PHILOSOPHY 4

A STORY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY

By Owen Wister

Contents

I

II

III

IV

V

I

Two frowning boys sat in their tennis flannels beneath the glare of lamp and gas. The ir leather belts were loosened, their soft pink shirts unbuttoned at the collar. They were listening with gloomy voracity to the instruction of a third. They sat at a table bared of its customary sporting ornaments, and from time to time they questioned, sucked their pencils, and scrawled vigorous, laconic notes. The ir necks and faces shone with the bloom of out-of-doors. Studious concentration was evidently a painful novelty to their features. Drops of perspiration came one by one from their matted hair, and their hands dampened the paper upon which they wrote. The windows stood open wide to the May darkness, but nothing came in save heat and insects; for spring, being behind time, was making up with a sultry burst at the end, as a delayed train makes the last few miles high above schedule speed. Thus it has been since eight o'clock. Eleven was daintily striking now. Its diminutive sonority might have belonged to some church-bell far distant across the Cambridge silence; but it was on a shelf in the room,—a timepiece of Gallic design, representing Mephistopheles, who caressed the world in his lap. And as the little strokes boomed, eight—nine—ten—eleven, the voice of the instructor steadily continued thus:—

"By starting from the Absolute Intelligence, the chief cravings of the reason, after unity and spirituality, receive due satisfaction. Something transcending the Objective becomes possible. In the Cogito the relation of subject and object is implied as the primary condition of all knowledge. Now, Plato never—"

"Skip Plato,"interrupted one of the boys."You gave us his points yesterday."

"Yep,"assented the other, rattling through the back pages of his notes."Got Plato down cold somewhere,—oh, here. He never caught on to the subjective, any more than the other Greek bucks. Go on to the next chappie."

"If you gentlemen have mastered the—the Grreek bucks,"observed the instructor, with sleek intonation,"we—"

"Yep,"said the second tennis boy, running a rapid judicial eye over his back notes,"you've put us on to their curves enough. Go on."

The instructor turned a few pages forward in the thick book of his own neat type-written notes and then resumed,—

"The self-knowledge of matter in motion."

"Skip it,"put in the first tennis boy.

"We went to those lectures ourselves,"explained the second, whirling through another dishevelled notebook."Oh, yes. Hobbes and his gang. The re is only one substance, matter, but it doesn't strictly exist. Bodies exist. We've got Hobbes. Go on."

The instructor went forward a few pages more in his exhaustive volume. He had attended all the lectures but three throughout the year, taking them down in short-hand. Laryngitis had kept him from those three, to which however, he had sent a stenographic friend so that the chain was unbroken. He now took up the next philosopher on the list; but his smooth discourse was, after a short while, rudely shaken. It was the second tennis boy questioning severely the doctrines imparted.

"So he says color is all your eye, and shape isn't? and substance isn't?"

"Do you mean he claims,"said the first boy, equally resentful,"that if we were all extinguished the world would still be here, only there'd be no difference between blue and pink, for instance?"

"The reason is clear,"responded the tutor, blandly. He adjusted his eyeglasses, placed their elastic cord behind his ear, and referred to his notes."It is human sight that distinguishes between colors. If human sight be eliminated from the universe, nothing remains to make the distinction, and consequently there will be none. Thus also is it with sounds. If the universe contains no ear to hear the sound, the sound has no existence."

"Why?"said both the tennis boys at once.

The tutor smiled."Is it not clear,"said he,"that there can be no sound if it is not heard!"

"No,"they both returned,"not in the least clear."

"It's clear enough what he's driving at of course,"pursued the first boy."Until the waves of sound or light or what not hit us through our senses, our brains don't experience the sensations of sound or light or what not, and so, of course, we can't know about them—not until they reach us."

"Precisely,"said the tutor. He had a suave and slightly alien accent.

"We ll, just tell me how that proves a thunder-storm in a desert island makes no noise."

"If a thing is inaudible—"began the tutor.

"That's mere juggling!"vociferated the boy,"That's merely the same kind of toy-shop brain-trick you gave us out of Greek philosophy yesterday. They said there was no such thing as motion because at every instant of time the moving body had to be somewhere, so how could it get anywhere else? Good Lord! I can make up foolishness like that myself. For instance: A moving body can never stop. Why? Why, because at every instant of time it must be going at a certain rate, so how can it ever get slower? Pooh!"He stopped. He had been gesticulating with one hand, which he now jammed wrathfully into his pocket.

The tutor must have derived great pleasure from his own smile, for he prolonged and deepened and variously modified it while his shiny little calculating eyes travelled from one to the other of his ruddy scholars. He coughed, consulted his notes, and went through all the paces of superiority."I can find nothing about a body's being unable to stop,"said he, gently."If logic makes no appeal to you, gentlemen—"

"Oh, bunch!"exclaimed the second tennis boy, in the slang of his period, which was the early eighties."Look here. Color has no existence outside of our brain—that's the idea?"

