GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CXIV.

Cats.

“God decides… to create cats. This requires that He should have the idea of cat, which is thus anterior to particular cats… When cats have been created, ‘felinity’ is in each of them… When we have seen many cats, we notice their likeness to each other, and arrive at the general idea cat.

Bertrand Russell. History of Western Philosophy.

 

In this vast chapter the reader is about to solve a cluster of Woland’s peculiar riddles from the first chapter of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, and also to become acquainted with a variety of different cats in Bulgakov’s works, such as learned, intelligent, psychotic cats, as well as, specifically, several intelligent cats of intelligence.

***

Bulgakov’s interest toward animals is just as unusual as all his creative work. This interest takes its origin from several sources, and it is connected to Bulgakov’s uncanny ability to see obvious things and to transform them into something else.

Take for instance the celebrated portrait of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin by Orest Adamovich Kiprensky, which has been seen by millions of people. What part of it did Bulgakov take into his own work?

The hand of the poet! The hand that A. S. Pushkin was writing his masterpieces with…

This aristocratic hand with long narrow polished fingernails is transformed in Bulgakov, already in the 1923 Diaboliada, into the “clawy hand” of the lustrine little old man; and then in the 1925 Cockroach into the paw of Voice, which looks like a raven’s claw, and finally in the 1940 Master and Margarita into the “thin, with sharp polished nails fingers” of Margarita.

Another unusual source is the famous adage of Peter the Great: “A hen is not a bird, a woman is not a person, an ensign is not an officer.”

Hence Bulgakov’s roosters, and also all members of Woland’s retinue who turn themselves into birds of different orders. Hence also comes his comparison of people to hens and cockroaches. [See Fateful Eggs, 1923; Cockroach, 1925; and Beg, 1937.] Plus Annushka the Plague, symbolizing human life. Also from this comes in Bulgakov’s 1931 play Adam and Eve the attachment to dogs on the part of the scientist-chemist Yefrosimov.---

“Dear Sasha! Is it possible, or natural, to be attached to a dog so much? So what, a dog died, but what can you do about it? And here, in this dim forest there is a woman, and what a woman! It is quite possible that she is the only one left in the world. And he finds nothing better than remembering the dead dog! Oh, woe is me, woe is me with this man!”

We find the same thing in the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate in the eponymous sub-novel of Master and Margarita:

“The problem is that you are too introvert, and that you have terminally lost your faith in people. But you must agree that it is not right to place all your attachment in a dog. Your life is meager, Igemon!”

This is what Yeshua tells Pontius Pilate. In other words, no matter how successful people may be, they are in fact deficient, because they are incapable of love. The other side of it is shown by the incomparable Vladimir Vysotsky:

“If you didn’t love,

It means you didn’t live,

And didn’t breathe.”

Bulgakov’s interest in cats grows out of his love for Russia, out of his love for everything Russian which, once again comes out of Russian history, which he was so much interested in and knew so well, namely, from the history of the Koshkin’s [Cat’s] Clan, from which the Russian Romanov Dynasty originated, whence perhaps even A. S. Pushkin took his “learned cat” at the Lukomorye, and whence Bulgakov traces the roots of his fearless, proud, beautiful, and clever heroine in the fantastic novel of Master and Margarita.

***

Bulgakov’s devil does not appear in his novel Master and Margarita as a poodle, like it happens in Goethe’s Faust, but rather as a cat. There are a couple of references to the poodle, though, such as Woland’s “walking stick with a black knob on it in the shape of a poodle’s head,” as well as Margarita’s “ornament” at Satan’s Ball:

“Out of someplace appeared Koroviev and he hung on Margarita’s chest a heavy image of a black poodle in an oval frame and on a heavy chain. This ornament burdened the queen quite a lot. The chain immediately started rubbing her neck, the image was pulling her down to bend…”

Bulgakov takes this imagery straight from Russian history. The following quotation is from N. I. Kostomarov:

“A heavy block was put around the neck, which was as much causing suffering as it signified disgrace. It was known as ‘pravezh’ [‘rectification’], a custom which later became part of the Russian legal procedure. A block around the neck meant the suffering of rectification. The hardship will pass, and the man becomes even more respectable [if he endures it honorably, proving that he is speaking the truth and therefore has nothing to confess to].” [N. I. Kostomarov. Russian History in the Lives of its Principal Movers.]

Bulgakov shows this increased respectability in the following manner:

“…But something rewarded Margarita for the inconvenience of the chain with the black poodle, which was the deference given to her now by Koroviev and Begemot.”

Margarita’s rectification is twofold here. It is first of all her punishment for being a married woman with a lover on the side, while retaining all the privileges bestowed on her by her marriage to the husband. But it is also a forgiveness of her, on account of her compassionate involvement in the fate of Frieda. (“Love him [meaning the devil in each of the guests], love him you must, Queen!” taught Margarita her mentor Koroviev, and she ended up “loving” Frieda.]

Here we are encountering a brilliant display of Bulgakov’s humor, considering that the real Pushkin (Koroviev in Master and Margarita) respected Goethe as a writer. Our vintage Bulgakov is actually writing here about himself and about his novel Master and Margarita, as, having taken his epigraph to the novel from Goethe’s Faust, he merely wanted to defend himself from attacks against the subject matter of his novel. We can promote the following allegory here: Goethe’s Faust is hanging around Bulgakov’s neck in the novel of Master and Margarita just like the image of the poodle is burdening the neck of Margarita.

But even this compromise Bulgakov managed to turn into the enigmatic words about respectfulness exhibited by Koroviev and Begemot in Master and Margarita toward Margarita, that is, Bulgakov knew that Goethe was a figure of authority in Russia’s literary and broader circles.

In his attitude not so much toward Goethe himself, as to the tearjerker story of Gretchen in the play Faust, Bulgakov stood with M. Yu. Lermontov, who wrote the satirical poem The Feast at Asmodeus on this subject. (More about this in my chapter on Bulgakov.)

To be continued in the next posting tomorrow…

DONBASS

A Moscow-born “moskal,” I love Donbass. This word has a very special ring to my ear, evoking a host of warm memories. I love the people there. I used to travel all across that area many times, not as a visitor, not as a guest, but as one of their own. Few places in the world are as special to me as Donbass is, and today my heart goes out to the men and women fighting and dying there for the right to reassert their distinctive Russianness.

