One saw in Rome twenty-nine great public libraries.There are now more than four thousand important libraries in Europe.Choose which suits you, and try not to be bored.Philosophical Dictionary: Limits of the Human Mind LIMITS OF THE HUMAN MIND SOMEONE asked Newton one day why he walked when he wanted to, and how his arm and his hand moved at his will.He answered manfully that he had no idea." But at least," his interlocutor said to him, " you who understand so well the gravitation of the planets will tell me why they turn in one direction rather than in another! " And he again confessed that he had no idea.
Those who taught that the ocean was salt for fear that it might become putrid, and that the tides were made to bring our ships into port (The Abbe Pluche in " The Spectacle of Nature "), were somewhat ashamed when the reply was made to them that the Mediterranean has ports and no ebb.
Musschenbroeck himself fell into this inadvertence.
Has anyone ever been able to say precisely how a log is changed on the hearth into burning carbon, and by what mechanism lime is kindled by fresh water? Is the first principle of the movement of the heart in animals properly understood? does one know clearly how generation is accomplished? has one guessed what gives us sensations, ideas, memory? We do not understand the essence of matter any more than the children who touch its surface.
Who will teach us by what mechanism this grain of wheat that we throw into the ground rises again to produce a pipe laden with an ear of corn, and how the same soil produces an apple at the top of this tree, and a chestnut on its neighbour? Many teachers have said-'' What do I not know?" Montaigne used to say " What do I know? "Ruthlessly trenchant fellow, wordy pedagogue, meddlesome theorist, you seek the limits of your mind.They are at the end of your nose.Philosophical Dictionary: Local Crimes LOCAL CRIMES TRAVERSE the who1e earth, you wiIl find that theft, murder, *****ery, calumny are regarded as crimes which society, condemns and curbs; but should what is approved in and condemned in Italy, be punished in Italy as an outrage against the whole of humanity? That is what I call a local crime.
Does not that which is criminal only in the enclosure of some mountains, or between two rivers, demand of judges more indulgence than those outrages which are held in horror in all countries? Should not the judge say, to himself: "I should not dare punish at Ragusa what I punish at Loretto "? Should not this reflection soften in his heart the hardness that it is only too easy to contract during the long exercise of his office?
You know the kermesses in Flanders; in the last century they were carried to a point of indecency which might revolt eyes unaccustomed to these spectacles.This is how Christmas was celebrated in some towns.
First there appeared a young man half naked, with wings on his back ; he recited the Ave Maria to a young girl who answered his fiat , and the angel kissed her on the mouth: then a child enclosed in a great cardboard cock cried, imitating the cock's cry : Puer natus est nobis.
A big ox bellowed ubi , which it pronounced oubi ; a sheep bleated Bethlehem.An ass cried hihanus , to signify eamus :
a long procession, preceded by four fools with baubles and rattles, closed the performance.There remain to-day traces of these popular devotions, which among more educated peoples would be taken for profanations.A bad-tempered Swiss, more drunk maybe than those who played the roles of ox and ass, came to words with them in Louvain; blows were given; the people wanted to hang the Swiss, who escaped with difficulty.
The same man had a violent quarrel at the Hague in Holland for having stoutly taken Barneveldt's part against an extravagant Gomarist.He was put into prison in Amsterdam for having said that priests are the scourge of humanity and the source of all our misfortunes.What!" he said." If one believes that good works make for salvation, one finds oneself in a dungeon; if one laughs at a cock and an ass, one risks being hanged." This adventure, burlesque though it is, makes it quite clear that one can be reprehensible on one or two points in our hemisphere, and be absolutely innocent in the rest of the world.Philosophical Dictionary: Love LOVE There are so many sorts of love that one does not know to whom to address oneself for a definition of it.The name of "love" is given boldly to a caprice lasting a few days, a sentiment without esteem, gallants' affectations, a frigid habit, a romantic fantasy, relish followed by prompt disrelish people give this name to a thousand chimeras.
If philosophers want to probe to the bottom this barely philosophical matter, let them meditate on the banquet of Plato, in which Socrates, honourable lover of Alcibiades and Agathon, converses with them on the metaphysics of love.
Lucretius speaks of it more as a natural philosopher: Virgil follows in the steps of Lucretius; amor omnibus idem.
It is the stuff of nature broidered by nature.Do you want an idea of love? look at the sparrows in your garden; look at your pigeons; look at the bull which is brought to the heifer; look at this proud horse which two of your grooms lead to the quiet mare awaiting him; she draws aside her tail to welcome him; see how her eyes sparkle; hark to the neighing;watch the prancing, the curvetting, the ears pricked, the mouth opening with little convulsions, the swelling nostrils, the flaring breath, the manes rising and floating, the impetuous movement with which he hurls himself on the object which nature has destined for him; but be not jealous of him, and think of the advantages of the human species; in love they compensate for all those that nature has given to the animals-strength, beauty, nimbleness, speed.
