Charles Williams, Many Dimensions

Introduction

Opening Passage:

"Do you mean," Sir Giles said, "that the thing never gets smaller?"

"Never," the Prince answered. "So much of its virtue has entered into its outward form that whatever may happen to it there is no change. From the beginning it was as it is now."

"Then by God, sir," Reginald Montague exclaimed, "you've got the transport of the world in your hands."

Summary: I think to understand what is going on in Many Dimensions, one must begin with organic law, a constant theme throughout the book. Organic law is law that constitutes the 'organs' or instruments of governance themselves. This may be stricter or looser, depending on the state of law. For instance, in the United States, which has a fairly stable and clearly defined organic law, organic law is constituted by four documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Northwest Ordinance, and the U. S. Constitution and its amendments (to which are added, in the case of the states, the state constitutions). Each of these set up important instruments or organs of governance, and taken together and in proper order (e.g., taking into account the fact that the Constitution revises the others) they constitute the organic law of the United States (and, although I don't know if it's actually done any more, they used to be printed as such at the beginning of every copy of the U.S. Code). Because organic law sets up the means of government themselves, the government has no legitimate action except so far as it acts consistently with organic law; and nothing the government passes can be a law if it conflicts with organic law, unless it is revising organic law in the way organic law itself provides. To have means of government at all implies some organic law, although it will often not be as straightforward as the American version, which has the simplicity of not being parliamentary. American organic law is quite rigid, whereas British organic law, to take the obvious example, is quite fluid.

The two protagonists of Many Dimensions, Christopher Arglay and Chloe Burnett, are working on a book, Survey of Organic Law. Lord Arglay is Lord Chief Justice of Britain and really knows his law, which he would have to in order to be writing a book concerned with British organic law. Chloe is his secretary and research assistant. Both of them take the task very, very seriously. One of Arglay's key character traits is that he really does see himself as serving Law and (crucially) would never manipulate it for his own purposes. Miss Burnett approaches the matter as a student, and, indeed, is referred to in one of the chapter titles as "The Pupil of Organic Law". References to organic law are found throughout the book, and the key action that resolves the problems of the book is itself called in the chapter title, "The Process of Organic Law".

This is important because it explains what is going on with the Stone of Suleiman. Having been acquired through some rather crooked dealings by Sir Giles Tumulty, it soon becomes clear that the Stone has rather miraculous properties. You can divide it without diminishing it -- split the stone and you will have the Original and its Type, perfectly identical and both looking exactly like the Original. With the Stone you can manipulate time and space to travel anywhere or anywhen, and you can even project yourself into the minds of others. The Stone also makes possible extraordinary healing. None of this is arbitrary. The reason the Stone can do these things is that it is the organic law of creation itself, miraculously contained in a stone through the power of the Ineffable Name. All of the properties of the Stone reflect features of organic law generally: organic law is one and indivisible although shareable, it constitutes the means of governance and thus all of the government is implicit in it, laws must be interpreted in light of it, and it provides remedy in particular cases. The Stone is repeatedly referred to as the First Matter, but it is the First Matter of creation in the sense that the constitution of a nation is the first matter of its government. The Stone of Suleiman is the Constitution of the Cosmos; it has absolute supremacy over the laws of time, space, and thought because it is what grounds and constitutes those laws in the first place.

This sets up the major conflict in the book, which is not merely maneuvering over a magical relic but a genuinely moral question of one's relation to organic law. The difference between Lord Arglay and Chloe Burnett on the one hand and people like Sir Giles Tumulty on the other is that for the latter the Organic Law of the Universe is merely something to be manipulated for his own ends; whereas Lord Arglay and Chloe Burnett both see it as an end in itself, indeed, the End, the End of Desire. It is Law as such, and the heroes are marked by their refusal to treat it as something merely to be used. Indeed, no less than three chapter titles highlight this point. It necessarily gives the plot a somewhat curious structure: the difference between the heroes and the villains is that the heroes repeatedly refuse to further the plot, and their heroic action consists entirely of letting the Stone determine how things should happen.

Williams also plays with the meaning of organic law, and the semi-paradoxical nature of the phrase: vital spontaneity with rigorous necessity. This serves also as a symbol of what differentiates the heroes from the rest, since Lord Arglay and especially Chloe live under law, and ultimately it is Chloe's self-sacrificially expressing Law through her life that makes possible the resolution of the problems of the book.

This play on Law is one of the strengths of the work, and it is impressive how Williams is able to show Law as itself a semi-mystical thing through the Hajji's obscure and riddling comments on the Stone. Everything the Hajji says about the Stone, however mystical it may sound, is true in some sense of law in general, including very ordinary human laws. The only difference is scope.