Why haven’t they done it before, you may ask? Why have they stayed connected to a basically alien country, whereas Russia is their natural cultural home? Well, they tried again and again, and they are trying now, and I am sure that they  would have succeeded, had the odds not been sharply against their most cherished aspirations…

Why don’t they go to Russia, if they want to be with the Russians?-- their critics are asking today.

But why should they? They have a home already. Donbass is their home.

Historically, the land they live on is their land. They have no claim to any other land. By the same token, the people living west of the Dnieper River should make no claim to the land which is not theirs. In pure and simple terms, understandable to every honest citizen of the free world, this is a question coming down to land ownership and water rights. Besides, this is the place where they have been living and working for generations. And now their whole way of life is in jeopardy…

Nearly half a century ago I was made an honorary coal miner of Donbass. Not that I had a special talent for coal mining. The reason was my heredity.

Strong men create circumstances. In my case circumstances were sort of creating me. Trying to play strong, I ventured to beat the circumstances… Well, looking at me now, one can say that I succeeded, but only to a point.

Resisting the power of the circumstances by no means implies their total rejection. I would never dream of rejecting the fact of becoming an honorary coal miner of Donbass. I liked the people there; they were all good Russian people, and they eagerly accepted me into their proud coal mining family. Making me a coal miner like themselves was the most natural way for them to prove it. We went deep down into a coal mine together, which was of course the greatest token of togetherness. Later we showered together and drank vodka together, what better testimony to acceptance one may think of?..

Heredity is a generic term, but quite obviously it has a proper name attached to it. In my case it is Comrade Artem.

The name of my grandfather Artem has been forever linked with the name of Donbass. No, he was not a coal miner himself, but he was a popular revolutionary hero, and in the cruel game of politics he was on the side of the coal miners.

In early 1918 Artem founded and headed the short-lived Donets-Krivorog Republic with the capital in the city of Kharkov and including much of the territory east of the river Dnieper. Considering that the area commonly known as “Eastern Ukraine” has been culturally and historically Russian and Cossack since the eighteenth century (previously scarcely populated and known as the Wild Field, and in early nineteenth century coming to be called Novorossia, as opposed to Malorossia), Artem quite naturally saw his Republic as an integral part of Russia, and he declared it as part of the RSFSR. The counterclaim of the Central Rada in Kiev which wanted to annex, with the help of the Germans, this industrially-developed, coal and mineral-rich area, was laughable at best, as before the 1917 Revolution no one in the Russian Tsarist Empire would seriously consider this area a part of Malorossia. As a matter of fact, the whole notion of “Ukraine” gives no indication of nationality. It is merely a geographical indicator of the “edges” of the old Russian Empire. Only after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 did the word “Ukraine” start acquiring its modern significance.

(It goes without saying that the Crimea and the port city of Odessa, plus such places in the south as Kherson, Nikolayev, etc., were steadily identified as Russian, and had nothing “Ukrainian” in them, either. All cities in this large new area of the Russian Empire were actually founded by the Russians.)

The Crimea was lucky, in the sense that Lenin was not Khrushchev, and it never entered his mind to tinker with the geographical and administrative identity of the Peninsula. But Artem’s Republic was a different matter. As I explain this in a series of entries about Artem (such as Kiev Is Russia, Of Course!, posted on my blog on August 2-3, 2013, as well as in many others), Lenin rebuked Artem for forgetting that Russia’s interest in Ukraine was centered on the city of Kiev, the first capital of the ancient Russian State, as well as the cradle of Russian Orthodox Christianity. “No Russian in his own mind would ever imagine a Russia without Kiev in it.”

Lenin argued that in order to keep Kiev well in the Russian fold, “Eastern Ukraine” was needed as part of all Ukraine, to maintain a Russia-favorable balance of power there and to keep the Ukrainian nationalists in check. Like every Russian in those turbulent times of rampant Ukrainian nationalism, going hand in hand with German occupation, Lenin believed that Ukraine would be with Russia forever and ever, and that at the end of the calamities following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, all Ukraine would be brought back “home,” because the Ukrainians would quickly realize that it was better for them to be with the Russians than by themselves or with anybody else. Still, he did not want to take any chances, and effectively condemned Eastern Ukraine to becoming a fiefdom of Kiev. It says something about Lenin’s visionary determination that in the first year of the Bolshevik Revolution, when the Russian Empire had fallen apart and even what remained under the designation RSFSR was in mortal peril, he had no doubt that in just a few years the old Russian Empire was going to be recreated as the USSR, and in practical terms Eastern Ukraine would be governed from Moscow, rather than from Kiev, and Kiev in turn, being a historically Russian city, would be also governed from Moscow… So what’s the big deal about the formalities?

Lenin’s vision obviously paid off in the short run of three quarters of a century, but in the long run, the insistence of Artem on giving Eastern Ukraine its natural Russian identification within the Russian Federation would have been far more prudent, from the point of view of the citizens’ welfare and cultural self-fulfillment.

My poor, tragic Donbass! Like Crimea, there is nothing Ukrainian about it. Yet Khrushchev’s mindless gesture of gifting Crimea to Ukraine in 1955 has now been reversed, whereas Lenin’s tactical move of diluting Ukrainian nationalism of the West with Russian great-power chauvinism of the East has not been revoked in a similar fashion. Why not? Moscow has already suffered to saturation its denunciation by the West on account of Crimea, how worse could that become had the Russian troops crossed the border with Eastern Ukraine and annexed those parts of Ukraine that want to be part of Russia, rather than bow to the West-Ukrainian nationalism bent on erasing the Russian mindset in the non-Ukrainian territories?

I say, Moscow is still governed by Lenin’s, rather than Artem’s wisdom. It has no desire to annex Eastern Ukraine, leaving the sacred Russian city of Kiev to anti-Russian nationalists and extremists. Should at some point Russian troops enter Ukraine, they will go after Kiev, and not after Donetsk, Kharkov, and Odessa. They will want to restore the status quo existing before the coup. After all, the last legally elected parliament and executive government of Ukraine showed a certain pro-Russian sentiment on the part of the majority of Ukrainian voters. As a result of the anti-Russian coup, supported by the West with billions of dollars, not only was Ukraine’s president forced to flee and the cabinet of ministers dissolved, but the Rada itself suffered a colossal purge, which brought to power people who did not earn it at the polls, but effectively usurped it at the expense of the legitimately elected delegates. Need I say loud and clear that there is no democracy today in Kiev, and it is this sham quasi-government that the West is supporting under the guise of Ukraine’s “free choice.”

