The Clocks Do Toll

I'm not wholly sure why, but I was thinking last night of how brilliant the opening of the Chorus for Act IV of Henry V is, in narrative terms:

Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch:
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umber'd face;
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night's dull ear, and from the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation:
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.
Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,
The confident and over-lusty French
Do the low-rated English play at dice;
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night
Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp
So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently and inly ruminate
The morning's danger, and their gesture sad
Investing lank-lean; cheeks and war-worn coats
Presenteth them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts.

That is good, solid storytelling there. The use of multiple ways of expressing the opposition between the French and the English is especially effective, and the asymmetry sets up the later "little touch of Harry in the night" as it should.

Critics have been very hard on the Chorus in Henry V. They've questioned why it's even needed. I don't think that's all that difficult; the obvious point is that we are not just getting Henry himself, we are getting Henry becoming legend. The audience itself is a participant in what the play is about: it is our thoughts that deck the kings, our imaginary forces that make Henry a legend. The Chorus parts are also often accused of 'telling, not showing'. I'm on record as thinking that, while such a slogan as 'show, don't tell' can have legitimate meaning in particular circumstances, it is trash if taken as a general principle. In reality, however, the Chorus parts are 'showing' exactly what needs to be shown: that the tale cannot be crammed into the theatre, that its only suitable stage is the mind itself, that the players and scenery on the stage are only 'ciphers' that guide the real play, in the imagination. Storytelling is in its own way as much a dramatic art as playacting. And the fact of the matter is that the Chorus parts are all excellent storytelling. This interweaving of storytelling and stagecraft is entirely necessary to the play.

Mingling Passions

If the objects of the contrary passions be totally different, the passions are like two opposite liquors in different bottles, which have no influence on each other. If the objects be intimately connected, the passions are like an alcali and an acid, which, being mingled, destroy each other. If the relation be more imperfect, and consists in the contradictory views of the same object, the passions are like oil and vinegar, which, however mingled, never perfectly unite and incorporate.

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature 2.3.9.17

On the Virtue of Temperance, Part I

Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 11:

Elinor could not be surprised at their attachment. She only wished that it were less openly shewn; and once or twice did venture to suggest the propriety of some self-command to Marianne. But Marianne abhorred all concealment where no real disgrace could attend unreserve; and to aim at the restraint of sentiments which were not in themselves illaudable, appeared to her not merely an unnecessary effort, but a disgraceful subjection of reason to common-place and mistaken notions. Willoughby thought the same; and their behaviour at all times, was an illustration of their opinions.

Jeremy Bentham, in the third volume of his work, Not Paul but Jesus, portrays the history of ethics as dominated (unfortunately, in his view) by what he calls asceticism:

By asceticism I understand any system or article of doctrine in and by which endeavours are used to engage men to forego pleasure in any shape for any other cause than the procurement of still greater pleasure in the same or some other shape, or the avoidance of pain to an amount more than equivalent: or to subject themselves [to] pain for any other cause than the avoidance of still greater pain, or the procurement of pleasure to an amount more than equivalent. (1.1.1)

To this idea, that one should sometimes restrain oneself in matters of pleasure even when doing so does not result in greater pleasure overall or in the long run, Bentham opposes utilitarianism; he regards 'asceticism' as very morally wrong.

While Bentham's way of putting it is tendentious -- as Bentham's ways of putting things often are -- it is nonetheless true that he has hit on a genuine opposition. What Bentham calls 'asceticism' is just, in fact, what older authors call temperance, and almost all of Bentham's discussion of the opposition is an attack on the virtue of temperance. The basic principle governing temperance as traditionally understood is that we are to restrain ourselves in matters of pleasure in light of needs of life that are higher than pleasure, and that we should train our preferences in light of those same needs. These needs are needs for things like living, being healthy, contributing to the good of the human race as a free and responsible member of it, sustaining the human race through proper care for children, reasoning and inquiry after truth, loving God, and probably a great many others, none of which are understood in ways reducible to pleasure.

Thomas Aquinas insists on this point explicitly in ST 2-2.141.6. In his reply to the second objection, he notes that temperance is concerned with necessitas humanae vitae in two ways: it is concerned both with what is necessary for life itself and what is necessary to live life fittingly (convenienter). When we are dealing specifically with touch-related pleasures (which is the focus of the special virtue of temperance as opposed to temperance in a broad sense), the primary (but not only) concerns are health and good condition.

Thus we find two opposed attitudes, with Bentham in one camp and champions of temperance like Austen and Aquinas in the other. It is temperance that considers it sometimes important "to aim at the restraint of sentiments which are not in themselves illaudable" and that involves "the propriety of some self-command" even in matters in which "no real disgrace could attend unreserve", to use Austen's phrases. One way to read Sense and Sensibility, in fact, is as an exploration of the virtue of temperance. But the idea that one should sometimes restrain oneself even from things that are in themselves fine seems to be a very alien view to many people today; there are, on this point, at least, many Benthamites.

