldly

Simple ethical actions are signs and symbols of greater ethical actions.

Faith may express itself in the midst of any and all of the passions.

Fortune favors the diversifier.

Nothing can be discovered out of nothing.

In scholarship as in all else, nothing is made from nothing.

Sovereignty must itself be a kind of right, or it is not sovereignty.

To arbitrate disputes presupposes the authority of reason.

Bentham's "Anarchical Fallacies" and "The Necessity of an Omnipotent Legislature" as laying out the real structure of utilitarianism

the monitorial system of education
the method of learning by teaching
plastic platypus learning

teaching structures: professional, monitorial, democratic
learning structures: receptive, apprenticed, autonomous ?
-- a school is a combining of a teaching structure with a learning structure

Athanasius Kircher gets a lot of flak, but it's often forgotten that Kircher's view was that hieroglyphics can't actually be translated -- his paraphrases are not intended as translations in the proper sense. And he did recognize that there could be a phonetic value for a hieroglyph, the foundation of later work, and he was the first to recognize that Coptic was related to demotic; both of these were elements necessary to the actual discovery of how to read hieroglyphs.

Hieroglyphs are complicated by the existence of honorific transposition -- divine things, like the solar sign, are elevated or moved to the front out of respect.

progress as converting genius to method

the 'link' between the I and the eye

Dates for the 'Fall of Rome'
[Fall of Republic]
31 BC -- Actium 
27 BC -- Principate
[Fall of Empire]
---[Fall of Caesarean Empire]
180 -- Death of Marcus Aurelius and Succession of Commodus
312 -- Conversion of Constantine
378 -- Adrianople and Death of Valens
410 -- Sack of Rome by Visigoths
455 -- Sack of Rome by Vandals
476 -- Sack of Rome and Deposition of Romulus Augustulus by Odoacer
---[Fall of Byzantine Empire]
1204 -- Latin Sack of Constantinople in Fourth Crusade
1453 -- Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople
---[Utter End]
1806 -- Last Holy Roman Emperor
1917 -- Last Czar
********
All of these are right; Republics and Empires are many-layered things, and with each, something important was stripped away and sometimes replaced.

All falls of nations are either defeat by external force, defeat by internal force, or moral corruption. Nothing else is actually any kind of fall at all. Declines are likewise multiplications of problems related to these.

If we think of myth as meaning-making story, we can ask what the myth would be that is commensurate with human life.

There are clearly multiple ways to assess disparate impact and no reason to think they would all agree; thus one should always ascertain the relevant standard.

Economies arise out of communications.

visible shapes as color-dependent, tangible shape as resistance-dependent
-- The key question: Do we perhaps link these by a sense of color (at least sometimes) being resistant to the eye? Or is it something else like constant conjunction or abstract analogy?

acquired dispositions of institutions -> institutions having a quasi-character, and thus quasi-virtues and quasi-vices

Anyone who truly loves virtue will love divinity, its exemplar.

plot-focused ethical reasoning vs. episode-focused ethical reasoning

Nations rise from small springs and fall in cataracts small and great.

trace-fossil formation and the major genera of trace fossils
(1) left in soft-sediment surface: Cubichnia
(2) dwelling structure formation (e.g., burrowing or boring): Domichnia
(3) sediment disturbance in deposit-food search: Fodinichnia
(4) surface disturbance in grazing-food search: Pascichnia
(5) locomotion: Repichnia
[These are Seiacher's and account for most trace fossis , but there are others, e.g., Colichnia, arising from making structures for breeding activities, like bee cells), and people propose others from time to time.]

the palaetiology of ideas
arguments as environments of ideas
ideas as undergoing selection within argumentational environments
manifest contradictoriness or impossibility in a context // extinction

Multiplicity can in a certain fashion be attributed to the noncomposite by expression (how it is reflected, received, etc., or by assumption).

geometrical diagram as speech act: locution (line and circle), illocutionary force (interpretation), perlocutionary effect (for illustration or for proof)

Tengwar and Lodwick's Universal Alphabet

word, as quasi-form, structuring world, as quasi-material

The ebook is a more fragile, not a less fragile, technology, than a codex or scroll, and whether it is more or less accessible depends on environmental factors, not itself.

the 'practical minimum of concession' as a key idea in planning

Skepticism requires that we be able to say that such-and-such does not appear to have sufficient ground or reason.

One often finds in theology that one doctrine serves as an allegory for another.

