#enlightenment16

4.8

Text: 

Mrs. Jervis gave me her Smelling-bottle, and had cut my Laces, and sat me in a great Chair and he call’d her to him: How is the Girl said he? I never saw such a Fool in my Life. I did nothing at all to her. Mrs. Jervis could not speak for crying. So, he said, she has told you, it seems, that I was kind to her in the Summer- house, tho’ I’ll assure you, I was quite innocent then as well as now; and I desire you to keep this Matter to yourself, and let me not be nam’d in it. (Pg. 32) 

Thoughts:

4.4

Text:

But since all animals exist only as means, and not for their own sakes, in that they have no self-consciousness, whereas man is the end, such that I can no longer ask: Why does he exist? as can be done with animals, it follows that we have no immediate duties to animals; our duties towards them are indirect duties to humanity. Since animals are an analogue of humanity, we observe duties to mankind when we observe them as analogues to this, and thus cultivate our duties to humanity.  (Pg. 212)

Analysis: 

This excerpt comes from Kant’s Lectures on ethics and specifically how ethics pertain to animals. What Kant argues is animals exist  “not for their own sakes” because “they have no self-consciousness” but for the means of humans. Kant maintains his view that humans exist and serve a purpose because “man is the end, such that I can no longer ask: Why does he exist?” Although this appears to be a rather circular argument Kant feels the purpose of humanity is undeniable while the purpose of animals is questionable at best. Therefore animals exist mainly to act to serve “duties to mankind,” so in simpler language they live to serve. Kant’s assertion that animals exist without any self-conscious is one founded on conjecture and not from any preexisting knowledge or science for that matter as since today we know animals that are able to communicate with each other, one example being dolphins. This form of communication probably indicates they have some form of self-conscience because communication is hardly ever done without some form of thinking.  

3.30

Text:

The Moral.

Then Leave Complaints: Fools only strive

To make a Great an Honest Hive

I’ enjoy the World’s Conveniences

Be fam’d in War, yet live in Ease,

Without great Vices, is a vain

Eutopia seated in the Brain.

Fraud, Luxury and Pride must live,

While we the Benefits receive:

Hunger’s a dreadful Plague, no doubt,

Yet who digests or thrives without? 

Analysis: 

The Moral follows the preface and the entirety of the fable as a quick rap up and take away. The author of The Fable of the Bees is Bernard Mandeville and in the first stanza of this moral he is articulating his disregard for “fools only strive// To make a Great an Honest Hive.” This appears to insinuate that Mandeville’s final thoughts on the matter of society or as he ascribes the hive too is that it is an impossible task to have a just and honest society and corruption and deceit is inevitable and inescapable. Mandeville goes on to describe the great vices, as “Fraud, Luxury, and Pride must live” again reinstating the idea that our vices are too strong to overcome permanently. Mandeville also writes, “Hunger’s a dreadful Plague, no doubt, // Yet who digests or thrives without?” The answer to this question he poses “Yet who digests or thrives without” while pertaining to a lack of food is most likely the wealthy. Since the wealthy always go hungry last in famine if they even go hungry at all because they have the resources to find outsourced food while the poor have no such resources and continue to starve. This depressingly realist view is shown throughout the entire poem but is condensed into a page length format to hammer the point home by Mandeville.

3.18

I’ve decided to take the to write about my feeling on William Hogarth. There are a lot of feelings on the subject and some feelings cannot even be correctly articulated mainly due to my confusion over the plates created by William Hogarth. To clarify the confusion does not come from a lack of liking because in many ways it’s the opposite, I find his story telling through engraving wondrously impressive but mainly overwhelming. I think this is due to all the madness that is happening in each piece. For example the first plate of A Midnight Modern Conversation includes eleven people in it, and that is small number compared to previous pieces I’ve seen of his. All of the men seem to be absurdly drunk, okay, I can get that but then when you look more into each action of these stumbling drunks that is when things get more intricate. Every single one of the men serves a purpose if there is one thing I have learned about William Hogarth’s plate there is never just a person filling a space for an idle reason. This is what is so compelling about Hogarth as an artist he creates a scene of mayhem and madness and it’s overwhelming, yes, but you still have a longing to know what it all means. And that is why he confuses me because I can never get to that end goal! How each character fits into the story, how the clock means to tell a certain narrative in itself and how the fallen bottle represents something other than just drunkenness. I’m not at the level of full comprehension of his pieces and I think I should end this with something grossly hopeful but unfortunately I think I might have plateaued with Hogarth. But don’t worry I’ll sneak something cheesy in here, that doesn’t mean my lack of appreciation for him will diminish any less.

3.16

Text:

‘Now tell us this, my dear Pangloss,’ said Candide. ‘While you were being hanged, and dissected, and beaten, and made to row in a galley, did you continue to believe that all was for the best?’-‘I hold firmly to my original views,’ replied Pangloss. ‘I am a philosopher after all: it would not do for me to recant, given that Leibniz is incapable of error, and that pre-established harmony is moreover the finest thing in the world- not to speak of the plenum and the material subtilis.’   

Analysis: