Logic Taught by Love. Mary Everest Boole

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СКАЧАТЬ be to proceed upwards in the direction of the coil as a whole, and who have a blind but irresistible impulse to do so. They have no mode of ascending ​except along the wire; and no mode of expressing statements about distance, except on the paper. They have a vague, dawning consciousness of movement in the up and down direction, and of distance from the paper. In some, this consciousness of up and down is very much more developed than in others. In some it is so weak that they believe it to be mere illusion; in others so strong that they fancy all other modes of movement are illusion. But (we suppose) none can make definite statements about motion, except by reference to the lines on the paper. Progress upwards, therefore, is, for all of them, non-statable except in so far as it is connected with motion across the surface of the paper.

      A group of them have climbed round a half-coil, beginning at the northern extremity of the longer axis; and have now arrived at its southern extremity. Their actual progress has been upwards, and amounts to half the distance between two coils; their expressed and apparent progress is the length of the longer axis of the shadow-ellipse on the paper. Whether any individual will be most conscious of his actual or of his recorded progress will depend on the condition of his individual consciousness. The condition common to them all is this:—Such progress as is actual is not recorded; and that which is recorded and registered is not actual nor permanent.

      Every part of the progress which is registered will have to be unmade soon after it is made. Only that which is not registered is permanent. The particular group of creatures under our consideration first made some progress in a direction partly southward, but ​partly also eastward, away from the longer axis. Already they have had to unmake their eastward progress and come back to the longer axis. They have still, however, been able to congratulate themselves on a considerable amount of progress southward; and the optimists among them no doubt set up a theory that, after all, true progress is southward, and the eastward motion was only an accidental concomitant of the southward. But when the extremity of the long axis is reached, a terrible conflict sets in; the upward path is beginning to turn towards the north-west. The southward progress, therefore, is being lost! A most dramatic novel could be woven of the conflict of opinion and feeling that would arise, as soon as the nature of the situation came to be realized; for all the tragedy of History is summed up in the prosaic fact that "the actual progress is not statable; the recorded progress will all have to be unmade."

      Whether the spiral wire was actually used in ancient times to teach the true principle of development, will perhaps never be known. In this connection it may be well to notice that the Spiral of Ascent, the winding pathway, would naturally be represented to the early Geometrician (who lived where snakes were common and corkscrew wires not yet invented) by a snake coiled round a branch and hanging freely. The Geometry of the snake-coil is a more advanced stage of the Logic of the Divining-rod. In the fable of the rods that were shown to Pharaoh, the rods of both parties turned into snakes before that of the good prophet could swallow those of the bad magicians.

      The Pentagram and the Magic Squares and other ​puzzles used by ancient "Wizards" illustrate the same principle, though less clearly. The principle itself was well known to the writer of the narrative of Abraham's calling. Abraham lived at a time when children were recklessly sacrificed to the gods whenever the parent felt prompted to do so. First he saw there was something wrong about that; children were meant for something better than to be killed. Next, it occurred to him to think that he might be wrong after all; ought he not to hold himself ready to give his son to God if God willed? He prepared to obey—if God should will. Then he was led to see that God wills to accept the offering of our children in a different way; we are to offer them to The Unity; but so as to hold them in trust for the establishment of human society. Thus he was led gradually up the spiral of revelation; at each step giving up something which had seemed (though it had not really been) the essence of some previous revelation.

      How Superstition has fastened on that standard narration of spiral progress, of which Abraham is the hero, it is hardly necessary to point out.

      The whirling storm-wind forms an accurate diagram for illustrating the relation of the ex-centric to humanity. Having drawn the spiral, with tangents running in various directions, one tells the pupil that the spiral itself represents the methods of the orthodox Ecclesia, the constituted authorities, the recognized teachers. The tangents represent various paths taken by ex-centrics, non-conformists, men who have received the first personal inspiration, the first birth into a new world; who have cared, and dared, to go off on lines ​of their own, each investigating as he is impelled by his own genius.

      That is very well for a time; the youth of genius should find out for himself what is the direction in which he is impelled to go. But before he offers his gift on the National Altar, before he can really contribute to the general store of Knowledge, he must pull himself into line with general progress. How shall he do this?

      The advice usually given is, to conform to the general custom, submit to the orthodox authorities. But there is a better way. The normal to any tangent leads towards the centre of equipoise, of balance, of calm progress; the spot where is concentrated the maximum of force with the minimum expenditure of force in mere useless motion.

      But how can any man find certainly the true normal to his own tangential direction, the path which will guide his own peculiar genius towards the centre of progress and of power?

      The direction given by the diagram is emphatic and unmistakable. He should look out for the brother ex-centric who most especially "offends" him, who is going on what seems to him to be most obviously and certainly the wrong road, because it leads in the opposite direction to what he is sure is, for him, the path of inspiration. Let him unify with that brother, call out to that brother to meet him and join hands. When these two meet, they will be in the centre of calm force. This conversion into the normal is the second birth of genius, the Regeneration which converts mere inspiration into Revelation; for inspiration is at best partial; ​Revelation comes at the moment of the combination of opposites.

      As the spiral shows, all inspirations are inadequate; and nearly all are, in themselves, actually misleading.

      A dim suggestion makes itself felt as we think of the spiral wire. The whole coil might, if long enough, be treated as if it were a wire, and wrapped in its turn round and round into a larger coil. We leave this consideration to the imagination of any reader who cares to pursue it. For none have more need of patience and reticence than those who are teaching the art of generalizing mathematical method, who are transferring to the analysis of ethics and history that knowledge of the human mind which is gained by mathematical investigation. All the various rays of light shed by our various studies came originally form One Source, and are meant to be re-united; but not till the appointed time is come. The danger of premature synthesis is that it leads to the vicious habit of what is called reasoning by analogy; jumping to conclusions about outer things and historical events. True analogy is of use as throwing light on Laws of Thought; it teaches, not Truth in itself but the nature of the relation of the human consciousness to Truth. True Logic is not dogmatic about facts; it clears the ground of false conclusions, and leaves The Eternal Pulsation to speak in silence to the soul.

      We now go back for a moment to the Tree-Symbolism. In the Hebrew Scriptures knowledge is spoken of as a Tree. In the Odin religion we are taught that: Its root is the knowledge of earth and its crown is the knowledge of Heaven.

      1 ↑ This detailed account of the use of these symbols for educational purposes will be found in "The Preparation of the Child for Science." (Oxford : Clarendon Press).

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      CHAPTER IV

      THE SABBATH OF RENEWAL.

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