The Bacchae
When the god of wine and revel
made dizzy the city's prince,
the omens darkly muttered
like some strange malevolence.
But the king kept to his folly;
he was slain by the godly bull,
and carried home in his mother's arms.
Amen: the gods are cruel.
You are proud in your ways, O mortals.
Better it would be to mourn,
for you are marched through Theban streets
to where the calves are torn.
You are vain with the vain cosmetics
with which you adorn your soul;
and as you boast of your civic order,
your destruction is your goal.
You speak the name of Justice?
Justice walks with a sword
to slit the throats of mortals,
a fate no charm can ward.
And when your life is over,
when we see the path you've trod,
we will see not your boasted glory,
but the mocking of the god.
The Journey
Before I come to be
I have many miles to go
through fetid swamps of illness,
through rain and drifting snow.
I walk alone this journey,
for all must walk alone
through vales of deathly shadow
and of darkly dreaming stone.
Yet never am I lonely;
for death is in the air.
He touches every living soul
with the fate of mortal care.
I look before and behind me;
but I am lost in swirling mists
and my soul is dragged toward darkness
by the chains around my wrists.
But I walk, and my walk is steady,
I am calm with an inner peace,
and I do not rush on this highway
to the point where all troubles cease.
I am cool with the snows of heaven;
I am warm with the sun of light;
I am ascended like immortals
and gifted with their sight.
The vision deep within me
unfolds like a child's game
and when it is all opened
Renewed shall be my name.
As the clumsy caterpillar
when he weaves his soft cocoon,
I will burst out with shining wings
more brilliant than the moon.
As the light through purest crystal
becomes a rainbow freshly born,
I will change for brilliant colors
this darkness I have worn.
All my life I have been falling
like a wind-ripped snowy flake;
and when I hit the bottom,
from these dreams I will awake.
But long is this weary journey
through the thorn and sickening slime
until the day I am replenished
in the fullness of my time.
Friday, July 29, 2005
The Flame of Everlasting Love
There was a mortal, who is now above
In the mid glory: he, when near to die,
Was given communion with the Crucified,—
Such, that the Master's very wounds were stamp'd
Upon his flesh; and, from the agony
Which thrill'd through body and soul in that embrace,
Learn that the flame of the Everlasting Love
Doth burn ere it transform ...
From The Dream of Gerontius, by J. H. Newman. As you may know, Newman's poem was made into an oratorio by Elgar. The Libretto of the work is about half the size of Newman's poem, so a lot had to be cut out; but it still contains the above section.
The Dream of Gerontius is a poem about death and purgatory. Newman has an interesting chararization of purgatorial suffering:
When then—if such thy lot—thou seest thy Judge,
The sight of Him will kindle in thy heart
All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts.
Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for Him,
And feel as though thou couldst but pity Him,
That one so sweet should e'er have placed Himself
At disadvantage such, as to be used
So vilely by a being so vile as thee.
There is a pleading in His pensive eyes
Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee.
And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though
Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinn'd, {360}
As never thou didst feel; and wilt desire
To slink away, and hide thee from His sight:
And yet wilt have a longing aye to dwell
Within the beauty of His countenance.
And these two pains, so counter and so keen,—
The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not;
The shame of self at thought of seeing Him,—
Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.
Note that Newman doesn't give sin as the direct reason for purgatorial suffering. Rather, it's an indirect cause. The Soul before God is pierced by the vision, and intensely feels (1) a longing for God as the Soul's chief good; and (2) a feeling of unworthiness because of prior sin, since, even though the prior sin was forgiven, it still occurred and was a vile action against Divine Love. Thus the point of purgatory, at least as expressed here, is not that the Soul may work through the guilt of sin, but that the Soul may work through the shame of having sinned; not that that the Soul may be made worthy to stand before God, but that it may have a less fragile sense of its own worth before God; not that the Soul may be forgiven, but that the Soul may bear the weight of having been forgiven; not that it may be loved by God, but that it may bear the intensity of the flame of God's love.
