Saturday, October 31, 2009
October 31: Witches Walk Tonight (Vol. 6, pp. 110-119)
A silly and inconsequential poem from Robert Burns for All Hallow's Eve for those who believe in ghosts and goblins and witches and evil spirits. As someone who doesn't, it's nonsense to me.
Friday, October 30, 2009
October 30: Geology's Greatest Benefactor (Vol. 38, pp. 385-391)
Sir Charles Lyell is considered the founder of modern geologic studies. Darwin said that "the science of geology is enormously indebted to Lyell — more so, as I believe, than to any other man who ever lived."
Lyell took geology out of the realm of superstition with a bold statement — "By degrees, many of the enigmas of the moral and physical world are explained, and instead of being due to extrinsic and irregular causes, they are found to depend on fixed and immutable laws."
Instead of blaming an earthquake or flood on supernatural forces, it was time to take an objective look at the phenomena and see their commonality with other similar events. Again, the logical progress of the forces of reason over the forces of superstition.
Along with Darwin, Newton, Pasteur and the rest of the scientific giants of the 18th and 19th centuries, Lyell helped to take chance out of the equation as the dominant factor in how the world works, and replaced it with logic, reason and the scientific method. The world as we know it today would not exist without this tremendous leap in human knowledge.
Lyell took geology out of the realm of superstition with a bold statement — "By degrees, many of the enigmas of the moral and physical world are explained, and instead of being due to extrinsic and irregular causes, they are found to depend on fixed and immutable laws."
Instead of blaming an earthquake or flood on supernatural forces, it was time to take an objective look at the phenomena and see their commonality with other similar events. Again, the logical progress of the forces of reason over the forces of superstition.
Along with Darwin, Newton, Pasteur and the rest of the scientific giants of the 18th and 19th centuries, Lyell helped to take chance out of the equation as the dominant factor in how the world works, and replaced it with logic, reason and the scientific method. The world as we know it today would not exist without this tremendous leap in human knowledge.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
October 29: Genius Rise from a Stable (Vol. 41, pp. 874-882)
English poet John Keats, the son of a stable man, was born this day in 1795. Keats, together with Shelley and Lord Byron, were the troika of 19th century over-the-top romantic poets.
Yes, "Ode to a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightengale" are in today's reading and yes, I can't get into these poems any more than I could get into Shelley's. It's the sort of over-emotive drivel that gives poetry a bad name.
Yes, "Ode to a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightengale" are in today's reading and yes, I can't get into these poems any more than I could get into Shelley's. It's the sort of over-emotive drivel that gives poetry a bad name.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
October 28: How Dice Taught Spelling (Vol. 37, pp. 128-136)
British philosopher John Locke died this day in 1704, and today's essay, "Some Thoughts Concerning Education," comes as a bit of a surprise. Who knew that Locke was an advocate of making learning fun?
Locke suggested using dice to help children learn the alphabet, thought Aesop's Fables made a good beginning reader and that learning "should be made as little trouble of business to him as might be.
In an age where schooling was about discipline and memorization, these ideas were radical. Equally radical was Locke's thought that art should be an integral part of the learning process. So many of the educational principles we take for granted today seem to have come from Locke.
Locke suggested using dice to help children learn the alphabet, thought Aesop's Fables made a good beginning reader and that learning "should be made as little trouble of business to him as might be.
In an age where schooling was about discipline and memorization, these ideas were radical. Equally radical was Locke's thought that art should be an integral part of the learning process. So many of the educational principles we take for granted today seem to have come from Locke.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
October 27: Fruit of Seven Years Silence (Vol. 45, pp. 661-674)
A dose of Buddhist writings today. One wonders what it was like for someone a century ago to run into the concept of karma? The word gets thrown about so casually today, but it must have been mind-blowing to someone who only knew what he was taught in Sunday School.
The idea that "every deed a man performs with body/or voice or mind,/'tis this that he can call his own,/this with him take as he goes hence/this is what follows after him/and like a shadow ne'er departs" has parallels in the Christian faith. It is a good way to go through life.
Every act of kindness is cumulative and feeds on previous acts of kindness. Whether or not it leads to the promised blessings of the next life is debatable, but goodness generally does seem to begat more goodness and evil somehow, some way, is eventually punished. At least, it would be nice if the world worked this way.