Poorly analyzed experiments are worse evidence than trustworthy anecdotes.

arrow of time // dominance of matter over antimatter

The meaning of a myth depends in part on its ritual context.

the economy of myths -- myths are one of the things we exchange

Academic papers are not primarily research instruments but career instruments.

pandemics and defense-in-depth

Cuisines spread by 'fast-food-izing'.

the moral-juridical presence of Christ in the sacrament of reconciliation

being married before God as the base for the presence of Christ in the sacrament of matrimony

Christ's Baptism as a symbol of His Incarnation.

repentance unto friendship

"A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against the enterprises of an aspiring prince." Gibbon
"The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverable, lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive."
"In elective monarchies, the vacancy of the throne is a moment big with danger and mischief."
"Wit and valour are qualifications more easily ascertained than humanity or the love of justice."
"But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous."
"Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude."

All lovers are fighters.

symbolism & allegory : virtue ethics :: critical exegesis : deontology :: x : consequentialism

'artfully to collect in his own person all the scattered rays of civil jurisdiction'

consular powers
(1) superintendance of ceremony
(2) levy and command of legions
(3) reception of ambassadors
(4) presidence in assembly, both senatorial and popular
tribunitian powers
(1) veto
(2) convene plebeian assembly
(3) summon senate
(4) propose legislation

One of the most important goals in constitutional law is to force things into visibility -- literally anything can be abused by human ingenuity, but it is harder to abuse them in full light of day.

emperor (imperator): general + consul + tribune + censor + pontiff

One cannot properly understand the Church as People of God without understanding it as societas perfecta.

Solidarity primarily works by other routes than obligation.

immersed life, study, reparative reconstruction

The Genesis creation story places God before all the cosmogonical origins and supposed divinities of pagan myth.

the Shabaka Text ('Memphite Theology'): thought -> word -> world

grace as participation in divine missions

Law intrinsically applies a higher rational order than itself.

law as humanitarian tradition -> human common good -> God as primal good

'this rational and bloodless sacrifice, for our own sins and for the ignorance of the people'

Empathy can be valuable, but it is not itself good judgment.

Boredom sometimes repulses us more than pain.

constant polynomial : s orbital :: linear polynomial : p orbital :: quadratic polynomial : d orbital :: cubic polynomial : f orbital

the transcendental unity of the history of philosophy

Forgiveness is not a release of resentment; the latter is sometimes a removal of an impediment to forgiveness, but one can forgive where there is no resentment at all, and release resentment without forgiveness.

Nobody confines their forgiveness to people who deserve it, if only because we are often not well positioned for assessing whether they deserve it.

No one has a right to be forgiven, but no one can be charitable without a willingness to forgive.

Forgiving is never condoning -- they are completely opposed acts.

One reason to be ready to forgive is to avoid self-righteousness, which is one of the worse things that can befall a person.

Philosophy is per aliud wisdom participating per se wisdom, contingent wisdom participating necessary wisdom, etc.

Note that in Psalm 148, the angels and host are put before sun, moon, and stars. (Compare Turretin on this.)

Ps 148:5 -- "he commanded and they were created"

the sentiments of the people vs the professions of the people

Moving from sets to categories emphasizes functions over membership/inclusion.

the classic problem of organizational ethics: good intentions deteriorating the ethically constrained functioning of the system

Marriage is not a commitment but a union.

finality as a transcendental

Possibilities are represented in myths as other places or other times.

"Had it not been love which is the basis of all relationships, it was impossible to promote peace, respect others. In fact, meaningful life on earth would have been impossible." Mawere

fantasy and the literalization of striking metaphors

A very great deal of Chinese Imperial history seems to consist of the Confucians losing whenever they were most clearly and inconveniently right.

generic experience, structured experience, directed experience, participative experience

Every giving creates signs: giving as the root of semiosis.

As the Incarnation was made possible by the Virgin's Yes, so too every Eucharist morally depends on her Yes.

As Israel in suffering was sign of Christ in Passion, it therefore was also the sign of Christ in Eucharist.

Crucifixion - Session - Mass as one act of sacrifice (morally, juridically, and really)

'deism of the Cross' in certain accounts of Christ's sacrifice

contracts as agreeing on ways to express one's rights
-- this is the correct idea that social contract theory misplaces

The senses do not distinguish substance and accident at all; when we recognize that accidents require substances, we are not starting with an experience of accidents and concluding to substances beyond them, but starting with an experience of accidents-in-substances and concluding to substance within it.

partial substance (hand)
substance (man)
supersubstance (cosmos)

Aquinas's use of mereological terminology to organize virtues works because the part-whole relation is relativity without separation.