The issue of Purgatory was an important (albeit not primary) issue for Newman; he discussed it prior to his conversion in Tract 79, and Purgatory comes up again in Tract 90, which discusses the rejection of Purgatory in the Thirty-Nine Articles. He criticizes the conception of Purgatory as a painful prison both in Tract 79 and in the Parochial Sermon on the Intermediate State; in the latter he rejects it as contrary to Scripture. However, this is not an absolute rejection of a doctrine of Purgatory, but only of that particular view of it, since the same sermon is an argument that the Saints before the Resurrection are in " state of repose, rest, security; but again a state more like paradise than heaven—that is, a state which comes short of the glory which shall be revealed in us after the Resurrection, a state of waiting, meditation, hope, in which what has been sown on earth may be matured and completed." After his conversion he has an early sermon on Purgatory, the notes of which describe it as a state of "being hungry [i.e., for God], like the feeling of sinking—fainting to the body" -- this we saw above in the first pain.
In any case, I thought of all this because the Diet of Bookworms recently did a set of reviews on Martindale's book about C. S. Lewis's views of the afterlife (HT: Rebecca Writes, who should be listed but isn't yet), and C. S. Lewis has a very Newmanian view of Purgatory. David Wayne at "Jollyblogger" had brought this up as an issue in his review:
Which I think is a fair enough criticism of most doctrines of Purgatory; but which I am not sure actually works against Lewis. I think we have to ask, "preparation for what?" On Newman's view, for instance, the preparation is for the Soul's sake, and is due to the fact that purgatorial pain is automatic and psychological: the Soul longs to be with God, and even knows that it is forgiven, but nonetheless needs to work out the shame of having sinned against so glorious and so merciful a God. Longing to be with God, it nonetheless feels the need to hide from Him, and the pain of purgatory is the working-out of this psychological conflict as we stand before God. Christ's sacrifice is all the preparation needed to come before God as a saint, sinless and free; but psychologically, Newman thinks, many such souls, no longer in sin, will still need to work out the self-shame that comes with having sinned. Having begun union with God through Christ, many souls need a state of discipline to prepare for greater union with God. Lewis is more vague, but, unless I'm forgetting some salient passage, it seems to me that his view is in the same ballpark. So, at the very least, there's considerable potential complexity here. (I haven't read the Martindale book, so perhaps Martindale's critique takes such complexity into account; the above wasn't intended as much of a critique -- as I said, this is just what I thought of on reading the reviews and descriptions of the book.)
In the mid glory: he, when near to die,
Was given communion with the Crucified,—
Such, that the Master's very wounds were stamp'd
Upon his flesh; and, from the agony
Which thrill'd through body and soul in that embrace,
Learn that the flame of the Everlasting Love
Doth burn ere it transform ...
From The Dream of Gerontius, by J. H. Newman. As you may know, Newman's poem was made into an oratorio by Elgar. The Libretto of the work is about half the size of Newman's poem, so a lot had to be cut out; but it still contains the above section.
The Dream of Gerontius is a poem about death and purgatory. Newman has an interesting chararization of purgatorial suffering:
When then—if such thy lot—thou seest thy Judge,
The sight of Him will kindle in thy heart
All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts.
Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for Him,
And feel as though thou couldst but pity Him,
That one so sweet should e'er have placed Himself
At disadvantage such, as to be used
So vilely by a being so vile as thee.
There is a pleading in His pensive eyes
Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee.
And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though
Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinn'd, {360}
As never thou didst feel; and wilt desire
To slink away, and hide thee from His sight:
And yet wilt have a longing aye to dwell
Within the beauty of His countenance.
And these two pains, so counter and so keen,—
The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not;
The shame of self at thought of seeing Him,—
Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.
Note that Newman doesn't give sin as the direct reason for purgatorial suffering. Rather, it's an indirect cause. The Soul before God is pierced by the vision, and intensely feels (1) a longing for God as the Soul's chief good; and (2) a feeling of unworthiness because of prior sin, since, even though the prior sin was forgiven, it still occurred and was a vile action against Divine Love. Thus the point of purgatory, at least as expressed here, is not that the Soul may work through the guilt of sin, but that the Soul may work through the shame of having sinned; not that that the Soul may be made worthy to stand before God, but that it may have a less fragile sense of its own worth before God; not that the Soul may be forgiven, but that the Soul may bear the weight of having been forgiven; not that it may be loved by God, but that it may bear the intensity of the flame of God's love.
