Something New Every Day

A post at Panda's Thumb points out Wells's book God the Invisible King (the Project Gutenberg version has no pop-ups), written in 1917, where Wells lays out what he calls "modern religion," the core of which is "a profound belief in a personal and intimate God," and says, "Without God, the 'Service of Man' is no better than a hobby or a sentimentality or an hypocrisy in the undisciplined prison of the mortal life." Not having read it before, I was surprised; I had thought Wells an atheist, too. He certainly is almost universally considered to be one, perhaps because his The Outline of History had such an influence on so many freethinkers in the English-speaking world. Apparently the matter is more complicated than it is commonly made out to be. Shame on me for presuming in this case; I should know better.

UPDATE: Ralph Luker left a helpful comment, which I'll put here so that it doesn't eventually get deleted when HaloScan gets rid of it:

Right. H. G. Wells went through some changes. God the Invisible King represents the high tide of his theism and its emergence can be tracked in the work immediately preceding it. I suspect that the theism, which is neither identifiable with Christianity nor particularly hostile to it, had something to do with the spiritual crisis felt by many western intellectuals in the World War I era. In Wells's case, that theism began to ebb soon thereafter and he participates fully in, becomes a major spokesman for, the secularism of the inter-war years.

Ninth Amendment

Jeremy has a good post on the Ninth Amendment at "Parableman". It seems to me that the function of the Ninth Amendment is primarily to make clear the fundamental importance of the people: no one can appeal to the fact that the Constitution doesn't enumerate a right in order to infer that the people do not have it. The Constitution is a set of delegated powers and restrictions made by the people on the government: its purpose is to restrict the government (to the extent that this can be done and the national objects of union, justice, tranquillity etc. be met), not to restrict the rights of the people. A major worry about a bill of rights was the possibility that if any rights were left out, that would be an occasion for someone to argue that they didn't exist at all; preventing that is the basic rationale for an amendment of this sort.

Which is all well and good, theoretically; but how should it function practically? The key phrase for practical use should be the phrase "retained by the people". The way I think a court should regard the Ninth Amendment is this: the people have not retained some rights; the rights given up are those in which we have (in the Constitution) allowed the government to interfere with our lives. However, they have retained many rights, some of which are enumerated, some of which are not. The rights that are enumerated must be protected, simply speaking. As to the unenumerated rights, the point is basically this:

People can never be presumed by the government not to have a right, as long as it does not fall into the category of rights they have explicitly (in the Constitution) not retained.

Or, in practical terms: when it comes to determining whether the government can do a given thing, the burden of proof should fall on the government to show that in this action it remains within the field of Rights Explicitly Not Retained By the People. In other words, the real force of the Ninth Amendment should be to require that the government stay within its Constitutionally authorized bounds, and be able to show that it has done so. (The Tenth Amendment does something similar.)

I think Jeremy is right that attempting to parse the Ninth Amendment by enumerating the unenumerated rights is doomed to failure. It's on the right track, in the sense that the courts have the responsibility not to ignore the Ninth Amendment and the duty to take it seriously. But the best way to do that is not to enumerate the rights the people have retained, but to make clear that the government gets no free passes to do something merely because the Constitution doesn't explicitly say it can't; in other words, to make sure that the government only do what the Constitution says it can. The enumerated rights go one step further, since they have to be respected even where the government has been given power; and Jeremy is right, I think, that when it becomes necessary to enumerate a right (as it sometimes has been necessary), the way to do it is by amendment.(*) Indeed, as Jeremy notes, the only constitutional way to enumerate a right is by amendment. For other rights, the Constitution merely says we can't be presumed by the government not to have them.

(*) It occurs to me, though, as one possible exception to this, that people do have enumerated rights that are not enumerated in the U.S. Constitution: namely, additional rights enumerated in their State Constitutions. This, when combined with the Tenth Amendment, has the potential for special judicial bite. Thus, to take just one example, the Vermont Constitution explicitly gives the people (through their legal representatives) "the sole, inherent, and exclusive right of governing and regulating the internal police" of Vermont; it gives each member of society "a right to be protected in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property," "a natural and inherent right to emigrate from one state to another that will receive them," and so forth. When the Ninth Amendment is combined with the Tenth Amendment, the effect is that residents of Vermont have certain enumerated rights, although they are not enumerated in the U. S. Constitution, that the federal government must respect in any matters to which both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments extend. Thus, even if one thinks the Ninth Amendment weak on its own, it has the potential for important effects when combined with other amendments.

