Post by antonio449 on Jan 29, 2008 7:59:30 GMT -5
Has anyone read Voltaire's Candide? Better yet has anyone read The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson? These books came out at about the same time and deal with similar issues. What do you think about the similarities and contrast between these two works and how they deal with the problem of human suffering and evil? Which is the better guide? That is to say, which fable gets closest to the truth of the human condition?
Talk amongst yourselves.
P.S.
Here's one take:
Faith and Philosophy in Perspective
from the writings of Rev. Christopher Thompson. Vicar at St. John's
In light of recent disturbances in matters philosophical in Germany as well as our own home-grown naturalists I have though it meet right to address our concern as Christians towards modern thought. These new Teutonic sages go so far as to disavow the validity of our Sacred Scripture and the existence of Christ Himself. Furthermore, they proclaim that reality is unknowable and therefore God or the Absolute, as they put it, is not a proper object of human knowledge but mere conjecture. Thus the idea would be to consider matters religious as mere private acts of Faith while the proper object of public Reason is experimental science. Our Holy religion would seem to agree with such views given that Tertullian saith "what doth Athens have to do with Jerusalem? and St. Paul proclaimeth that the wisdom of man is folly to God.
Yet if one wouldst delve deeper into the Fathers of Mother Church as Hooker, Herbert and other Divines of the English Church proscribeth one finds a sure connect between Faith and Philosophy. 'Tis no idle matter that the Scholastics viewed her as Theology's handmaid, like unto the Holy Virgin and the Holy Spirit. To wit, St. Paul saith that even the Gentiles are not ignorant as to the Truth since God has written his Law on the hearts of men.
However, the new pernicious philosophy and chatter appears to surpass the old paganism in barbarism. For at least Greece could boast a Socrates, a Plato, and Aristotle who taught the truth as to morality. Similar to the Sino sage Confucius and Buddha the Indian. Whilst Socrates professed his ignorance in search of the Truth, the modern heretic professeth his very inability to seek that Truth. Yet if there be no metal in the mind of man then whence all human knowledge? Either our gray cells penetrate the universe and its frame or not. Given that we as humans are capable of such knowledge 'twould stand to reason that our intellect doth accord in some manner to the universe else all is vanity.
What then must be done?
Now there are two tales written in the last century that attempt to answer the former. In the year of Our Lord 1759 the Frenchman Voltaire put Candide to press whilst Dr. Johnson published his Rasselas. Given that the first of these works is by a Gallic sage and the other from a poet hailing from our own isle a distracting contrast between the genius of the two nations is inevitable. This contrast aside, I wish to discuss the philosophical and theological conclusion of the two works and not their national character as such. 'tis well known the benefit Voltaire took from our own British philosophers and his stay our country. Whilst both treatises have a common source they reach varying conclusions to the same basic question: what is the end and purpose of our human live? And then how are we to live?
The witticisms of Voltaire and our Johnson are legendary and both give reign to their particular dispositions in each work. Voltaire, formerly an optimist of the school of Leibniz, veered toward pessimism after the horrid Earthquake in Lisbon. The Frenchman therefore writes his work in an attempt to refute the Leibnizian tenet that this world is the best of all possible worlds. Candide represents the promise of youth under the tutelage of Dr. Pangloss in a parody of Leibniz. The sequence of episodes and events is by turns comical and absurd peppered with the Frenchman’s inimitable style. It could be said that the work is only properly understood in the French since the grace of the language gives a momentum and force to the work somewhat absent in English translations.
The vagaries of fortune are visited on Candide who is buffeted to and fro from his native Austria, off to Portugal, then Turkey and the New World. At the stories end Candide has rescued his love Cundegande (Voltaire delights in such semi-obscene witticisms) are told to be content with what they have and work in their garden. This includes a happiness beyond the concerns of an otherworldly Faith since Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have been ridiculed throughout in the actions of hypocrisy carried out by their representatives. No doubt this approach stems from the philosophe’s concerns with the Wars of Religion in the 16th-17th centuries wherein dogmas were the occasion of warfare and strife. Therefore Voltaire's bon mot: écrasez l’infame, directed toward his Jesuit instructors and other Religious of the Ancien Regime. However, it is not my purpose to touch on the Roman Church as such, since Voltaire dismisses all three great world religions.
The answer he gives to the purpose of human life then is to focus on the real and the concrete and not on non-sensities such as religious dogma. Whilst he appears an atheist Voltaire was in all fact a Deist, whose Rational Supreme Being forms the basis of his philosophical rationalism. His God then is the Unknowable Absolute similar to the assertion of the New Philosophies emerging in Germany.