The issue of Purgatory was an important (albeit not primary) issue for Newman; he discussed it prior to his conversion in Tract 79, and Purgatory comes up again in Tract 90, which discusses the rejection of Purgatory in the Thirty-Nine Articles. He criticizes the conception of Purgatory as a painful prison both in Tract 79 and in the Parochial Sermon on the Intermediate State; in the latter he rejects it as contrary to Scripture. However, this is not an absolute rejection of a doctrine of Purgatory, but only of that particular view of it, since the same sermon is an argument that the Saints before the Resurrection are in " state of repose, rest, security; but again a state more like paradise than heaven—that is, a state which comes short of the glory which shall be revealed in us after the Resurrection, a state of waiting, meditation, hope, in which what has been sown on earth may be matured and completed." After his conversion he has an early sermon on Purgatory, the notes of which describe it as a state of "being hungry [i.e., for God], like the feeling of sinking—fainting to the body" -- this we saw above in the first pain.
In any case, I thought of all this because the Diet of Bookworms recently did a set of reviews on Martindale's book about C. S. Lewis's views of the afterlife (HT: Rebecca Writes, who should be listed but isn't yet), and C. S. Lewis has a very Newmanian view of Purgatory. David Wayne at "Jollyblogger" had brought this up as an issue in his review:
Another troublesome aspect of Lewis's view on the hereafter is his view of purgatory. Again, Martindale does a yeoman's job of showing how Lewis viewed Christ's work as sufficient to save us from our sins, so that purgatory is not an addendum to the sufferings of Christ. For Lewis purgatory is not so much a place of punishment as of preparation. Still, he is in error in this view because Christ's atoning sacrifice is all the preparation we need.
Which I think is a fair enough criticism of most doctrines of Purgatory; but which I am not sure actually works against Lewis. I think we have to ask, "preparation for what?" On Newman's view, for instance, the preparation is for the Soul's sake, and is due to the fact that purgatorial pain is automatic and psychological: the Soul longs to be with God, and even knows that it is forgiven, but nonetheless needs to work out the shame of having sinned against so glorious and so merciful a God. Longing to be with God, it nonetheless feels the need to hide from Him, and the pain of purgatory is the working-out of this psychological conflict as we stand before God. Christ's sacrifice is all the preparation needed to come before God as a saint, sinless and free; but psychologically, Newman thinks, many such souls, no longer in sin, will still need to work out the self-shame that comes with having sinned. Having begun union with God through Christ, many souls need a state of discipline to prepare for greater union with God. Lewis is more vague, but, unless I'm forgetting some salient passage, it seems to me that his view is in the same ballpark. So, at the very least, there's considerable potential complexity here. (I haven't read the Martindale book, so perhaps Martindale's critique takes such complexity into account; the above wasn't intended as much of a critique -- as I said, this is just what I thought of on reading the reviews and descriptions of the book.)
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Heraldic Communion
You scored as Herald Model. Your model of the church is Herald. The organization of the church is much less important than the urgency of announcing the Good News of salvation to all the world. The Holy Spirit moves the individual to belief in Jesus Christ and to do the will of the Father by sharing this message with others. As with other models, the narrowness of this model could be supplemented by drawing on other models.
What is your model of the church? [Dulles] created with QuizFarm.com |
(HT: Flos Carmeli)
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Dashed Off
I am something of a compulsive note-writer. Here are some randomly chosen recent ones I've jotted down:
Natural science is the philosophy of the topology of the experimental evidences, i.e., it is the philosophy of the actual experimental evidences insofar as they are evidential.
The ability to predict requires a rather hefty amount of scientific work already in place. (e.g., prediction can't be criterial for science because it presupposes that we already have done quite a bit of scientific work)
What Kant postulates is not freedom, God, or immortality per se, but certain practical functions (e.g., moral governor of the world) whose nature beyond these purely practical roles is left undefined (although Kant occasionally goes so far as to consider what is possible or impossible for any nature fulfilling these functions).
Naturalizing the life of St. Joan of Arc doesn't make her life less astonishing.
Berkeley is a Platonist who realizes that his Platonism is speculative.
Conformity breaks consumerism more efficiently than nonconformity (this is a simple matter of supply and demand). Counterculture drives consumerism: it generates a demand and an entrepreneurship environment. "Counterculture incubates the corporate system" (Joseph Heath).
articulation vs. coacervation No, I don't quite know what I had in mind here, either. The distinction is probably Kantian. I have an interest in articulation as a rational process: What are we doing when we articulate an idea, and identify elements in our ideas we previously had not recognized? The topic has a theological interest, too, in the articulation of the faith that produces creeds and confessions. Articulation identifies the joints of the anatomy (so to speak) of the idea or belief; coacervation would be the heaping of things together.
gracious speech & not insipid as part of a devotion to truth
In American society, the greatness of the United States is a regulative, not a constitutive, idea.
Compassion has an invigorating effect; it stirs to action. It is not suffering-with in the sense that would make it a bit of suffering caught like a flu: it is withsuffering in the sense that one becomes an active response commensurate to the suffering seen in another.
Dionysus does not rebel against the city; Pentheus falls not because Iacchus is at war with him but because he [i.e., Pentheus] refuses to acknowledge him at all. (Iacchus is another name for Dionysus; I'm talking about Euripides' Bacchae here.)
Tastes may differ, but everyone wants something palatable that nourishes.
There is no true love where there is no interior conversion.
Play is the abundant expression of the activity of life, given a formal structure that allows us to delight in it as good.
A state is the realization of an ethical idea; the ideal state is God as King or Lord.
A constitution is not arbitrarily created and upheld; it must be held by the citizens to embody, even if only imperfectly, right and moral authority.
(1) basic satisfaction of physical needs: earnestness in the endeavor
----
(2) abundance of physical good: physical play
(3) abundance of intellectual good: mental play
-> Aesthetic play is a union of (2) and (3) in varying proportions & under different conditions
->(1) is the adumbration & symbol of play in the proper sense
"Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We have no doubt uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for it is not pity unless you wish to relieve them." Johnson (Boswell's London Journal 20 July 1763)
The serpent's temptation is reiterated in every age: eat this fruit and you will be like gods.
Spinoza's Ethics is a treatise on happiness.
Faith is both creative and critical. It is oriented toward truth; its delight is delight from the intimation of truth; its impulse is toward the understanding of truth.
Hope seeks steadfastness.
Whewell's Ideas organize the forms of experimental evidentiality (by way of the axioms). Thus there is causal evidentiality, classificatory evidentiality, etc.
God as the prime symbol of God, the one on which all other symbols depend (the Word as the Image of God).
Malebranche's ideas represent; Berkeley's ideas signify.
Some problems are best solved en passant.
The weak can pity only weakly; pity, compassion -- they are signs of strength. That is why we sometimes find expressions of pity presumptuous: they express a superior position of strength, at least on the issue at hand.
moral play (not the whole of moral life, but an important part)
It is not indolence if you are learning something worthwhile.
Although perhaps that last one was just an excuse to be procrastinating on something. But it sounds good....
Natural science is the philosophy of the topology of the experimental evidences, i.e., it is the philosophy of the actual experimental evidences insofar as they are evidential.
The ability to predict requires a rather hefty amount of scientific work already in place. (e.g., prediction can't be criterial for science because it presupposes that we already have done quite a bit of scientific work)
What Kant postulates is not freedom, God, or immortality per se, but certain practical functions (e.g., moral governor of the world) whose nature beyond these purely practical roles is left undefined (although Kant occasionally goes so far as to consider what is possible or impossible for any nature fulfilling these functions).
Naturalizing the life of St. Joan of Arc doesn't make her life less astonishing.
Berkeley is a Platonist who realizes that his Platonism is speculative.
Conformity breaks consumerism more efficiently than nonconformity (this is a simple matter of supply and demand). Counterculture drives consumerism: it generates a demand and an entrepreneurship environment. "Counterculture incubates the corporate system" (Joseph Heath).
articulation vs. coacervation No, I don't quite know what I had in mind here, either. The distinction is probably Kantian. I have an interest in articulation as a rational process: What are we doing when we articulate an idea, and identify elements in our ideas we previously had not recognized? The topic has a theological interest, too, in the articulation of the faith that produces creeds and confessions. Articulation identifies the joints of the anatomy (so to speak) of the idea or belief; coacervation would be the heaping of things together.
gracious speech & not insipid as part of a devotion to truth
In American society, the greatness of the United States is a regulative, not a constitutive, idea.