The Development of Truth in the Human Mind

The development of truth in the human mind always proceeds slowly, and step by step. Even when the whole beginning and sure foundation is already found, or, rather, given, the inner evolution and external application of true science unfolds itself with extreme tardiness. At each point of progress much still remains to be overcome, much to be improved, and even to be thought upon once more, and reconsidered over and over again. Often, too, at the very last moment, an unexpected obstacle presents itself, or some new procrastination of a conscientious doubt or care.

Friedrich von Schlegel, Philosophy of Life, Morriston, tr., p. 534.

Facts and Experiences

As a rule, modern philosophers accept that all human knowledge comes from experience but without asking what experience is.Is experience perhaps facts? Facts alone cannot constitute experience because until facts are known by me they are, relative to my knowledge, non-existent.Nor can experience be taken to mean facts known to me. If this is the meaning of experience, we would have to inquire about the kind of knowledge under discussion. It would be absurd to maintain that experience is facts known by sense alone. When I say that I know a fact by sense alone, I have removed all thought from the fact. In such a case, facts are sensations and nothing more; there is no contact between them, no connection of any kind. These facts known by the senses alone - an incorrect expression if ever there was one - can neither be written or spoken about, because language does not have individual words suitable to express them and because, if I connect them to some sensible sign to make them speakable, I would have to reflect upon them. But this runs counter to the assumption that they are known to me through sense alone, and nothing else. Experience, therefore, will be facts which are truly known; this inevitably brings in the intelligence which endows them with some universality by considering individual facts in relationship to being and, in being, in their relation to one another. This kind of experience can and does produce our cognitions. But if this is the experience we mean when we assert that all our cognitions come from experience, we first have to discover the nature of our intellective knowledge of facts and the nature of the intellect which we use to form or, at least, complete this experience.

Antonio Rosmini, A New Essay Concerning the Origin of Ideas, Volume 1, Section 4, Chapter 3, footnote 225.

Already a Long Day

So, somehow I managed to get through yesterday without realizing that Daylight Saving Time had ended. I first began to suspect that I was missing something when there was hardly any traffic on the road -- speed limit all the way, even at the entrance ramps that usually jam up the Interstate. And so I got to work an hour earlier than I usually do, which is something of a problem since during this term on Mondays I get to campus right before it opens. So I just listened to Vic and Sade and the Harold Peary Show on the radio until campus opened. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those days that is just 'off' the entire day....

All Souls

St. Catherine of Genoa, Treatise on Purgatory, Chapter 2:

I believe no happiness can be found worthy to be compared with that of a soul in Purgatory except that of the saints in Paradise; and day by day this happiness grows as God flows into these souls, more and more as the hindrance to His entrance is consumed. Sin's rust is the hindrance, and the fire burns the rust away so that more and more the soul opens itself up to the divine inflowing. A thing which is covered cannot respond to the sun's rays, not because of any defect in the sun, which is shining all the time, but because the cover is an obstacle; if the cover be burnt away, this thing is open to the sun; more and more as the cover is consumed does it respond to the rays of the sun

It is in this way that rust, which is sin, covers souls, and in Purgatory is burnt away by fire; the more it is consumed, the more do the souls respond to God, the true sun. As the rust lessens and the soul is opened up to the divine ray, happiness grows; until the time be accomplished the one wanes and the other waxes. Pain however does not lessen but only the time for which pain is endured. As for will: never can the souls say these pains are pains, so contented are they with God's ordaining with which, in pure charity, their will is united.

But, on the other hand, they endure a pain so extreme that no tongue can be found to tell it, nor could the mind understand its least pang if God by special grace did not shew so much. Which least pang God of His grace shewed to this Soul, but with her tongue she cannot say what it is. This sight which the Lord revealed to me has never since left my mind and I will tell what I can of it. They will understand whose mind God deigns to open.

Bl. John Henry Newman, Dream of Gerontius, which, of course, is a poem about Purgatory:

Soul:
Take me away, and in the lowest deep
There let me be,
And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,
Told out for me.
There, motionless and happy in my pain,
Lone, not forlorn,—
There will I sing my sad perpetual strain,
Until the morn.
There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast,
Which ne'er can cease
To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest
Of its Sole Peace.
There will I sing my absent Lord and Love:—
Take me away,
That sooner I may rise, and go above,
And see Him in the truth of everlasting day.

I did some brief and inadequate comparison of Catherine and Newman on this subject last year.