Should this mess continue, I expect a genuine “freedom revolution” to overthrow the Western darlings in a matter of a few months. Only those freedom fighters will be anathema to Western values, a nightmare for Washington and Brussels. But having released the malevolent genie out of the bottle, the chances of getting it back will be no greater than in Iraq, after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, or in Libya after the destruction of Muammar Qaddafi…

That’s when the West will truly want the Russians to step in. Just like many people are happy today that their persistent efforts to depose Assad have not succeeded…

My hope, though, is that the Russians step in sooner, rather than later. I see people dying today not because of a Russian interference, as the West disingenuously alleges, but precisely because of the Russian non-interference. I would welcome the Russian troops there not merely on behalf of Eastern Ukraine, but on behalf of all Ukraine, in order to prevent it from a complete collapse into a failed state in the heart of Europe.

Meanwhile, as an honorary coal miner of Donbass, my heart is not with any game-playing politicians, but with my fellow coal miners, once betrayed by Lenin, then betrayed by Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and now, hopefully, not being abandoned to their tragic fate by the Russian President Vladimir Putin.

HOBBES THE SOCIALIST

Despite the frequent insinuations that Hobbes may have been a covert atheist (see my earlier entry), it would still be hardly surprising to find our friend Hobbes in a boat with a Bible in hand. The real surprise may come when we find out that the boat happens to be of a joint Soviet-American make. (The anachronistic joke ends here.)

***

“He who does not work, does not eat.”

This phrase in precisely such form was first used by Lenin in his work The State and the Revolution, but its origin is unmistakably Biblical. This is how it is formulated in II Thessalonians 3:10:

“…If any would not work, neither should he eat.”

For the record, and as a curiosity, Captain John Smith, of the Pocahontas fame, introduced a version of it in the American colony of Virginia in 1607-1609, as a general policy of his Jamestown settlement.

This is obviously a socialist principle that used to be known to each Soviet citizen since elementary school. Having proclaimed full employment as the citizen’s right, Soviet society made the arrow double-pointing, namely, it should also become the citizen’s duty to work for the society; anyone able-bodied, living off an “inherited fortune” (such a thing was technically possible even in the Soviet Union!), or off his own self-made savings, was to be declared a parasite and as such not to be tolerated at all. Theoretically, of course, salaries paid for the work done by anyone from top to bottom of the society were not supposed to be of the sort that allowed one to make any kind of fortune whatsoever, but under the existing then conditions of extreme subsidies on food, rent and all sorts of social services, sons and daughters of the better-paid servants of the post-Stalinist Soviet State never had to depend on a salary for their subsistence for as long as they lived.

Continuing this discussion now within the framework of my Hobbes Miniseries, the following passage in Hobbes is another practically word-for-word reiteration of the Biblical, early American, and also Soviet “workfare” principle, which ought to suggest to a sharp mind that such continuity across the centuries does not testify to the Soviet experiment as being a total freak-of-nature aberration, and that its practice may well survive the fall of the old socialist empires, while envisaging the rise of new ones in the future…

(From Leviathan, Chapter 30.) But for such who have strong bodies the case is otherwise: they are to be forced to work (!), and to avoid the excuse of not finding employment, there ought to be such laws, (which means that unemployment must be legally abolished) as may encourage all manner of arts; as navigation, agriculture, fishing, and all manner of manufacture that requires labor.

This passage is particularly interesting in the context of my general discussion of the faith and practices of the capitalist society as the socialist principle boils down exactly to making all able-bodied people work by providing full employment, something which the capitalist system has objected to on principle, despite the well-reasoned pro-employment wisdom of John Maynard Keynes. And this gem dropping from the mighty pen of Mr. Hobbes--- et tu, Hobbes?--- is simply heartwarming!

HOBBES AND THE STATE

Hobbesian theory of the State, which he calls Commonwealth, is the centerpiece of his political philosophy, and the reader may already have guessed what interests me in it the most. There are just two distinct types of political mindset, in my judgment, worth being closely analyzed and compared; they are the democratic mindset and the totalitarian mindset. Hobbes is by no means a democrat. Among the three principal forms of government, which he identifies,-- monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy-- he clearly prefers monarchy. But this does not make him a totalitarian, of course, because autocracy, which is the usual form of rule in historical monarchies, stands almost as far away from totalitarianism as modern Western democracies do. (We are obviously not talking in terms of oppression versus freedom, but about the rationale behind each form of government.)

We start with Hobbes’s identification of the different forms of government. Here is the pertinent passage from Leviathan, Chapter XIX, which explains that there are only three:

“There are other names of government in the histories and books of policy, such as tyranny and oligarchy, but these are not the names of other forms of government, but of the same forms… disliked. For, those who are displeased with monarchy, call it tyranny, those who are displeased with aristocracy, call it oligarchy, and those who find themselves grieved under democracy call it anarchy which means want of government; and yet, I think, no man believes that want of government is any new kind of government: nor, by the same reason, ought they to believe that the government is of one kind when they like it, and of another when they dislike it, or are oppressed by the governors.” (From Leviathan, Chapter XIX.)

(The word Commonwealth, however, is used most profusely, in reference to any kind of government among the three, since all of them are presumably organized under some kind of contract, or covenant. Meantime, I don’t think that Hobbes likes the word Republic, as it is nowhere to be found in his works although he must have been aware of its use by Machiavelli and in all probability saw the word commonwealth as the English equivalent of the Latin res publica, which two terms are linguistically compatible, but in practical usage not identical at all!)

Now, before we get to the promised discussion of the totalitarian ideal, and whether it is present or absent in Hobbes, here is how Russell writes about Hobbes’s preference for monarchy, as opposed to other forms of government (the quotation is rather lengthy, but extremely valuable and therefore indispensable):

Hobbes prefers the monarchy, but his abstract arguments are equally applicable to all forms of government, in which there is one supreme authority not limited by the legal rights of the other bodies. He could tolerate Parliament alone,  but not a system in which government power is shared between the king and Parliament. This is the exact antithesis to the views of Locke and Montesquieu. The English Civil War occurred, says Hobbes, because power was divided between King, Lords, and Commons.

