'Why aren't you in school then?' they'd ask - as we ran to play,
or went roller-skating, or collected caterpillars - or got started in
on the summer's work of dams, or of blowing up wasps' nests
(some carbide, some water - throw a match, get out of the way)
or of building Messerschmidts. Our exams were done. It was June.
There were things we needed to do, and it was time to begin.
What we may learn from these two great philosophes, Einstein and Mill, is what they learned from their predecessors - that it is necessary to live as if there is a transcendental authority. "One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is," Einstein wrote, "and yet not be able to deduce from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations. Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievement of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source." The other source is religion. Neither Mill nor Einstein believed in the stories that give form and inspiration to traditional religious systems, what Mill called the "supernatural religions." But both understood that we require a story that provides a basis for moral conduct and has a transcendent character. They found it in "natural law," and in the capacities of "human nature." In their stories, human beings have innate feelings for the general good and the unity of mankind. Mill called his story The Religion of Humanity. Einstein spoke of Cosmic Religious feeling. And they found the details of their moral code in sacred texts and history, as well as custom; that is to say, in our obligations to those whom we have judged to have acted in accord with the principles of human solidarity. Mill wrote:. . . the thought that our dead parents or friends would have approved our conduct is scarcely less powerful motive than the knowledge that our living ones do approve it; and the idea that Socrates, or Howard, or Washington, or Antonius, or Christ would have sympathized with us, or that we are attempting to do our part in the spirit in which they did theirs, has operated on the very best minds as a strong incentive to act up to their highest feelings and convictions.
That there is a tendency as part of our nature toward our being "moral" - detesting wanton killing, honoring parents, caring for children, speaking truthfully, loving mercy, overcoming egotism, and all the other exhortations we find shared by sacred texts - is a legacy of the Enlightenment. And that this tendency cannot be proven in a scientific manner but must be taken on faith is also a feature of that legacy, provided that one does not claim absolute certainty for one's belief. For it is clear that most Enlightenment philosophes understood that absolute certainty is an evil that chokes reason and perverts faith; it is, in fact, the opposite of the religious spirit. They did not, therefore, find it necessary to have it "proved" that their narrative is certain, or superior to all others, or logically unassailable. Their narrative had only to be sufficient to guide them to a path of righteousness as defined by reason and historical agreement. The modern Christian apologist C.S. Lewis refers to "historical agreement" as the Tao, the summary of commands and prohibitions found in all collections of moral discourse from ancient Egypt to Babylonia to the Chinese analects to Homer's Iliad to the Old and New Testaments. The eighteenth century could not have used the term "Tao," but this is what eighteenth-century thinkers meant. This is what was "self-evident." And this is what provided courage and optimism.
I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
There have been daring people in the world who claimed that Cooper could write English, but they are all dead now -- all dead but Lounsbury. I don't remember that Lounsbury makes the claim in so many words, still he makes it, for he says that "Deerslayer" is a "pure work of art." Pure, in that connection, means faultless -- faultless in all details -- and language is a detail. If Mr. Lounsbury had only compared Cooper's English with the English he writes himself -- but it is plain that he didn't; and so it is likely that he imagines until this day that Cooper's is as clean and compact as his own. Now I feel sure, deep down in my heart, that Cooper wrote about the poorest English that exists in our language, and that the English of "Deerslayer" is the very worst that even Cooper ever wrote.
I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that "Deerslayer" is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that "Deerslayer" is just simply a literary delirium tremens.
A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are -- oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language.
Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.
What they need are the attitudes, priorities and behavior which produce the outcomes desired.
But changing anyone's attitudes, priorities and behavior is a lot harder than taking a stance as defenders of the oppressed and crusaders against the forces of evil.
To the extent that doing the latter misdiagnoses the problem, it makes solving the problem even harder. That does no good for those who are lagging, however much it exalts those who pose as their defenders. "Fairness" indeed!
Some scholars attribute the first "newspaper," and therefore an early example of modern exposition, to the work of the Italian Pietro Aretino, who was born in 1451, only a few years before the invention of printing with movable type. Aretino saw earlier than anyone the value of the printing press as an instrument of publicity, and produced a regular series of anticlerical obscenities, libelous stories, public accusations, and personal opinion, all of which became part of our journalistic tradition and are to be found thriving in the present day.
On Sundays we usually went to church in the forenoon, in compliance with the captain's advice. In the afternoon we strolled about Liverpool, visiting the public gardens, looking at the fine buildings, and indulging in many boyish visions of some day becoming ourselves great merchants, ship owners or bankers. Sometimes we strayed out into the country where there were groves of trees, and picturesque lanes and pretty villas, and, even in this late autumnal season, many sweet sights and sounds of country life, with the busy city lying in the distance half-revealed under the veil of haze and smoke that seemed always spread over it. Occasionally we stopped at little wayside dairies and regaled ourselves with bread and cheese and milk. At other times we wandered along the docks, looking with curious interest at the strange craft from many lands, with their odd rigs, quaint models, and unpronounceable names, and listening to the queer speech and noting the fantastic attire of some of the crews, and inhaling the sweet odors of fruits, spices and gums, or the vile ones of hides and guano and oil, that gave hints of the different climes from which they had come. These were happy, careless days of freedom and of the unrestrained enjoyment of scenes and sights and sounds that were strange and full of interest.