The idea that "every deed a man performs with body/or voice or mind,/'tis this that he can call his own,/this with him take as he goes hence/this is what follows after him/and like a shadow ne'er departs" has parallels in the Christian faith. It is a good way to go through life.
Every act of kindness is cumulative and feeds on previous acts of kindness. Whether or not it leads to the promised blessings of the next life is debatable, but goodness generally does seem to begat more goodness and evil somehow, some way, is eventually punished. At least, it would be nice if the world worked this way.
Monday, October 26, 2009
October 26: Franklin Learned the Secret (Vol. 1, pp. 14-21)
Consider this passage from Benjamin Franklin's "Autobiography" a plug for the joy of reading the Harvard Classics. It definitely is an ode to the joys of being a bookworm.
Franklin was an ambitious young man and the fuel for that ambition was his voracious appetite for the written word. As a printer's apprentice, he used his money to buy books and devoured Plutarch and the pulp fiction of his day with equal gusto. He read The Spectator and shamelessly stole from its style. Any spare moment young Ben had was devoted to reading, and the reading in turn informed his writing and served as "a principal means of my advancement."
Ben was wise enough to know he wasn't a poet and that prose was the way to go. He learned from Alexander Pope that the key to converting the readers of your writing to your point of view -- to inform, to please or to persuade -- is to be positive. He quotes Pope as saying that "men should be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown propos'd as things forgot" and that "for want of modesty is want of sense."
In other words, one can be certain of one's point of view, but it's not necessary to beat someone over the head with it.
Franklin was an ambitious young man and the fuel for that ambition was his voracious appetite for the written word. As a printer's apprentice, he used his money to buy books and devoured Plutarch and the pulp fiction of his day with equal gusto. He read The Spectator and shamelessly stole from its style. Any spare moment young Ben had was devoted to reading, and the reading in turn informed his writing and served as "a principal means of my advancement."
Ben was wise enough to know he wasn't a poet and that prose was the way to go. He learned from Alexander Pope that the key to converting the readers of your writing to your point of view -- to inform, to please or to persuade -- is to be positive. He quotes Pope as saying that "men should be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown propos'd as things forgot" and that "for want of modesty is want of sense."
In other words, one can be certain of one's point of view, but it's not necessary to beat someone over the head with it.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
October 25: It Greatly Encouraged Intrigue (Vol. 27, pp. 363-372)
I guess the subtitle for this reading would be "sympathy for the devil." English essayist Thomas Macaulay, who was born this day in 1800, writes about Machiavelli and defends him from the common perception that he is the source of all political evil in the world.
If you only read "The Prince," Macaulay wrote, you might believe that. But the rest of Machiavelli's work demonstrate that he is not as evil as advertised.
"The explanation might have been easy if he had been a very weak or very affected man. But he was evidently neither one nor the other. His works prove, beyond all contradiction, that his understanding was strong, his taste pure, and his sense of the ridiculous exquisitely keen," wrote Macaulay.
He believes the reason why Machiavelli has received such a bum rap is due to the time and place that he plied his trade. Northern Italy did not resemble the rest of Europe as it exited the long night of the Medieval Era. It was at its zenith as a commercial and intellectual center, far above anywhere else on the continent. A culture devoted to commerce is not a culture that sees war as a necessity, at least the sort of war where all members of a society march off to fight.
If you only read "The Prince," Macaulay wrote, you might believe that. But the rest of Machiavelli's work demonstrate that he is not as evil as advertised.
"The explanation might have been easy if he had been a very weak or very affected man. But he was evidently neither one nor the other. His works prove, beyond all contradiction, that his understanding was strong, his taste pure, and his sense of the ridiculous exquisitely keen," wrote Macaulay.
He believes the reason why Machiavelli has received such a bum rap is due to the time and place that he plied his trade. Northern Italy did not resemble the rest of Europe as it exited the long night of the Medieval Era. It was at its zenith as a commercial and intellectual center, far above anywhere else on the continent. A culture devoted to commerce is not a culture that sees war as a necessity, at least the sort of war where all members of a society march off to fight.
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