A Hopeless Errand in a Long Defeat

Loren Rosson has a great post, called Tolkien vs. Jackson: One Man's Hopelessness, Another Man's Hope, at "The Busybody." He uses Jackson's film adaptation to highlight a major difference between it and the book: Jackson's masterpiece is about hope, but Tolkien's masterpiece is about hopelessness -- not an absolute hopelessness, since hope does occasionally pop up, but certainly a general hopelessness. Tolkien's characters are fighting a battle they all know they will lose; they are on quests that they intend, at most, to buy time in the face of inevitable defeat. They make it through not on the basis of hope but on the basis of cheer and courage in the face of an apparently irresistible doom.

Bonaventure on the Image of God

Bonaventure says a great deal about the Image of God; I can't possibly do justice to all of it. A set of selections from the Itinerarium, Chapter III:

Enter into yourself, therefore, and observe that your soul loves itself most fervently; that it could not love itself unless it knew itself, nor know itself unless it summoned itself to conscious memory, for we do not grasp a thing with our understanding unless it is present in our memory. Hence you can observe, not with the bodily eye [oculo carnis], but with the eye of the mind [oculo rationis], that your soul has three powers. Consider, therefore, the activities of these three powers and their relationships, and you will be able to see God through yourself as through an image; and this indeed is to see God through a mirror in an obscure manner [in aenigmate].

He then goes through the powers, showing how each of the activities of each of the powers participates God in some way. At the end he says:

See therefore, how close the soul is to God, and how, through their activity, the memory leads us to eternity, the intelligence to Truth, and the elective faculty to the highest Good [in bonitatem summam secundum operationes suas].

He then gives the standard Augustinian Trinitarian exposition:

Moreovoer, if one considers the order, the origin, and the relationship [habitudinem] of these faculties to one another, he is led up to the most blessed Trinity itself. For from the memory comes for the intelligence as its offspring, because we understand only when the likeness which is in the memory emerges at the crest of our understanding [in acie intellectus] and this is the mental word. From the memory and the intelligence is breathed forth love, as the bond of both. These three -- the generating mind, the word, and love -- exist in the soul as memory, intelligence, and will, which are consusbtantial, co-equal and contemporary, and interpenetrating [circumincedentes]. If God, therefore, is a perfect spirit, then He has memory, intelligence, and will; He has both a Word begotten and Love breathed forth, which are necessarily distinct, since one is produced by the other -- a production, not of an essence [non essentialiter], nor of an accident [non accidentaliter], but of a Person [ergo personaliter].

The soul, then, when it considers itself through itself as through a mirror [speculum], rises to the speculation [speculandum] of the Blessed Trinity, the Father, the Word, and Love, Three Persons co-eternal, co-equal and consubstantial, so that whatever is in any one is in the others, but one is not the other, but all three are one God.

Then we have the distinctively Bonaventuran discussion. Bonaventure, if you've never read him, is ingenious at making lists; most medieval scholastics are, but he is the Great List-maker among all the scholastics. This comes through clearly when he continues by discussion how the Trinitarian image of the soul is reflected in philosophy:

For all philosophy is either natural, or rational, or moral. The first is concerned with the cause of being [de causa essendi] and thus leads to the power of the Father; the second is concerned with the basis of understanding [de ratione intelligendi] and thus leads to the Wisdom of the Word; the third deals with the order of life [de ordo vivendi] and thus leads to the goodness of the Holy Spirit.

Hence the first, natural philosophy, is divided into metaphysics, mathematics, and physics. Metaphysics deals with the essences of things; mathematics, with numbers and figures; and physics, with natures, powers, and diffusive operations. Thus the first leads to the first Principle, the Father; the second, to His Image, the Son; and the third, to the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The second, rational philosophy, is divided into grammar, which makes men capable of expressing themselves; logic, which makes them keen in argumentation; and rhetoric, which makes them apt to persuade or move others. This likewise suggests the most Blessed Trinity.

The third, moral philosophy, is divided into individual, familial, and political. The first of these suggests the unbegettable nature of the First Principle [primi pincipii innascibilitatem]; the second, the familial relationship of the Son [Filii familiaritatem]; and the third, the liberality of the Holy Spirit.

All these triads are traditional, but the steady adaptation of traditional triads to Trinitarian thought is one of Bonaventure's strengths.

These are by no means the only things Bonaventure says about the Image of God. But a full account of them, with adequate commentary, would take a book. My intention here is just to point out some of them.

[English translations are from Saint Bonaventure, Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, Philotheus Boehner, tr. The Franciscan Institute (Saint Bonaventure, New York: 1956) 63-71. I don't entirely like this translation, but it is the most easily available. I've added the Latin, not very consistently, where I think the translation might be a little misleading.]

Links of Interest

* Karl Marx is the greatest philosopher. Looking at some of the reasons people voted for him, the vote perhaps shows something else, e.g., that people don't actually know much about the history of philosophy.

* Philosophy Carnival XVI at "Dinner Table Don'ts"

* History Carnival XII at "Mode for Caleb"

* Miriam Burnstein discusses nineteenth-century religious fiction at "The Little Professor". In the twentieth century Lloyd C. Douglas comes to mind as well.