incomplete induction as credibility-lending

more-and-less as hypercategorical

hypercategorical transcendental : convertible transcendental :: change (incomplete act) : actuality (complete act)
-- this is a conjoined rather than separate analogy, because change is hypercategorical and actuality is convertible

three kinds of evidence:
actuality anticipative of actuality
actuality reminiscent of actuality
actuality suggestive of actuality

common good : Matthew :: subsidiarity : Mark :: human dignity : Luke :: solidarity : John

Freedom of conscience does not have to be asserted and vindicated for everybody because matters to which conscience is applied are not all the same in their relations either to conscience or to freedom; a finer-grained analysis is necessary.

the right to religious freedom (Dignitatis Humanae)
(1) all should have [some kind of] immunity from coercion in religious matters
(2) that no one should be forced to act against conscience in religious matters within due limits [i.e., as long as due public order is preserved]

Human dignity, solidarity, subsidiarity, and common good are four ways human beings are not separate from each other.

Because of Adam's sin, our dignity is mixed with baseness, our solidarity with discord, our subsidiarity with rebellion, and our common good with mutual temptation.

Parenthood begins prior to birth; this is much more important than usually recognized.

If mathematics or logic are ever explanatory, there must be real formal causes.

To deny the principle of sufficient reason is to hold that there are possibilities that are not any kind of possibility, and are thus unspecifiable.

Liberty is protected by mediating institutions.

choices as pure formal means

Lion of the Latin Church

 Today is the feast of St. Leo I the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church. From one of his Easter sermons (Sermon 72):

Because therefore there is no place for ignorance in faithful ears, the seed of the Word which consists of the preaching of the Gospel, ought to grow in the soil of your heart, so that, when choking thorns and thistles have been removed, the plants of holy thoughts and the buds of right desires may spring up freely into fruit. For the cross of Christ, which was set up for the salvation of mortals, is both a mystery and an example : a sacrament where by the Divine power takes effect, an example whereby man's devotion is excited: for to those who are rescued from the prisoner's yoke Redemption further procures the power of following the way of the cross by imitation. For if the world's wisdom so prides itself in its error that every one follows the opinions and habits and whole manner of life of him whom he has chosen as his leader, how shall we share in the name of Christ save by being inseparably united to Him, Who is, as He Himself asserted, the Way, the Truth, and the Life? the Way that is of holy living, the Truth of Divine doctrine, and the Life of eternal happiness.

High Tea

 Every so often, you get accidental clusters of similar events and, as it happens, in three different places in the past two weeks I have come across people getting the usage of 'high tea' wrong. This is, after confusing peerage titles and feudal titles, one of the most common Americanisms that seems to spread everywhere. So a few quick points related to 'high tea'.

(1) The first and most important is that high tea is not fancy. High tea gets its name from being 'high' in the afternoon or even into the evening; it was originally a working-class tea for people who had to work until 5 pm or later. Despite its working class origins, it become common in general, because almost everybody has situations where they can't take tea until late, and because travelers and guests would often arrive fairly late in the day, so it became a common form of quick-bite-to-eat hospitality. As such, it's usually a simple tea meal, consisting basically of tea with both a savory (like ham salad sandwich) and a sweet (like bread and jam) snack. 

(2) The fancy tea can sometimes be called low tea, but is usually just called afternoon tea. It usually has a nice spread of tea sandwiches, scones, cakes, tea biscuits, and the like. It's a nicer tea than high tea in the sense that it is more social and less utility-driven, but, strictly speaking, it does not have to be formal. A cream tea, for instance, is basically just tea and some scones (with clotted cream or Devonshire cream, hence the name). However, when people talk about 'high tea' in American movies, television shows, and novels, they almost always mean formal afternoon tea. Formal afternoon tea is a tea for a tea party, a special-occasion light meal for a group; for the past century, it's almost always something taken at a hotel. You typically have to dress up for it. The most common formal afternoon tea in the United States is the debutante tea occasionally hosted by women's organizations for younger women.

(3) The fanciest form of afternoon tea, though, is arguably not formal afternoon tea but dancing tea, or tea dance, which is a full-scale party with music and dancing. Just as a tea is a light meal, so a dancing tea is a light dancing party, well short of a formal dance; you'd do the dancing in a garden or drawing room rather than a ballroom, and the tea meal itself would be handled like a buffet. 

Needless to say, there can be, and have been, all sorts of variations. The kettle drum, for instance, was a form of very informal afternoon tea party that became popular for a while in the eighteenth century; it was basically just a dropping-in kind of tea, as people would come by without much formality, mingle and talk a bit, and then leave when they felt like it. Lots of other variations exist, particularly if you look at local modifications throughout the Commonwealth. But a high tea is an informal tea for after work or at the end of a long day.