On the other hand, our Dr. Johnson styles his work in a foreign setting on the Northwestern side of Africa. The dark continent is a mystery to European eyes, and in so doing Johnson places his story on the edge of the unknown in the country of Abyssinia which incidentally has professed Our Holy Religion form Antiquity. The main personage, Rasselas, is a prince secluded in an Edenic setting from the cares of the world. Though idle and riche he is unsatisfied with the life he hath led proclaiming: “What makes the difference between man and all the rest of animal creation?” This lament is a mirror of Ecclesiastes where human striving is vanity since man perishes like the beasts of the field.
This assertion was the beginning of natural philosophy wherein man is fitted into the whole of creation. However the naturalists declare that man is a mere brute rather than a cousin. Similarly, “it has been the opinion of antiquity that human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals.” Therefore the mere brain of a brute is deemed incapable of penetrating the structures of existence. Yet our native naturalists assure us that man is still a simian brute with utmost certainty. This paradox is furthered since the interrelatedness and development of life on earth is given as proof of said assertion. Yet there is no substitute for distinctions.
How often is it reported that a mere beast speaketh thus: “How long is it that my hopes and wishes have flown beyond this boundary of my life , which yet I never have attempted to surmount?”
Thus Johnson employs Rasselas in a number of conversations and travels in his sober prose including Imlac the poet-philosopher, Nekayah, Rasselas’ sister and Pekuah. More terse and staid than Voltaire our Dr. Johnson treats morality beyond all matter of style and form. In that despite all our human striving we desire more. For by the tales the end in an aptly titled “conclusion where nothing is concluded” it has been illustrated how man aspires far beyond his work. For many like the Egyptians point towards a world beyond, and a hope of new life. These disquisitions are Augustinan in turn and follow the Saint’s observation that “our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” To wit humankind can only be sated by ultimate felicity.
Therefore whilst Voltaire offers a practical vision of fulfillment in work, Johnson presents human toil in the horizon of the beyond. For the Monastic Tradition in the West as founded by St. Benedict stated as its charge: ora et labora- "pray and work". Wherefore mere toil cannot sustain itself in that it is merely a means to a higher end. The contemplation ciphered in ora- "pray" underlies the practical impulse of labora- "work" in a necessary way. Would not our nation’s obsession the hobby, that private obsession outside all labour, reveal to us said truth? That toil is not enough for man. Thus when his worth is so measured in terms of labour alone he must needs take refuge in private fancy. For he aspires to much more than the soot soaked horizon, beyond the factories and canneries. Sometimes the sun doth yet shine through the fog and rain. And it is only the foolish or the daft who contents himself therein, cowering from the sun’s rays.
Talk amongst yourselves.
P.S.
Here's one take:
Faith and Philosophy in Perspective
from the writings of Rev. Christopher Thompson. Vicar at St. John's
In light of recent disturbances in matters philosophical in Germany as well as our own home-grown naturalists I have though it meet right to address our concern as Christians towards modern thought. These new Teutonic sages go so far as to disavow the validity of our Sacred Scripture and the existence of Christ Himself. Furthermore, they proclaim that reality is unknowable and therefore God or the Absolute, as they put it, is not a proper object of human knowledge but mere conjecture. Thus the idea would be to consider matters religious as mere private acts of Faith while the proper object of public Reason is experimental science. Our Holy religion would seem to agree with such views given that Tertullian saith "what doth Athens have to do with Jerusalem? and St. Paul proclaimeth that the wisdom of man is folly to God.
Yet if one wouldst delve deeper into the Fathers of Mother Church as Hooker, Herbert and other Divines of the English Church proscribeth one finds a sure connect between Faith and Philosophy. 'Tis no idle matter that the Scholastics viewed her as Theology's handmaid, like unto the Holy Virgin and the Holy Spirit. To wit, St. Paul saith that even the Gentiles are not ignorant as to the Truth since God has written his Law on the hearts of men.
However, the new pernicious philosophy and chatter appears to surpass the old paganism in barbarism. For at least Greece could boast a Socrates, a Plato, and Aristotle who taught the truth as to morality. Similar to the Sino sage Confucius and Buddha the Indian. Whilst Socrates professed his ignorance in search of the Truth, the modern heretic professeth his very inability to seek that Truth. Yet if there be no metal in the mind of man then whence all human knowledge? Either our gray cells penetrate the universe and its frame or not. Given that we as humans are capable of such knowledge 'twould stand to reason that our intellect doth accord in some manner to the universe else all is vanity.
What then must be done?
Now there are two tales written in the last century that attempt to answer the former. In the year of Our Lord 1759 the Frenchman Voltaire put Candide to press whilst Dr. Johnson published his Rasselas. Given that the first of these works is by a Gallic sage and the other from a poet hailing from our own isle a distracting contrast between the genius of the two nations is inevitable. This contrast aside, I wish to discuss the philosophical and theological conclusion of the two works and not their national character as such. 'tis well known the benefit Voltaire took from our own British philosophers and his stay our country. Whilst both treatises have a common source they reach varying conclusions to the same basic question: what is the end and purpose of our human live? And then how are we to live?