* A good post at "Fides Quarens Intellectum" on Hume's Sensible Knave.

* I had intended to link to it before, but forgot; Stuart Buck has a post on The Moral Force of Originalism at "The Buck Stops Here". I don't think originalism is adequate, but since I think it is inadequate through incompleteness rather than positive incorrectness, I agree with the argument in the post.

* "Rebecca Writes" begins a series on Hebrews 11.

UPDATE: Nathanael Robinson has an interesting post on European unity at "The Rhine River."

Hanique, Part I

It began, as all good adventures do, at an academic conference in the south of France. The conference was called "Saint Catharine of Boulagnon: Identity and Fragmentation," and I had attended to present my paper, "Misattribution of Identity: The Case of Catharine of Bourdeaux," which (of course) discussed the common conflation in hagiographies of Saint Catharine of Boulagnon and Catharine of Bordeaux. Catharine of Bordeaux, of course, was much later, and, far from being a mystic visionary, she was a merchant's wife around whom a minor legend had developed. The conflation was perhaps not unnatural. There are similarities between the two lives. Further, nobody knows where 'Boulagnon' is located. Indeed, the common view of the scholarship (but it is really just an educated guess) is that 'Boulagnon' is a textual corruption for some other name; which other name is a matter of considerable dispute.

After I had given my paper at the conference, I noticed an earnest young man dogging my steps. He was dressed all in black, rather like a valet, looking odd and out of place in this conference of staid and stuffy academics. He seems, however, to have been one of the presenters, and well known to several others attending the conference. I did not quite catch his name (it sounded vaguely like Dr. Personne, which I doubt is right); but I believe he delivered a paper on the confusion of identities between Saint Catharine of Boulagnon and another Catharine, Catharine of Hanique. My reason is this. Once, when I had tired a bit of idle conversation and had moved away from the main mass of chattering academics, he urgently beckoned for me to come with him into a quiet, empty side-room.

"I enjoyed your paper," he said. "I think you are the only one here who could appreciate this as it should be appreciated." He took a small box out of his satchel, and, opening it, carefully produced a book of exquisite make, an incunabulum which had been carefully illuminated to look as if it had been hand-produced. It was small and leather-bound, fitting comfortably into the hand; the spine was about an inch-and-a-half thick. I was not familiar with the typography of the Latin script, but it strongly reminded me of fifteenth-century English print, e.g., a late fifteenth-century edition of Christine de Pisan's The Fayte of Armes and Chyvalrye.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It is a family heirloom," he said. "This book appears to be the only remaining copy of the Vision of Two Souls, by Catharine of Hanique."

"Catharine of Hanique?"

"Yes. The Blessed Catharine of Hanique was the stepsister of Saint Catharine of Boulagnon, or so she claims. They had the same father, but different mothers. The two are often conflated; all the achievements of Catharine of Hanique are attributed to Catharine of Boulagnon. It has been one of the foremost obstacles to her canonization. While I am not Catholic myself, my family had a long history of advocating her cause, which is how this came into my hands."

"It seems like a priceless discovery."

"Indeed. Not only is it the primary evidence for the distinction of Catharine of Hanique from Catharine of Boulagnon, there is reason to believe it was printed in 1441 by Janszoon Koster, which would make it one of the earliest printed books."

I was very skeptical of such a claim, since it did not seem likely that anyone reasonable would carry a book that old in a box in a satchel. But my skepticism did not have time to be expressed, because, as the man held the book out to me to show an exquisitely illuminated capital, a man in a mask rushed out of a dark adjoining room, grabbed the book, and sped away.

Without thinking, I ran after the thief. Across the lobby, out the door, and across the field we ran. Although he was fast, and had the headstart surprise had given him, I was catching up to him. I did not catch him, however; for in the middle of the field was a black helicopter. He jumped in and it rose into the air, carrying away the priceless book by Catharine of Hanique.

I returned to report the sad matter to the earnest young man. "Ah," he said sadly, "they have taken it to Hanique." And he would say no more.

Part II of "Hanique" is soon to come!

Seed of an Argument against Semiquietism

If we are to have a universal respect for persons, we cannot seriously except ourselves; if we are to hope that the virtuous are especially rewarded, whether or not we are rewarded cannot reasonably be treated as morally indifferent if being virtuous cannot be.

(Semiquietism gets a mention in the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Quietism. Semiquietist views are very common, and I think morally pernicious. What makes them 'pernicious' rather than merely erroneous is that people think of the semiquietistic state as a sort of superior morality, when in fact it involves a set of moral deficiencies. It is morally deficient to have no concern at all for one's own welfare, even for the sake of goodness itself; and yet this moral deficiency is often mistaken for a type of exceptional goodness.)