Favorite Passage:

He looked out, and in the sky itself there was a change. There was movement between him and the heavens; the chimneys and clouds and sky took on the appearance of the Stone. He was looking into it, and the world was there, continents and cities, seas and their ships. The Stone was not these, yet these were the Stone---only there was movement within and beyond them, and from a point infinitely far a continual vibration mingled itself with the myriad actions of men. And then, in the foreground of that vastidity, he saw rising the Types of the Stone, here and again there appearing and through all those mingled colours rushing swiftly together. Loosed from their cells and solitudes upon earth, living suddenly in conjoining motion, closing within themselves the separation which men had worked on them, those images grew into each other and were again made one. For a moment he saw the Unity of the Stone at a great distance within the Stone which was the world, and then the farther Mystery was lost in the nearer. Colour and darkness were a great background for her where she stood; they concentrated themselves upon her; through her they poured into the Stone upon her hands, and behind her again appeared but the sky and the houses of a London street.

Recommendation: This isn't Williams's strongest work, and I find Chloe Burnett a bit annoying, but as an idea novel it is marvelously constructed, and the basic story is quite readable. Recommended if it comes your way.

Protean Imagination and Pleonexia

Using his protean imagination, Henry seeks honor continuously by creating a series of beautiful moments both for himself alone and for himself and others. He becomes the object of desire for the Bertram sisters; he becomes the master improver of estates for Rushworth; he becomes Frederick to Maria's Agatha in Lover's Vows; he becomes the heroic adventurer in William's seafaring tales and then William's valiant benefactor in real life; he becomes Fanny's knight in shining armor; he becomes all the principal characters in Shakespeare's Henry VIII; he becomes the eloquent preacher in a London church; he becomes the benevolent estate-holder concerned about his tenants; he becomes the perfect gentleman caller at Portsmouth; and finally, he becomes trapped in a former beautiful moment, one that Maria cannot forget, and he suffers irreparable consequences.

Fanny aptly sums up his character when she says he "was every thing to every body, and seemed to find no one essential to him." No one is essential because Henry can never be satisfied with one; he needs an ever-changing audience of many admirers to accommodate his ego's pleonexia (insatiable drive to acquire) for honor and his imagination's pleonexia for roles. Becoming rather than being is Henry's mode.

Joyce Kerr Tarpley, Constancy and the Ethics of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, p. 162.

Two Poem Drafts

Twilight

Twilight, the mother of thought,
above the waves of clouds
like Halcyon settles slowly down;
tranquility of mind
like oil upon the waters
slowly spreads in rings.

She wears few jewels,
no twinkling spread of gems adorn her,
no luscious silks of fire-color,
but a simple gown
in graceful folds hangs down.

    Above, a bat, with hectic wing
    begins to wheel, and distance-wise
    a nightbird haunts with music.

Finnish Seasons

I remember the forest, the hill, the sea;
with pleasure I travel in my mind.

In summer I looked at your beautiful face,
I wrote a book about a golden flower.

The autumn rain, Sunday shower,
was like to words, clear and fair.

In the gates of the north the sky grew dark;
though I played, I came to fear.

Fire came from forth a dark wind;
in the winter it danced, in January.

Links of Note

* Nice website on the evangelical (and here and there it includes some other) resistance to the Nazis.

* A Kickstarter project for a Jane Austen MMORPG. They're about halfway to their goal, but it looks like they might be stalling out a bit. They do have a prototype version available, though, with some basic functionality. And, quite frankly, this sort of thing is needed, however odd a Jane Austen MMORPG may seem: while the point of the game is entertainment, it is also trying out educational ideas.

* IEP article on Francis Hutcheson (Vandenburg and DeHart)

* The real world is stranger than fiction:

A spy whose naked, decomposing body was found in a padlocked gym bag at his apartment likely died in an accident with no one else involved, British police said Wednesday.

But that really is as implausible as it sounds:

The codebreaker could not have got into the bag and locked it from the inside alone, witnesses who worked closely with the investigation have claimed after attempting the task more than 400 times. No one has ever come forward who has been able to recreate the scene.

And again:

The death of MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams -- whose naked body was found inside an externally locked bag in his bathtub in 2010 -- was a "perfect crime," a confined spaces expert says.

Peter Faulding said he disagreed with Scotland Yard's conclusion that Williams most likely locked himself in the bag, saying it was his belief that the MI6 worker was murdered.

* Sandrine Berges on epistemic injustice and the history of philosophy.