The supreme power, whether a man or assembly, is called the Sovereign. The powers of the Sovereign are unlimited. He has the right of censorship over all expression of opinion. It is assumed that his interest is the preservation of internal peace, and that therefore he will not use the power of censorship to suppress truth, for a doctrine repugnant to peace cannot be true. A singularly pragmatist view! (This is also reminiscent of Giovanni Gentile’s vigorous defense of the fascist /totalitarian/ ideal against its unconvinced practitioners.) The laws of property are to be entirely subject to the sovereign; for in a state of nature there is no property, and therefore property is created by government, which may control its creation as it pleases.

It is admitted that the sovereign may be despotic, but even the worst despotism is better than anarchy. And moreover, in many points the interests of the sovereign are identical with those of his subjects. (Running a little bit before my horse to market, here is a trademark of the totalitarian mindset if I ever saw one!) He is richer if they are richer, safer if they are law-abiding, and so on. Rebellion is wrong both because it usually fails, and because, if it succeeds, it sets a bad example, and teaches others to rebel. Aristotelian distinction between tyranny and monarchy is rejected; a tyranny, according to Hobbes, is merely a monarchy that the speaker happens to dislike.

Various reasons are given for preferring government by monarch to government by assembly. Admittedly, the monarch will usually follow his private interest, when it conflicts with that of the public, but so will an assembly. A monarch may have favorites, but so may every member of the assembly; therefore the number of favorites is likely to be fewer under a monarchy. A monarch can hear advice from anybody secretly; an assembly can only hear advice from its own members, and that, only publicly. In an assembly, the chance absence of some may cause a different party to obtain majority, and thus produce a sharp change of policy. Moreover, if the assembly is divided against itself, the result may be civil war. (It is easy to see that none of the arguments in this paragraph are applicable to the ideal totalitarian society, where private interests of the sovereign are never supposed to clash with the public interest, because they both converge in the interest of the state presumably representing the common public interest and the private interests of all those who hold the interests of the State close to their heart.) For all these reasons, Hobbes concludes, a monarchy is best.

From all that we can find in Hobbes’s political philosophy, his mindset is very close to the totalitarian one, except that unable to formulate the totalitarian principles and perhaps unable to understand them in his time and age, he stops short of endorsing the pure totalitarian ideal, and picks up the second best, as corresponds to his specific mindset. (It is quite clear that Locke and Montesquieu were considerably more up to par with their own political philosophy, as based upon their democratic mindsets, but Hobbes’s immense value is in presenting us with the other side of the political story, against which the democrats are biased, or else, their mind is shut close to it.)

In my distinction between the two mindsets, formulated in my entry Totalitarianism And Democracy, there are two key criteria, the first of which is the concept of national interest, identified as State interest, and in no way allowing a multiplicity of conflicting interests within the State. Whenever such multiplicity should be present, this is an indication of an existing anti-State, or anti-national interest, and such interest must be extinguished by force. Ironically, Russell criticizes Hobbes for this very reason that he always considers the national interest as a whole, and assumes, tacitly, that the major interests of all citizens are the same. He doesn’t realize the importance of the clash between different classes, which Marx makes the cause of social change.

What Russell himself ignores in this critique is that the Marxian class struggle within the same State is an indication of a revolutionary potential, meaning that the state has not reached its optimum of development and social stability. The totalitarian ideal indicates the reaching of such an optimal point, and now, just as Hobbes asserts, the unity of national interest becomes the basis of social stability and institutional health.

The other criterion is the basic attitude of trust or mistrust of power. Clearly, the democrats distrust power, with which in mind they have come up with the system of checks and balances. To Hobbes, any diffusion of power is anathema, and, therefore, in his trust of power, he reveals the unmistakable totalitarian mindset, limited only by his ignorance of the basic tenets of totalitarianism, with its glorification of the State-as-one. Hobbes comes somewhat close to it, but only Hegel, many years later, was first able to discern and formulate it in its philosophical essence.

HOBBES THE PYTHAGOREAN?

The time has not come to talk about Hobbes’s theory of the State yet. There is still one small matter to talk about, namely, the authorship of the superb Hobbesian metaphor opening his Leviathan. Let us refresh our memory of this immortal paragraph:

Nature (the art whereby God has made and governs the world) is by the art of man imitated, so that it can make an artificial animal. This interesting analogy, becoming the philosophical basis of Leviathan, shows an intriguing subtleness of definition here. “Nature” is not equated to the world, but, rather, to the creative force of God, his “art.” In this context, the “forces of nature” come to mean the physical processes utilized by God’s spiritual powers, and thus, God appears to be in full direct control of his Creation, where “direct” is the key word. Being a matter of definition, Hobbes is completely within his rights, representing his idea of nature in this fashion, but the philosophical implications are quite significant. It would have been fun to examine the consistency of his philosophy as a whole with this challenging premise, but I cannot spare any time for such an effort. Besides, the entire range of his philosophy is somewhat limited in its scope, unlike in Kant’s case, for instance, and may not provide us with sufficient evidence to make such a judgment. For, seeing life as only a motion of limbs, the beginning of which is in some principal part within, why may we not say that all automata (engines which move themselves by springs and wheels as does a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the Artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of Nature, man. For, by art is created that great Leviathan, called Commonwealth, or State, which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defense it was intended; and in whose sovereignty is an artificial soul giving life and motion to the whole body, while judiciary and executive officers are artificial joints, reward and punishment are the nerves, the wealth and riches of all members are its strength, and salus populi, its business, counselors, the memory, equity and laws, artificial reason and will, concord is health, sedition is sickness, and civil war is death. Lastly, the pacts and covenants by which the parts of the body politic were first made, set together and united, resemble the Let us make man fiat, said by God in the Creation.

How original is this idea of the State being “an artificial man”? In our study of Aristotle’s Politics, we have already noticed Aristotle’s parallel between the State and the human body. As Bertrand Russell summarizes it, “the conception here is that of an organism: a hand when the body is destroyed is no longer a hand.” This little journey into Aristotelity, as Hobbes derisively refers to the scholastic preoccupation with Aristotelian theories, may not be convincing enough, unless we are prepared to dig yet deeper, into the underlying layer of Pythagoreanism. What I am trying to say here, rather incoherently, is that our Mr. Hobbes may not be the novel originator of this idea, but a Pythagorean, whether he was at all familiar with the Pythagorean idea of cosmos being an organism… then man is an organism… and then by a logical progression the State can be seen as an organism too?