The tutor bowed.

"And sound hasn't? and smell hasn't? and taste hasn't?"

The tutor had repeated his little bow after each.

"And that's because they depend on our senses? Very well. But he claims solidity and shape and distance do exist independently of us. If we all died, they'd he here just the same, though the others wouldn't. A flower would go on growing, but it would stop smelling. Very well. Now you tell me how we ascertain solidity. By the touch, don't we? Then, if there was nobody to touch an object, what then? Seems to me touch is just as much of a sense as your nose is."(He meant no personality, but the first boy choked a giggle as the speaker hotly followed up his thought.)"Seems to me by his reasoning that in a desert island there'd be nothing it all—smells or shapes—not even an island. Seems to me that's what you call logic."

The tutor directed his smile at the open window."Berkeley—"said he.

"By Jove!"said the other boy, not heeding him,"and here's another point: if color is entirely in my brain, why don't that ink-bottle and this shirt look alike to me? They ought to. And why don't a Martini cocktail and a cup of coffee taste the same to my tongue?""Berkeley,"attempted the tutor,"demonstrates—"

"Do you mean to say,"the boy rushed on,"that there is no eternal quality in all these things which when it meets my perceptions compels me to see differences?"

The tutor surveyed his notes."I can discover no such suggestions here as you are pleased to make"said he."But your orriginal researches,"he continued most obsequiously,"recall our next subject,—Berkeley and the Idealists."And he smoothed out his notes.

"Let's see,"said the second boy, pondering;"I went to two or three lectures about that time. Berkeley—Berkeley. Didn't he—oh, yes! he did. He went the whole hog. Nothing's anywhere except in your ideas. You think the table's there, but it isn't. The re isn't any table."

The first boy slapped his leg and lighted a cigarette."I remember,"said he."Amounts to this: If I were to stop thinking about you, you'd evaporate."

"Which is balls,"observed the second boy, judicially, again in the slang of his period,"and can be proved so. For you're not always thinking about me, and I've never evaporated once."

The first boy, after a slight wink at the second, addressed the tutor."Supposing you were to happen to forget yourself,"said he to that sleek gentleman,"would you evaporate?"

The tutor turned his little eyes doubtfully upon the tennis boys, but answered, reciting the language of his notes:"The idealistic theory does not apply to the thinking ego, but to the world of external phenomena. The world exists in our conception of it.

"Then,"said the second boy,"when a thing is inconceivable?"

"It has no existence,"replied the tutor, complacently.

"But a billion dollars is inconceivable,"retorted the boy."No mind can take in a sum of that size; but it exists."

"Put that down! put that down!"shrieked the other boy."You've struck something. If we get Berkeley on the paper, I'll run that in."He wrote rapidly, and then took a turn around the room, frowning as he walked."The actuality of a thing,"said he, summing his clever thoughts up,"is not disproved by its being inconceivable. Ideas alone depend upon thought for their existence. The re! Anybody can get off stuff like that by the yard."He picked up a cork and a foot-rule, tossed the cork, and sent it flying out of the window with the foot-rule.

"Skip Berkeley,"said the other boy.

"How much more is there?"

"Necessary and accidental truths,"answered the tutor, reading the subjects from his notes."Hume and the causal law. The duality, or multiplicity, of the ego."

"The hard-boiled ego,"commented the boy the ruler; and he batted a swooping June-bug into space.

"Sit down, idiot,"said his sprightly mate.

Conversation ceased. Instruction went forward. The ir pencils worked. The causal law, etc., went into their condensed notes like Liebig's extract of beef, and drops of perspiration continued to trickle from their matted hair.

