I have discovered a lurking monster in the minds of the semi-academic people who popularise history. The assumption is so enormous and so absurd that I cannot describe it as anything else; for when one cannot make a head or tail of something, it may have a hundred heads and a thousand tails. Indeed, itsContinue reading “History and Historians”
Tag Archives: philosophy
The Progressive Primate
There is a great deal to be said for stepping aside to see the oddity of the things we most insistently assert. It is so healthy for the mind that it can even cause laughter. But it is an unsettling approach, and not many are comfortable with it. If a scientist or an historian tellsContinue reading “The Progressive Primate”
A Consideration on Comedy
There are two kinds of laughter: one is the most beautiful sound under heaven, the other the most cruel. This fact is generally recognised. We talk about laughing at someone and laughing with someone; one is nasty, one is nice. The extremes are worlds apart: the difference between the harsh echo in an ancient despot’sContinue reading “A Consideration on Comedy”
Between the Seasons
Spring is already upon us. The winds and rains have battered the lands in earnest, and now satisfied those of us who feel an almost religious awe for the force of nature’s frown. It was the season of pensive melancholy, the season of originality – for winter has not yet become a cliché. Spring has:Continue reading “Between the Seasons”
Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone – Conclusion: On History
Humour me a little history as I begin to conclude. This whole extended essay on that English knight, Thomas Browne, has been about history, and remarkably few historical facts have been mentioned. I have written at length about modernity in the abstract, an abstract I would not venture to assert exists, though I am certainContinue reading “Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone – Conclusion: On History”
Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone – Chapter 2, part 4 – Broadmindedness
In the nineteenth section of Religio Medici we find the physician in a striking pose. It is so ludicrous, yet so thoroughly representative, that we feel as though we might at last have found the secret double spring of his sanity and his insanity. He appears before us as an exhaustive scholar, an inexpert layman,Continue reading “Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone – Chapter 2, part 4 – Broadmindedness”
Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone – Chapter 2, part 1: On Moderation
It goes without saying that we live in an age of extremes; chiefly because it goes with a lot of saying. As a matter of fact, we live in an age of moderation, too, and, it may be, of more moderation than extremes. Of course there are those who would abolish private property, whom weContinue reading “Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone – Chapter 2, part 1: On Moderation”
Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone – Chapter 1, part 7 (conclusion)
That is the first attractive quality of his science. The second quality, I think, is one we talk about a lot and practice little. He is astonished by the world, as we complacently think we ought to be. He is so generally and generously astonished that he suspects some mystery in it; and he willContinue reading “Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone – Chapter 1, part 7 (conclusion)”
Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone – Chapter 1, part 6
So Browne’s manner of speaking is medieval. His worldview is medieval. He is not a physicist like Newton: his manner of thinking is medieval. He knows much that most medieval scholars did not know, and a little that no medieval scholars knew, but that is hardly a measure of enlightenment. If to be scientific isContinue reading “Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone – Chapter 1, part 6”
Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone – Chapter 1, part 5
The two revolutions contaminated each other in both directions. Thirty years after the publication of Copernicus’ work, the revolution on earth spread to the heavens, and strange beasts and birds were discovered in the sky – the mysterious nova stella, the ‘new star’ first recorded by Tycho Brahe; the comet, or ‘Long-haired Star’ of Halley,Continue reading “Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone – Chapter 1, part 5”
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