But whether or not Hobbes could have been influenced by this Pythagorean prototype, his originality in its further development cannot be denied. Russell sees his “thoroughgoing materialism” in this development: Life, Hobbes says, is nothing but a motion of the limbs, and, therefore, automata have an artificial life. The commonwealth he calls Leviathan, is a creation of art, and is, in fact, an artificial man. This is intended as more than an analogy and is worked out in some detail. The sovereignty is an artificial soul; the pacts and covenants, by which Leviathan is first created take the place of God’s fiat when He said, Let Us make man.

What I see in this remarkable passage is a breathtaking flight of fancy, that soars well beyond its plausible Greek (Pythagorean/Aristotelian) starting point. Hobbes reminds me of Nietzsche’s perspective on man as both creature and creator. As a creator, he parallels God, hence the magnificent correspondence of the two creations, one God’s: man; the other, man’s: the State.

WAS HOBBES A COVERT ATHEIST?

Before talking about Hobbes’s theory of the State, or any other philosophy, perhaps the most pressing of all preambular questions should be whether he may have been a covert atheist, as this kind of personal predisposition ought to have colored everything he says, and, should it be true, must become the dominant feature in our analysis. It is well known, of course, from his standard biographies, that he was frequently in trouble for his suspected atheistic tendencies, allegedly revealed by his unmistakably materialistic thinking. He was far too cautious, they say, to have expressed himself more bluntly on religious matters, but such unwelcome tendencies were taken notice of, in his time, and even acted upon in a rather drastic fashion.

We know that he was a monarchist, and, as such, he fled to France as soon as the English Parliament started showing its muscle. His disdain for Catholicism was, however, too much for his French hosts, and Hobbes had to return to England, making an uneasy peace with Cromwell, on the condition to abstain from politics. With the Restoration of King Charles II, he was promptly blacklisted, not on the expected political grounds, but on the charges of suspected atheism. All his subsequent works were published abroad, whereas none of them were allowed in his home country.

The question remains whether those charges were true. Being a bona fide philosopher, Hobbes was, indeed, an intellectually fearless man, who allowed himself too many liberties, characteristic of an open, inquisitive mind. In this sense, I would hardly call him cautious, as Russell does for instance. Cautious men do not just avoid crossing the line: they try to stay away from it at a safe distance. Much of Hobbes’s flirting with the perception of impiety was unnecessary, and had he really been cautious, would never have taken place. Let us look at his irreverent treatment of religious belief in the part of his Leviathan dealing with the Kingdom of God.

To begin with, he dismisses all supernatural interpretations of the following phrase in the opening chapter of the Genesis 1:2: “…and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” He argues that the Spirit, referred to here, is by no means the Holy Spirit of the Trinity, or any other kind of spirit, but only the wind, created by God at the beginning of Creation. To my knowledge, all other Christian interpretations of this phrase refer to the Holy Spirit of God, and thus, already here, Hobbes commits what must appear as blasphemy to every devout Christian. Talking about being cautious, this is sheer recklessness!

The next shock is Hobbes’ refusal to believe in the existence of angels. Even in the famous place in Daniel 8:13, etc., where the prophet sees two angels engaged in conversation, Michael and Gabriel, he alleges that Michael was Jesus Christ, and Gabriel… a mere phantasm! The big question here is whether someone who does not believe in angels can be automatically called an atheist, and the answer is: not necessarily!

Now, I have already had a few chances to mention elsewhere that Hobbes ridiculed literal interpretations of the Holy Scriptures, which, of course, ought not to have any bearing on his religiosity, as we well know that long before him none other than St. Augustine had done the same, and Saint Augustine has not been made a saint of the Christian Church for his heresies!

There are numerous other examples in Hobbes’s works of what may appear at first sight as a solid proof of his atheistic leaning. On the other hand, there are even more numerous instances of his appeal to God, and passages, where both the existence of God and the basic Christian tenets are taken for granted. Judging by the totality of evidence, it is unimaginable to me that a covert atheist could have been, on the one hand, so imprudent without being explicit, and, on the other hand, so openly apologetic toward Christianity, where, being an atheist, he did not need to go that far toward the other extreme. In other words, everything that I have found in his writings concerning religion is inconsistent with the character of an atheist, whether an overt or a covert one. It is, rather, consistent with the independent spirit of an original, intellectually curious thinker, who is confident enough in his basic religious belief to refuse carrying it on his sleeve and bowing to the authority of the Church on every occasion of making a theological statement.

As a matter of psychological curiosity, would it not be more natural for a true believer to occupy so much of his attention by the minute theological details (such as the literal versus the figurative, or the existence of angels, etc.), where an atheist would be looking upon the macroscopic picture of the supernatural, and never bother himself with the small fry, having declared war upon God Himself?

In case my straightforward conclusion has been lost in a blinding salvo of fancy reasoning, here it is again, in plain view: No, I do not think that Hobbes was an atheist; but he was, sure as hell, a great philosopher!

 

WHY IS THE FINGER POINTING AT RUSSIA?

Why is the American finger pointing at Russia as the culprit in the tragedy of the downed Flight MH17? Is that warranted?

Mind you, I am dismissing the kowtowing Europeans, who fear Washington’s wrath more than their imminent international disgrace when the chickens come home to roost. And I am dismissing the despicable prostitute Western media who have forgotten their sacred obligation of impartiality, refusing to ask deliberately uncomfortable confrontational questions of whoever is being interviewed in each particular instance, and instead joining the chorus of Russia’s accusers, with every shred of professional objectivity going out of the window…

So, forget the lapdog Europe. Forget the shameful media. The sole question of this entry is why the American finger is pointing at Russia “just because,” in what is so far by no means an open and shut case?

Why this jumping to a highly prejudiced and so far unwarranted conclusion, where statesmanly fairness and sagacity are in order? Why pump fuel into the fire of international hysteria caused by a terrible human tragedy, before the facts are in, and, in so far as documented evidence is concerned, against that evidence?

One obvious answer is too superficial, yet we may state it anyway. An anti-Russian and pro-American Ukraine is a prized possession which Washington has admittedly spent over $5bln on, and it would defeat Washington’s grand purpose of appropriating Kiev to denounce Kiev’s lies for the sake of the extremely unrewarding and hopelessly Quixotic quest to be fair and impartial and let the chips fall where they may... Oh, no! Right or wrong, Kiev is my loyal liege, and it simply cannot be undermined, especially by truth.