The witticisms of Voltaire and our Johnson are legendary and both give reign to their particular dispositions in each work. Voltaire, formerly an optimist of the school of Leibniz, veered toward pessimism after the horrid Earthquake in Lisbon. The Frenchman therefore writes his work in an attempt to refute the Leibnizian tenet that this world is the best of all possible worlds. Candide represents the promise of youth under the tutelage of Dr. Pangloss in a parody of Leibniz. The sequence of episodes and events is by turns comical and absurd peppered with the Frenchman’s inimitable style. It could be said that the work is only properly understood in the French since the grace of the language gives a momentum and force to the work somewhat absent in English translations.
The vagaries of fortune are visited on Candide who is buffeted to and fro from his native Austria, off to Portugal, then Turkey and the New World. At the stories end Candide has rescued his love Cundegande (Voltaire delights in such semi-obscene witticisms) are told to be content with what they have and work in their garden. This includes a happiness beyond the concerns of an otherworldly Faith since Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have been ridiculed throughout in the actions of hypocrisy carried out by their representatives. No doubt this approach stems from the philosophe’s concerns with the Wars of Religion in the 16th-17th centuries wherein dogmas were the occasion of warfare and strife. Therefore Voltaire's bon mot: écrasez l’infame, directed toward his Jesuit instructors and other Religious of the Ancien Regime. However, it is not my purpose to touch on the Roman Church as such, since Voltaire dismisses all three great world religions.
The answer he gives to the purpose of human life then is to focus on the real and the concrete and not on non-sensities such as religious dogma. Whilst he appears an atheist Voltaire was in all fact a Deist, whose Rational Supreme Being forms the basis of his philosophical rationalism. His God then is the Unknowable Absolute similar to the assertion of the New Philosophies emerging in Germany.
On the other hand, our Dr. Johnson styles his work in a foreign setting on the Northwestern side of Africa. The dark continent is a mystery to European eyes, and in so doing Johnson places his story on the edge of the unknown in the country of Abyssinia which incidentally has professed Our Holy Religion form Antiquity. The main personage, Rasselas, is a prince secluded in an Edenic setting from the cares of the world. Though idle and riche he is unsatisfied with the life he hath led proclaiming: “What makes the difference between man and all the rest of animal creation?” This lament is a mirror of Ecclesiastes where human striving is vanity since man perishes like the beasts of the field.
This assertion was the beginning of natural philosophy wherein man is fitted into the whole of creation. However the naturalists declare that man is a mere brute rather than a cousin. Similarly, “it has been the opinion of antiquity that human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals.” Therefore the mere brain of a brute is deemed incapable of penetrating the structures of existence. Yet our native naturalists assure us that man is still a simian brute with utmost certainty. This paradox is furthered since the interrelatedness and development of life on earth is given as proof of said assertion. Yet there is no substitute for distinctions.
How often is it reported that a mere beast speaketh thus: “How long is it that my hopes and wishes have flown beyond this boundary of my life , which yet I never have attempted to surmount?”
Thus Johnson employs Rasselas in a number of conversations and travels in his sober prose including Imlac the poet-philosopher, Nekayah, Rasselas’ sister and Pekuah. More terse and staid than Voltaire our Dr. Johnson treats morality beyond all matter of style and form. In that despite all our human striving we desire more. For by the tales the end in an aptly titled “conclusion where nothing is concluded” it has been illustrated how man aspires far beyond his work. For many like the Egyptians point towards a world beyond, and a hope of new life. These disquisitions are Augustinan in turn and follow the Saint’s observation that “our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” To wit humankind can only be sated by ultimate felicity.
Therefore whilst Voltaire offers a practical vision of fulfillment in work, Johnson presents human toil in the horizon of the beyond. For the Monastic Tradition in the West as founded by St. Benedict stated as its charge: ora et labora- "pray and work". Wherefore mere toil cannot sustain itself in that it is merely a means to a higher end. The contemplation ciphered in ora- "pray" underlies the practical impulse of labora- "work" in a necessary way. Would not our nation’s obsession the hobby, that private obsession outside all labour, reveal to us said truth? That toil is not enough for man. Thus when his worth is so measured in terms of labour alone he must needs take refuge in private fancy. For he aspires to much more than the soot soaked horizon, beyond the factories and canneries. Sometimes the sun doth yet shine through the fog and rain. And it is only the foolish or the daft who contents himself therein, cowering from the sun’s rays.