Compassion has an invigorating effect; it stirs to action. It is not suffering-with in the sense that would make it a bit of suffering caught like a flu: it is withsuffering in the sense that one becomes an active response commensurate to the suffering seen in another.
Dionysus does not rebel against the city; Pentheus falls not because Iacchus is at war with him but because he [i.e., Pentheus] refuses to acknowledge him at all. (Iacchus is another name for Dionysus; I'm talking about Euripides' Bacchae here.)
Tastes may differ, but everyone wants something palatable that nourishes.
There is no true love where there is no interior conversion.
Play is the abundant expression of the activity of life, given a formal structure that allows us to delight in it as good.
A state is the realization of an ethical idea; the ideal state is God as King or Lord.
A constitution is not arbitrarily created and upheld; it must be held by the citizens to embody, even if only imperfectly, right and moral authority.
(1) basic satisfaction of physical needs: earnestness in the endeavor
----
(2) abundance of physical good: physical play
(3) abundance of intellectual good: mental play
-> Aesthetic play is a union of (2) and (3) in varying proportions & under different conditions
->(1) is the adumbration & symbol of play in the proper sense
"Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We have no doubt uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for it is not pity unless you wish to relieve them." Johnson (Boswell's London Journal 20 July 1763)
The serpent's temptation is reiterated in every age: eat this fruit and you will be like gods.
Spinoza's Ethics is a treatise on happiness.
Faith is both creative and critical. It is oriented toward truth; its delight is delight from the intimation of truth; its impulse is toward the understanding of truth.
Hope seeks steadfastness.
Whewell's Ideas organize the forms of experimental evidentiality (by way of the axioms). Thus there is causal evidentiality, classificatory evidentiality, etc.
God as the prime symbol of God, the one on which all other symbols depend (the Word as the Image of God).
Malebranche's ideas represent; Berkeley's ideas signify.
Some problems are best solved en passant.
The weak can pity only weakly; pity, compassion -- they are signs of strength. That is why we sometimes find expressions of pity presumptuous: they express a superior position of strength, at least on the issue at hand.
moral play (not the whole of moral life, but an important part)
It is not indolence if you are learning something worthwhile.
Although perhaps that last one was just an excuse to be procrastinating on something. But it sounds good....
Notables
* Chris discusses the neuroscience of moral reasoning at "Mixing Memory".
* Something just to get your goat
* Very cool: Nathanael Robinson discusses the social background of the Arthurian romance Tristan (by Gottfried von Strassburg) at "Rhine River" in 'Tristan and the Sites of German Memory' part 1, part 2, and part 3. Highly recommended if, like me, you are fascinated by this sort of thing.
* Jamie points to an interview on Augustinian Thomists vs. Whig Thomists at "Ad Liminia Apostolorum". As you might expect, I fall somewhere between the two groups, agreeing with each of them on different issues.
* Something just to get your goat
* Very cool: Nathanael Robinson discusses the social background of the Arthurian romance Tristan (by Gottfried von Strassburg) at "Rhine River" in 'Tristan and the Sites of German Memory' part 1, part 2, and part 3. Highly recommended if, like me, you are fascinated by this sort of thing.
* Jamie points to an interview on Augustinian Thomists vs. Whig Thomists at "Ad Liminia Apostolorum". As you might expect, I fall somewhere between the two groups, agreeing with each of them on different issues.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Name This Man....
What seventeenth-century person fits all these descriptions:
(1) He showed that Descartes's physiology (particularly his views about the heart and the pineal gland) was wrong;
(2) He was Danish;
(3) He was originally a Lutheran, but then became Catholic;
(4) He corresponded with Leibniz and Spinoza;
(5) He has a gland named after him (the lateral nasal gland), which he discovered (it was, however, one of the few glands whose function he did not discover or confirm);
(6) He discovered tear ducts;
(7) He has sometimes been called the father of stratigraphy, of dynamic geology, and of paleontology;
(8) His name is associated with the geological 'law of superposition';
(9) T. H. Huxley noted that he had laid the basic foundations for all paleontology;
(20) His studies of the heart led him to discover sino-atrial and atrio-ventricular dissociation;
(11) He proved that the heart was a muscle;
(12) While he was limited by not having a way to set the brain (usually done now by formaldehyde, if I understand correctly), thus making dissection extremely difficult, he was the first person to lay out in clear terms the best way to study the brain anatomically;
(13) He was the first to discover the mammalian ovarian follicle;
(14) Although it was still somewhat crude, he seems to have been the first to attempt a geometric classification of crystals;
(15) He became tutor and moral preceptor to Ferdinandino, the son of Cosimo III of Florence;
(16) He was appointed by Innocent IX to be apostolic vicar of the norther missions, and was consecrated the titular bishop of Titiopolis;
(17) He was beatified by John Paul II in 1988 (his feast day is his birthday, December 5), and it is entirely possible that he will become the first geologist-saint;
(18) His most famous quotation: Pulchra sunt quae videntur, pulchriora quae sciuntur, longe pulcherrima quae ignorantur. "Beatiful are the things that are seen; more beautiful are the things that are known; by far the most beautiful are the things that are not known."