The Religion of the Day

 In every age of Christianity, since it was first preached, there has been what may be called a religion of the world, which so far imitates the one true religion, as to deceive the unstable and unwary. The world does not oppose religion as such. I may say, it never has opposed it. In particular, it has, in all ages, acknowledged in one sense or other the Gospel of Christ, fastened on one or other of its characteristics, and professed to embody this in its practice; while by neglecting the other parts of the holy doctrine, it has, in fact, distorted and corrupted even that portion of it which it has exclusively put forward, and so has contrived to explain away the whole;—for he who cultivates only one precept of the Gospel to the exclusion of the rest, in reality attends to no part at all. Our duties balance each other; and though we are too sinful to perform them all perfectly, yet we may in some measure be performing them all, and preserving the balance on the whole; whereas, to give ourselves only to this or that commandment, is to incline our minds in a wrong direction, and at length to pull them down to the earth, which is the aim of our adversary, the Devil.

John Henry Newman, "The Religion of the Day" (Sermon 24), Parochial Sermons, Volume 1.

Two New Poem Drafts

Cathedral of Immerath

Sorrow, mortal children, cast the dust of time upon your head;
all your fairest works are crumbled; soon they will be dead;
this soldier-building, wounded once by guns of blood and death,
was left unheeded, unregarded, rasping in its breath;
unloved and lonely veteran, it kept the watch of years
where its ancestors broke the ground; it fought the things of fear.
But God and holy Lambert's way no longer find respect,
for Mammon is this age's god, and all things does direct.
So strip the village! Strip the church! And strip the very earth!
Those things a people will destroy will measure their unworth.

Now

The future is out of reach; the present now
is running swiftly past; hope is now
as memory, however cut and shaped, is now,
and both are running swiftly past; so now
be patient with the day; for only now
are you and I here, and we know no fate but now,
when we are as we are before God's eternal now.

Fortnightly Book, November 6

 The next fortnightly book will be The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems, 1940-1640 BC, one of the Oxford World's Classics books. It is edited by R. B. Parkinson and purports to include all surviving literary works of Ancient Egypt that are still relatively complete and relatively intelligible. The Tale of Sinuhe, of course, is the most famous. It tells of a courtier (Za-Nehet or Sinuhe) who flees the Egyptian court on the death of Pharaoh Amenemhat I and ends up in the court of a king in Retjenu, which is roughly the Egyptian name for Syria and Canaan, but eventually in his old age returns home.

The works that are included in this edition:

Tales
1. The Tale of Sinuhe
2. The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant
3. The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor
4. The Tale of King Cheops' Court

Discourses
5. The Words of Neferti
6. The Words of Khakheperreseneb
7. The Dialogue of a Man and his Soul
8. The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All

Teachings
9. The Teaching of King Amenemhat
10. The Teaching for King Merikare
11. The 'Loyalist' Teaching
12. The Teaching of the Vizier Ptahhotep
13. The Teaching of Khety

It also ends with a selection of some of the fragments we have of other Egyptian literary works from the period.

Dorothy L. Sayers, Striding Folly

 Introduction

Opening Passages: From "Striding Folly":

'Shall I expect you next Wednesday for our game as usual?' asked Mr Mellilow.

'Of course, of course,' said Mr Creech. 'Very glad there's no ill feeling, Mellilow. Next Wednesday as well. Unless...' his heavy face darkened for a moment, as though at some disagreeable recollection. (p. 35) 

From "The Haunted Policeman":

'Good God!' said his lordship. 'Did I do that?'

'All the evidence points that way,' replied his wife.

'Then I can say that I never knew so convincing a body of evidence produce such an inadequate result.'

The nurse appeared to take this reflection personally. She said in a tone of rebuke:

'He's a beautiful boy.' (p. 59)

From "Talboys":

'Father!'

'Yes, my son.'

'You know those peaches of Mr Puffett's, the whacking great big ones you said I wasn't to take?'

'Well?'

'Well, I've tooken them.' (p. 93)

Summary: "Striding Folly" is a story of Mr Mellilow and Mr Creech, who regularly meet for a chess match. Mr Creech is extremely unpopular, having bought a significant quantity of highly scenic and universally visible land (originally owned by the Striding family and marked by a stone tower known as the Folly) in the area simply in order to the Electrical Power Company to build a large power-plant as the area begins to be electrified. Mr Mellilow is the only person who is still polite to him, because of their regular chess matches, although even he is very unhappy about Mr Creech's actions. In this state of mind, Mr Mellilow has a dream in which he is missing his goloshes and chased by a pair of towers across a chessboard-like land lit by flashes of lightning, ending with seeing a dead black crow. When next he is supposed to meet Mr Creech, however, Mr Creech does not show and instead a stranger comes by asking to play; afterward, Mr Mellilow, looking for his goloshes, wanders up to the Folly, where he does indeed find his goloshes, right by a murdered Mr Creech. Mr Mellilow is of course the primary suspect for the murder until Lord Peter Wimsey, a friend of the Chief Constable's, shows up.