That was the most obvious, but patently superficial reason. Kiev is not Paris, it isn’t worth a mass. I respect the United States well enough to insist that she would not stoop down to covering up for Kiev for Kiev’s sake. Washington’s old attitude toward the current president Petro Poroshenko is well documented as that of contempt and mockery, but apparently he is more manageable than the likes of Yarosh and Tyagnibok, so let us stick through thick and thin with “our man” in Kiev, the corrupt thief and scoundrel Poroshenko. (See Washington Post of May 29, 2014:  "The not-very-nice things US officials used to say about Ukraine's new president.")

No, Kiev is not a Ding-an Sich! The real lupus in fabula is Russia!

Why?

My late boss at the USA and Canada Institute in Moscow Georgi Arbatov once said (that was right after the collapse of the USSR) that the Russians had finally defeated America in the Cold War by… depriving her of her enemy. Prophetic words! Any honest political analyst must admit that the root of all American woes in the twenty-first century lies in “winning the cold war.”

Indeed, for the sake of world balance, America needs a Nietzschean “noble enemy,” a peer, evoking respect and secret admiration. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and such cannot qualify as an adversary, as they actually bring the American Superpower down from her lofty pedestal to their own rather meager level. (By all means, read my entry Save The Tiger, posted on my blog on March 10^th, 2011.)

America may have finally realized that her super-creditor China does not qualify as her main adversary either, at the same time as she is borrowing more and more trillions of dollars from this rather capricious banker…

Russia, on the other hand, is a totally different story. The bogeyman of several generations of American citizens, the erstwhile fear of the red Russian bear could not just be erased from the national memory. The temporary euphoria of the bogeyman’s relegation to the position of lackey could tamper with that memory in the short run, but not in the long run, especially after the alleged lackey refused to cooperate…

The reader, especially the one familiar with my writings on this subject, must be catching my drift by now. America may indeed need a resumption of the old cold war against Russia. Back to a bipolar world, where America could more or less rely on her allies caught in the choice between East and West. Back to a larger game of geopolitics than the current rash of regional conflicts, which America like Alice in Wonderland is entering (“Eat me!”) only being reduced to a three-inch size.

Back to an enemy whom America can respect…

***

Isn’t that what America wants today? Isn’t that the reason why in this yet unresolved case of Flight MH17 America’s finger is pointing at Russia?

Is a new cold war a good thing or a bad thing? Well, it may be a very good, purifying thing for one reason only. It will necessarily restore America’s respect for the rest of the world, which must in turn make her wiser and better.

HOBBESITY GALORE

[This is a delightful entry. Its delight is wholly courtesy of Hobbes himself, no thanks to me, except for being responsible for quoting some of his most hilarious, but also thoughtful and penetrating aphorisms. The title is of course totally mine, playing on his pet word Aristotelity, meaning asinine wisdom of the Aristotle-following, stuffed and brainless schoolmen of philosophy. This is not to suggest, of course, that I am using my term “Hobbesity” along those same lines, but I am surely having just as much fun with Hobbesity as Hobbes had with Aristotelity...]

***

This entry is “merely” a collection of Hobbesian pearls of good sense, perspicacity, and his special brand of humor. Later on, perhaps I will write original comments for each of these pearls, but for now let them shine by themselves… And yes, one more thing… I was using The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1980) when compiling this admirable selection… And yes, another more thing! Some of the quotations in this entry are repeated, whenever necessary, in this and other sections, but not as centerpieces, as here, being contextually determined in making various philosophical points… Some, I repeat, not all!

“True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 4.]

“Geometry (which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind).” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 4.]

“Words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 4.]

“They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that mislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion.” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 11.]

“During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition that is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man… the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 13.]

“No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 13.]

“Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 13.]

“They that are discontented under monarchy, call it tyranny; and they that are displeased with aristocracy, call it oligarchy, so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy, call it anarchy, which signifies the want of government; and yet I think no man believes, that want of government, is any new kind of government.” [Leviathan Part ii, Chapter 19.]

“The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.” [Leviathan Part iv, Chapter 47.]

“Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.” [Human Nature, ix.]

THE SHOOTDOWN

Like any loss of innocent human life, the shootdown of the Malaysian airliner en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was a terrible tragedy. It is too early still to judge what really happened there, because there is too little objective evidence at this preliminary stage of investigation. Clearly, nobody has been caught red-handed, and the normal judicial questions of motive and opportunity immediately put us on shaky ground and cry out for caution before jumping to conclusions.

I admire the American system of justice, and it pains me when this noble creation of enlightened minds gets trampled by the hogs of rampant propaganda, both in government, but even more so in the media, whose modus vivendi seems to be indeed jumping to ready-made conclusions before the facts are in.

It pains me when allegedly responsible persons in positions of power are ready and willing (or often forced into these uncomfortable positions) to disseminate propaganda, rather than to suspend judgment and call for an unbiased, cool-headed search for the truth.

But, alas, Propaganda is the queen of our day, and her servants have no shame and are an affront to human dignity.

Knowing that I am Russian-born and perhaps mistrusting the official media bias, people are asking me what I think about what may have happened. To which I naturally reply that I do not know who did what, as very few facts are known at this stage.

But regardless of the earliness of this stage, two very important points can be made and must be made.

Making my first, utterly indispensable point, I am making no friends, because what I am going to say is too shocking, much too shocking for the sensitive stomachs of our philistine generation who lives in the quiet enjoyment of relative comfort and hears about wars from media reports, which of course are not as gory as the action movies people watch every day.

Our precious philistines are overexposed to pulp violence, but they have no comprehension of the concept of real war.

War is when normalcy is death and destruction. War is when your family, your wife and children are never safe, and even less so in the sacred privacy of their home. War is when death hails on you from the sky. When an airplane is your mortal enemy, and your mission in life as husband and father, as protector of life, is to preempt death by causing death.

Life in a warzone is like this. It is governed by a wholly different set of moral laws and cannot be judged by the yardstick of peace. The heroes of the American War of Independence, the generations of the two World Wars, knew it. The dwellers of warzones in our time all know it. The spectators of television wars have no idea of what I am talking about.

And so, here comes the terrible shocker. The outcry is loud among even the most benign and most moderate callers for justice:

“We must find out who these people are who shot down the civilian airliner, and bring them to justice!!!”