(19) He accomplished all the scientific work mentioned above before the age of thirty-six.
I happened to bring him up in a digressive comment on a post at Mixing Memory; I've intended to write up something on him for some time now, but haven't had the chance. I probably won't for a while, either; so I thought I'd just put this post out as an appetizer. If you're interested in further information, it's hard to find things, and what there is, isn't always accurate (the reason I've been so slow in getting around to posting on him). But, if I recall correctly, Stephen Jay Gould has an essay on him in Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, which would probably be the most easily accessible source of information on him. See also this website, which gives a taste, but barely touches on most of his work (as far as I can see, too, the only scientific colleague who was dismayed by his retirement from scientific work was Leibniz; as Troels Kardel has pointed out, the danger of refuting so many of the major scientific men of one's day is that they don't always take it very well when you show them up, and he seems to have made a lot of enemies that way).
(1) He showed that Descartes's physiology (particularly his views about the heart and the pineal gland) was wrong;
(2) He was Danish;
(3) He was originally a Lutheran, but then became Catholic;
(4) He corresponded with Leibniz and Spinoza;
(5) He has a gland named after him (the lateral nasal gland), which he discovered (it was, however, one of the few glands whose function he did not discover or confirm);
(6) He discovered tear ducts;
(7) He has sometimes been called the father of stratigraphy, of dynamic geology, and of paleontology;
(8) His name is associated with the geological 'law of superposition';
(9) T. H. Huxley noted that he had laid the basic foundations for all paleontology;
(20) His studies of the heart led him to discover sino-atrial and atrio-ventricular dissociation;
(11) He proved that the heart was a muscle;
(12) While he was limited by not having a way to set the brain (usually done now by formaldehyde, if I understand correctly), thus making dissection extremely difficult, he was the first person to lay out in clear terms the best way to study the brain anatomically;
(13) He was the first to discover the mammalian ovarian follicle;
(14) Although it was still somewhat crude, he seems to have been the first to attempt a geometric classification of crystals;
(15) He became tutor and moral preceptor to Ferdinandino, the son of Cosimo III of Florence;
(16) He was appointed by Innocent IX to be apostolic vicar of the norther missions, and was consecrated the titular bishop of Titiopolis;
(17) He was beatified by John Paul II in 1988 (his feast day is his birthday, December 5), and it is entirely possible that he will become the first geologist-saint;
(18) His most famous quotation: Pulchra sunt quae videntur, pulchriora quae sciuntur, longe pulcherrima quae ignorantur. "Beatiful are the things that are seen; more beautiful are the things that are known; by far the most beautiful are the things that are not known."
(19) He accomplished all the scientific work mentioned above before the age of thirty-six.
I happened to bring him up in a digressive comment on a post at Mixing Memory; I've intended to write up something on him for some time now, but haven't had the chance. I probably won't for a while, either; so I thought I'd just put this post out as an appetizer. If you're interested in further information, it's hard to find things, and what there is, isn't always accurate (the reason I've been so slow in getting around to posting on him). But, if I recall correctly, Stephen Jay Gould has an essay on him in Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, which would probably be the most easily accessible source of information on him. See also this website, which gives a taste, but barely touches on most of his work (as far as I can see, too, the only scientific colleague who was dismayed by his retirement from scientific work was Leibniz; as Troels Kardel has pointed out, the danger of refuting so many of the major scientific men of one's day is that they don't always take it very well when you show them up, and he seems to have made a lot of enemies that way).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)