In "The Haunted Policeman", Lord Peter and Harriet have just had their firstborn son, and Lord Peter, having just seen off the doctor, meets a worried and distracted policeman just off duty, whom he spontaneously asks to help him celebrate. The policeman tells Lord Peter the source of his distraction. Walking a beat, the policeman had turned into Merriman's End and noticed a suspicious character when someone began shouting about a murder. The policeman goes to Number 13 and sees a curious sight through the letter-flap. Inside there is a black-and-white marble floor and a staircase with a red carpet. A nude woman at the bottom of the staircase is carrying a pot of blue and yellow flowers. He sees a number of other things, all quite vividly, but the most serious is a large man on the floor with a knife in his throat. He blows his whistle, and has to leave the house temporarily to make sure people don't run into the street, and soon is met by another policeman, who was coming to take over for the night. They discover a problem. There is no Number 13 (all the streets are even-numbered), and Number 12 and Number 14 (and, indeed, all the others) look nothing like what the policeman had seen through the letter-flap. He is accused of having been drinking and might well lose his job, if Lord Peter cannot solve the  mystery of the disappearing house.

In "Talboys", the oldest son of Lord Peter and Harriet, Bredon, is in trouble for having stolen a couple of prize peaches from Mr Puffett. Mr Puffett is fairly affable about it, and Lord Peter whips Bredon. A visitor, Miss Quirk, a friend of Harriet's sister, is staying and takes a dark view of corporal punishment as only encouraging delinquency, and takes herself to be vindicated when all of Mr Puffett's peaches are stolen, since Bredon is the likeliest suspect. Lord Peter and Mr Puffett investigate the scene of the crime, while Miss Quirk follows up her suspicion of Bredon, who is certainly hiding something.

All three stories are that particular form of mystery story in which someone is falsely accused, whom we know from having 'met' them probably to be falsely accused, but on grounds that seem unimpeachable, and therefore all have a structure of building up evidence in order to show that the evidence's apparent direction is not what it seems. "Talboys" is best of the three, and on its own is a reason to read this short collection. It has the most natural set-up for the crime and the most natural reason for Lord Peter to be involved; it has the most distinctive characterization; and it is a very funny story, being in part a send-up of modern views of education and parenting, embodied in Miss Quirk. It perhaps helps the story that Miss Quirks have become more, rather than less, common; being judgmental about other people's approach to parenting seems a common sport in our day and, as with Miss Quirk, it is a sport that anyone can play, even the childless. But while it's true enough that parents make their share of mistakes, sometimes even serious ones, it's only in the most extreme cases true that another person in their place would certainly do better. As in war, no plan survives contact with the enemy, so too in parenting, no scheme of how it should be done ever survives contact with actual children. At the very least, all parenting requires some custom-tailoring. Sayers's skewering of Miss Quirk's refusal to recognize this is very well done, and makes for an enjoyable story throughout.

My past two weeks have been for the most part extraordinarily busy, but listening to audiobooks is something I can occasionally do even when my reading is itself taking a hit -- more places I can do it -- so I also listened to two audiobooks -- the audiobook version of Striding Folly, put out by Blackstone Publishing and narrated by Ian Carmichael, and Colin Duriez's Dorothy L. Sayers: A Biography of Death, Dante, and Lord Peter, published by Oasis  Audio and narrated by Simon Vance. Both were quite good. "Talboys" in particular works quite well in audio form; I did notice that the audio script toned down some of the policeman's crudeness in "The Haunted Policeman". Duriez's biography struck me as probably better in audiobook form that it would be in book form; it's more a conversational introduction than a deep dive into Sayers's life.

Favorite Passage:

'I wish,' said Harriet, a little irritably, for she strongly disliked being lectured about her duties and being thus prevented from attending to them, 'you wouldn't always talk about "a" child, as if all children were alike. Even my three are all quite different.'

'Mothers always think their own children are different,' said Miss Quirk. 'But the fundamental principles of child-psychology are the same in all, I have studied the subject. Take this question of punishment. When you punish a child -- '

'Which child?' (p. 115)

Recommendation:  Recommended.

*********

Dorothy L. Sayers, Striding Folly, New English Library (London: 1977).