But what is justice? Are we judging justice by the standards of peace and quiet of a nation at peace, or do we ever take into account that we are talking about Ukraine, the nation of different, mutually hostile ethnic and cultural entities that used to coexist quite well under the USSR (like the entities of the former prosperous nation of Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito), and more or less tolerably after the fall of the USSR, until the recent coup overthrowing the very flawed, but still legitimately elected government of Yanukovich and bringing to power a group of nationalistic extremists who started their reign by critically undermining the human rights of the Eastern and Southern Ukrainians, directly causing a bitter civil war by their actions…

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, unless you failed to comprehend it, there is a bitter civil war going on out there as we speak. Men, women and children are dying there every day, bombarded from the air by a government that essentially wants to break and dehumanize them, and if we listen to the rhetoric of Yulia Timoshenko, to physically annihilate them. (Incidentally, I am not repeating anybody’s propaganda here, I am quoting facts which are open for everybody to see, unless of course they do not wish to see…)

And so here is my shocker. Before the facts start coming in, I am willing to consider one hypothesis, for the sake of the argument, although still insisting that this is merely a hypothesis…---

What if the airliner was shot by the rebels? Not because they wanted to hurt innocent Dutch, Malayan, and other civilians, including women and children, but simply because the sky over their war-torn land is their enemy, bringing down death on their own civilians, including women and children…

What If?!

As far as I am concerned, no missing facts are needed. My verdict is in:

NOT GUILTY.

***

But I am not done yet, and I have an unquestionably guilty party in my judgment, guilty before the fact.

My guilty verdict in this particular case goes to those who had sent all those innocent people into harm’s way, who had allowed a civilian airliner to enter a war zone, where lethal fire is admittedly dispensed up and down, where any aircraft without exception is justifiably presumed to be an enemy aircraft, with the intent to kill before being killed…

What pathetic madman would send civilians to an almost certain death? Or perhaps, the reason why this plane had found itself in that particular horrible place at that particular awful time ought to be thoroughly investigated (had the flight path been changed in any way, and if so-- why?, etc.), as an even more important clue than who actually shot it down...

HOBBES OF THE PANTHEON

(Maintaining the chronological order of my Philosophers postings, I am now returning to my Magnificent Shadows section, where only the most important philosophers are represented, with each of them getting more than one entry. With that criterion in mind, Aristotle is followed by Thomas Hobbes.)

***

There is a yawning chasm of 1910 years (!) between my last multiple-entry philosopher in this section and the next, which says a lot about the so-called “Dark Age” of Western Civilization. To be fair, the multiple-entry principle is mechanistic, and some of the single-entry philosophers of the two intervening millennia (see the Significant Others section) have been of the highest caliber. But the simple fact remains that none of these have attained to the multiple-entry status, which proves the statement of Bertrand Russell, among others, that, since the death of Aristotle in 322 BC, the world was not to see another great like him for the next two thousand years.

It is conventional wisdom to name Dèscartes as the next Great One. But in my chronology, based on birth dates, rather than on the floruit, one particular philosopher, born before Dèscartes, although outliving him by three decades, has managed to sneak in, in front of him, and no matter how I love Dèscartes, this one is no less deserving to enter the Pantheon with him, even though some respectable authorities have seen him as a lesser figure. We are talking about one of my genuine favorites, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), and it is perhaps very proper to introduce him with Bertrand Russell’s preambular summary to the Hobbes Chapter in his History of Western Philosophy, with my annotations in red font interspersed throughout:

Hobbes is a philosopher whom it is difficult to classify. (What a sheer delight! I was also found difficult to classify, and so were my books, which difficulty I regard as a high compliment.) He was an empiricist, like Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, but, unlike them, he was an admirer of mathematical method not only in pure mathematics, but in its applications. His general outlook was inspired by Galileo, rather than Bacon. (This is particularly interesting, of course, because Bacon and Hobbes were compatriots, and Nietzsche does not hesitate to lump all Englishmen together, in order to display their general philosophical ineptitude.) From Dèscartes to Kant, Continental philosophy (Russell is making a rather significant differentiation between England and Continental Europe here!) derived much of its conception of the nature of human knowledge from mathematics, but it regarded mathematics as known independently of experience. It was thus led, like Platonism, to minimize the part played by perception and over-emphasize the part played by pure thought. English empiricism, on the other hand, was little influenced by mathematics, and tended to have a wrong conception of the scientific method. Hobbes had neither of these defects. It’s not until our own day that we find any other philosophers who were empiricists, and yet laid due stress on mathematics. In this respect, Hobbes’s merit is great. He has however grave defects, which make it impossible to place him quite in the first rank. He is impatient with subtleties, and too much inclined to cut the Gordian knot. His solutions of problems are logical, but are attained by omitting awkward facts. He is vigorous, but crude; he wields the battle-axe better than the rapier. Nevertheless, his theory of the State deserves to be carefully considered, the more so, as it is more modern than any previous theory, even that of Machiavelli.

Russell may have his reasons to exclude Hobbes from the Pantheon, on the basis of his shortcomings, but I am quite tolerant of these alleged shortcomings, as nobody among the philosophers is perfect in constructing a positive theory, and as for the sheer versatility of the raised questions and the liveliness of the ensuing debate, Hobbes is magnificent, in my estimation, and there is no doubt about his membership in the club of the best, at least “in the world of my own.”

TO ME, FAIR FRIEND, YOU NEVER CAN BE OLD

The title comes from Shakespeare’s Sonnet #104. See also my other Shakespearean entries and references.

As the reader undoubtedly understands, this entry is not about William Shakespeare the writer (1564-1616), but about William Shakespeare the philosopher. It is obviously far too short to do him justice, but then, how huge is it supposed to be, to measure up to his exorbitant world-historical significance? It is, therefore, nothing more than a token of respect for him in this Philosophy block of sections.

***

My good friend Bertrand Russell quotes Shakespeare’s King Lear---

…I will do such things---

What they are yet I know not--- but they shall be

The terrors of the earth…

---and concludes, making an earlier point of his: This is Nietzsche’s philosophy in a nutshell.

By the same token, I can say, with an even greater justification, that Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be…” is all human philosophy in a nutshell!

There is a distinct supernatural quality to Shakespeare’s genius, such as makes it difficult to speak of him, or even to write of him. Indeed, what can be said about him which could be more interesting and instructive than simply reciting his lines from memory, as I used to be so fond of doing in the past, and, occasionally, even today. In fact, I knew more Shakespeare by heart (several hours of non-stop recitation) than the great Pushkin (who was a close-second), or any other poetic or prosaic genius, whose lines have forever stuck in my head, lightening and lighting up my memory vaults from time to time, even when I am busy writing, or remembering my own stuff.