II

Bertie and Billy were sophomores. They had been alive for twenty years, and were young. The ir tutor was also a sophomore. He too had been alive for twenty years, but never yet had become young. Bertie and Billy had colonial names (Rogers, I think, and Schuyler), but the tutor's name was Oscar Maironi, and he was charging his pupils five dollars an hour each for his instruction. Do not think this excessive. Oscar could have tutored a whole class of irresponsibles, and by that arrangement have earned probably more; but Bertie and Billy had preempted him on account of his fame or high standing and accuracy, and they could well afford it. All three sophomores alike had happened to choose Philosophy 4 as one of their elective courses, and all alike were now face to face with the Day of Judgment. The final examinations had begun. Oscar could lay his hand upon his studious heart and await the Day of Judgment like—I had nearly said a Christian! His notes were full: Three hundred pages about Zeno and Parmenides and the rest, almost every word as it had come from the professor's lips. And his memory was full, too, flowing like a player's lines. With the right cue he could recite instantly:"An important application of this principle, with obvious reference to Her acleitos, occurs in Aristotle, who says—"He could do this with the notes anywhere. I am sure you appreciate Oscar and his great power of acquiring facts. So he was ready, like the wise virgins of parable. Bertie and Billy did not put one in mind of virgins: although they had burned considerable midnight oil, it had not been to throw light upon Philosophy 4. In them the mere word Her acleitos had raised a chill no later than yesterday,—the chill of the unknown. They had not attended the lectures on the"Greek bucks."Indeed, profiting by their privilege of voluntary recitations, they had dropped in but seldom on Philosophy 4. The se blithe grasshoppers had danced and sung away the precious storing season, and now that the bleak hour of examinations was upon them, their waked-up hearts had felt aghast at the sudden vision of their ignorance. It was on a Monday noon that this feeling came fully upon them, as they read over the names of the philosophers. Thursday was the day of the examination."Who's Anaxagoras?"Billy had inquired of Bertie."I'll tell you,"said Bertie,"if you'll tell me who Epicharmos of Kos was."And upon this they embraced with helpless laughter. Then they reckoned up the hours left for them to learn Epicharmos of Kos in,—between Monday noon and Thursday morning at nine,—and their quailing chill increased. A tutor must be called in at once. So the grasshoppers, having money, sought out and quickly purchased the ant.

Closeted with Oscar and his notes, they had, as Bertie put it, salted down the early Greek bucks by seven on Monday evening. By the same midnight they had, as Billy expressed it, called the turn on Plato. Tuesday was a second day of concentrated swallowing. Oscar had taken them through the thought of many centuries. The re had been intermissions for lunch and dinner only; and the weather was exceedingly hot. The pale-skinned Oscar stood this strain better than the unaccustomed Bertie and Billy. The ir jovial eyes had grown hollow to-night, although their minds were going gallantly, as you have probably noticed. The ir criticisms, slangy and abrupt, struck the scholastic Oscar as flippancies which he must indulge, since the pay was handsome. That these idlers should jump in with doubts and questions not contained in his sacred notes raised in him feelings betrayed just once in that remark about"orriginal rresearch."

"Nine—ten—eleven—twelve,"went the little timepiece; and Oscar rose.

"Gentlemen,"he said, closing the sacred notes,"we have finished the causal law."

"That's the whole business except the ego racket, isn't it?"said Billy.

"The duality, or multiplicity of the ego remains,"Oscar replied.

"Oh, I know its name. It ought to be a soft snap after what we've had."

"Unless it's full of dates and names you've got to know,"said Bertie.

"Don't believe it is,"Billy answered."I heard him at it once."(This meant that Billy had gone to a lecture lately.)"It's all about Who am I? and How do I do it?"Billy added.

"Hm!"said Bertie."Hm! Subjective and objective again, I suppose, only applied to oneself. You see, that table is objective. I can stand off and judge it. It's outside of me; has nothing to do with me. That's easy. But my opinion of—well, my—well, anything in my nature—"

"Anger when it's time to get up,"suggested Billy.

"An excellent illustration,"said Bertie."That is subjective in me. Similar to your dislike of water as a beverage. That is subjective in you. But here comes the twist. I can think of my own anger and judge it, just as if it were an outside thing, like a table. I can compare it with itself on different mornings or with other people's anger. And I trust that you can do the same with your thirst."

"Yes,"said Billy;"I recognize that it is greater at times and less at others."

"Very well, The re you are. Duality of the ego."

"Subject and object,"said Billy."Perfectly true, and very queer when you try to think of it. Wonder how far it goes? Of course, one can explain the body's being an object to the brain inside it. That's mind and matter over again. But when my own mind and thought, can become objects to themselves—I wonder how far that does go?"he broke off musingly."What useless stuff!"he ended.

"Gentlemen,"said Oscar, who had been listening to them with patient, Oriental diversion,"I—"

"Oh,"said Bertie, remembering him."Look here. We mustn't keep you up. We're awfully obliged for the way you are putting us on to this. You're saving our lives. Ten to-morrow for a grand review of the whole course."

"And the multiplicity of the ego?"inquired Oscar.

"Oh, I forgot. We ll, it's too late tonight. Is it much? Are there many dates and names and things?"

"It is more of a general inquiry and analysis,"replied Oscar."But it is forty pages of my notes."And he smiled.

"We ll, look here. It would be nice to have to-morrow clear for review. We're not tired. You leave us your notes and go to bed."

Oscar's hand almost moved to cover and hold his precious property, for this instinct was the deepest in him. But it did not so move, because his intelligence controlled his instinct nearly, though not quite, always. His shiny little eyes, however, became furtive and antagonistic—something the boys did not at first make out.