* Charles K. Fink, The Cultivation of Virtue in Buddhist Ethics (PDF)

* An interesting charity in Virginia: Hunters for the Hungry helps deer hunters donate venison to foodbanks and similar organizations (donating game is often extremely difficult -- lots of paperwork and distributions requirements, oftentimes there are testing requirements, and so forth -- so it's the sort of thing people will tend not to do unless someone gives them a way to navigate the system and the regulations).

* As you do your online Christmas shopping, you might consider using it as a way to donate to the Africa Windmill Project, which helps farmers in Malawi who are developing more sustainable farming methods.

ADDED LATER:

* On C. S. Lewis -- it is, of course, the anniversary of his death.

* The viola organista: part piano, part viola, designed by Leonardo da Vinci. It makes sense if you think about it: pianos hit strings, harpsichords pluck them, so why not do other things with the strings, like apply them to something like a bow, or, more practically, something a bit like a hurdy-gurdy mechanism (you can definitely get a richer sound than a hurdy-gurdy could possibly produce)? (ht)

Prince Rupert of the Rhine

I'm teaching Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia today, and started wondering a bit about some of her family. Her youngest sister, the Electress Sophie, I knew, because she was a patron and correspondent of Leibniz. But much of the rest of the family was involved in interesting occupations. One of her younger brothers, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, is a case in point. He spent most of his early life fighting as a soldier, first in the Eighty Years' War, then in the Thirty Years' War, then in the English Civil War. He was captured and imprisoned as a result of the English Civil War and Princess Elisabeth had to negotiate his release. He was banished from England, but after more soldier gigs, he returned under the Restoration and served as a naval commander in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars. He became actively involved in various entrepreneurial endeavors, the most successful of which was receiving a charter for "The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay", which became known as the Hudson's Bay Company. Rupert's Land is named after him; it was the area in which the Hudson's Bay Company was granted a monopoly; there are a number of other places in Canada named after him. He was also one of the founding members of the Royal Society and was an active inventor and experimentalist. Prince Rupert's Drops, also known as Dutch Drops, are named after him (although he did not actually invent them), as is Prince Rupert's Cube, as is Prince Rupert's Metal (a variety of brass used for ornament).

All quite interesting.

Marian Presentation

Titian, Presentation of the Virgin Mary.

Today is the feast of the Presentation of Mary, of course; the Gospel reading is interesting, and underlines the point that it could also be called the feast of the preparation of Mary, or the education of Mary:

And it came to pass, as He spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd lifting up her voice said to Him: Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the paps that gave Thee suck. But He said: Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.

The Pope Reads Science Fiction

In the news recently:

Calling attention to the 20th century novel “Lord of the World” which focuses on this spirit of worldliness which leads to apostasy, Pope Francis cautioned against the attitude of wanting “be like everyone else,” which he referred to as an “adolescent progressivism.”

Robert Hugh Benson's Lord of the World is one of the great science fiction classics. It was published in 1907, so it's quite early; because a lot of the ideas it is dealing with are long since out of date, some of its picture of the future can look a little odd at times. But it was something of a tour de force -- Benson took a number of science fiction tropes that were popular at the time and turned them into the apocalypse: the Forces of Progress achieve their goals, which involves among other things systematically destroying the Catholic Church, at which they succeed, with the brilliant closing image of the last of all Popes, left with no means of resistance but martyrdom and prayer, standing on the Mount of Olives as the air fleets of the entire world prepare to bomb him and the last surviving Catholic remnant out of existence, and through it all the careful, consistent build-up to that last perfect sentence:

Then this world passed, and the glory of it.

After he wrote it, people kept insisting that now that he'd written a pessimistic Catholic science fiction novel he should write an optimistic one. Finally he gave in, and wrote another science fiction novel, Dawn of All, which is a sort of utopian novel. It's a much less interesting story, but in some ways it's an even greater science fiction tour de force -- Benson takes all the science fiction utopia themes that were bandied about at the time, enlightenment overcoming superstition and everything, and showed that you could keep them all and do a completely Catholic version. But it's Lord of the World that really makes it into the top tier of great science fiction. It's a lot like Chesterton's Father Brown stories -- it really doesn't matter whether you are Catholic or not, or whether you particularly like Chesterton's thoroughly Catholic perspective, because they are, regardless, some of the great classics of detective fiction. Benson's Lord of the World was decades ahead of its time, science-fiction-wise, pioneering new tropes and ideas, creating twists and variations on old tropes and ideas, and showing that one could use these things to tell a powerfully human story.

Lord of the World is, of course, by this point a public domain book, and it's not hard to find free electronic copies.