Shakespeare (1564-1616) is a truly extraordinary, unique philosopher. It seems that virtually every thought of classical philosophy has found a poetic expression in his works. And it is also true the other way around, that almost every line of his is a philosophical gem in its own right, some of them virtually unparalleled in conventional philosophy. It is quite clear to me that I must pursue this challenging subject at some length in a special essay at a later day. I have so many stimulating projects now put off until later, that I cannot be in any way confident that I shall eventually be able to bring them all to fruition. But at least here is a memo to myself, and no uncertain evidence that I have staked such an intent.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

This is my special entry on Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the author of the world-famous phrase Scientia Potentia Est. All authorities appear to agree that although Bacon never proposed an actual philosophy, and in this sense he cannot be called “a philosopher,” his suggestion of a method of developing philosophy makes him a bona fide methodologist of philosophy, and here the line separating the two types becomes infinitely more faint than some people would like to believe. Is there, for instance, such a sharp dividing line between Plato and Aristotle, because one is more literary and creative, whereas the other is more systematic? While we can argue about the pluses and minuses of different approaches to philosophy, we do not deny access to philosophy to rationalists in favor of irrationalists, or vice versa. For the same reason, we ought not to deny access to a methodologist, such as was the subject of this entry Francis Bacon.

Bertrand Russell sums up Bacon’s scientific legacy pretty adequately, and his summary qualifies Bacon as a philosopher without any doubt: “Francis Bacon, although his philosophy is in many ways unsatisfactory, has permanent importance as the founder of modern inductive method and as a pioneer in the attempt at a logical systematization of scientific procedure.” For this ‘attempt’ as a minimum Russell gives Bacon a full chapter of his own, in his History of Western Philosophy.

Nietzsche exhibits a similar attitude toward him. On the one hand, he seems to attack Bacon in Jenseits 252 --- …They are no philosophical race these Englishmen: Bacon signifies an attack on the philosophical spirit (!); Hobbes, Hume, and Locke, a debasement and lowering of the value of the concept of philosophy, for more than a century. It was against Hume that Kant arose, and rose; and it was Locke, of whom Schelling said, understandably, “Je méprise Locke!” As the reader must have noticed, Nietzsche puts Bacon in the same lineup with Hobbes, Hume, and Locke, all of whom are undeniably first-rate philosophers, although not in Nietzsche’s personal estimation. But the lineup itself creates the precedent of placing Bacon among all the other most distinguished British luminaries, quod erat demonstrandum. But Nietzsche does not stop there. In his posthumous collection titled Wille zur Macht, he first implicitly justifies the identification of method with philosophy: History of scientific method, considered by Auguste Comte as virtually philosophy itself. (#467) Then, quite explicitly: The most valuable insights are arrived at last; but the most valuable insights are methods. (#469)

And of course his #468 ibidem, puts Francis Bacon in an elite international philosophical circle: The great methodologists: Aristotle, Bacon, Dèscartes, Auguste Comte.

His greatest service to science and philosophy was the emphasis on induction, as opposed to deduction. We know that deduction was the method of choice used by the Greeks, and it will be fair to say that induction, in its modern shape (and with its modern flaws!), originated with Bacon. Not that it had not existed before him, but as he himself describes its allegedly pitiable state: Another form of induction must be devised than has hitherto been employed, and it must be used for proving and discovering not ‘first principles’ (as they are called) only, but also the lesser axioms, and the middle, and indeed all. For the induction proceeding by simple enumeration is childish.

The serious flaws of Bacon’s method are, once again, summarized by Bertrand Russell: Bacon’s inductive method is faulty through insufficient emphasis on hypothesis. He hoped that mere orderly arrangement of data would make the right hypothesis obvious, but this is seldom the case. As a rule, the framing of these hypotheses is the most difficult part of scientific work, and the part where great ability is indispensable. So far, no method has been found making it possible to invent hypotheses by rule. Usually some hypothesis is a necessary preliminary to the collection of facts, since the selection of facts demands a way of determining relevance. Without something of this kind, the mere multiplicity of facts is baffling. The part played by the deductive method in science is greater than Bacon thought. Often, when a hypothesis has to be tested, there is a long deductive journey from the hypothesis to some consequence, which can be tested by observation. Usually, the deduction is mathematical, and, in this respect, Francis Bacon underestimated the importance of mathematics in scientific investigation.

All this may sound like a very harsh putdown, but at least he tried and raised this question. Once again, we may very unkindly ask how many great philosophers who had posed great questions were ever able to find adequate answers to them? Had the answer, and not the question, been the main criterion of philosophical greatness, the end of wisdom would have come upon the world right then and there.

There are two more important things I would like to add to this conversation about Francis Bacon.

One concerns his ethics. He separates social morality (a matter of ethics) from personal morality ( a matter of religion), which is a very interesting distinction. He holds philosophy to be kept separate from theology. The latter, according to him, comes from revelation. Reason, on the other hand, is the sole underpinning of philosophy. (Ergo, the doctrine of the double truth is allowed to sneak in here!) It is possible however to be brought to God through reason (that is, philosophy): “A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.”

And, finally, as an important curiosity, Francis Bacon, an acknowledged great man of science, was himself astonishingly behind his times in the questions of contemporary science. He flatly rejected the Copernican theory, was indifferent to Kepler, seems to have been totally ignorant of Vesalius, Gilbert, and Harvey. He was scorned for this by Harvey, who was, understandably, of a low opinion of him: “He writes philosophy like a Lord Chancellor.” (An incredibly witty and profound remark!)

My personal opinion of Francis Bacon is, well, not very high, because although I appreciate the importance of method in philosophy, my preference is for the intuitive flight of a disorganized imagination. Dèscartes is a different case, of course, because there is so much more to Dèscartes than his method. Furthermore, there are a great many Baconian aphorisms in my Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, but having read through them in search of an inspirational click, I ended up rather disappointed. His Scientia Potentia est is of course a big classical item, moreover, it had been lavishly used in my time as a perennial Soviet slogan that I have always liked as a matter of fact, but this did not bring my heart any closer to Bacon himself. At this late point in my life, however, I am very open to a closer reexamination of Bacon’s legacy, and if I still have time left in the future, I am more than willing to give him a second look.