Metaphysics

Old Doctor Sobersides, the minister of Pumpkinville, where I lived in my youth, was one of the metaphysical divines of the old school, and could cavil upon the ninth part of a hair about entities and quiddities, nominalism and realism, free-will and necessity, with which sort of learning he used to stuff his sermons and astound his learned hearers, the bumpkins. They never doubted that it was all true, but were apt to say with the old woman in Molière: “He speaks so well that I don’t understand him a bit.”

I remember a conversation that happened at my grandfather’s, in which the Doctor had some difficulty in making his metaphysics all “as clear as preaching.” There was my grandfather; Uncle Tim, who was the greatest hand at raising onions in our part of the country, but “not knowing metaphysics, had no notion of the true reason of his not being sad”; my Aunt Judy Keturah Titterwell, who could knit stockings “like all possest,” but could not syllogise; Malachi Muggs, our hired man that drove the oxen; and Isaac Thrasher, the district schoolmaster, who had dropped in to warm his fingers and get a drink of cider. Something was under discussion, and my grandfather could make nothing of it; but the Doctor said it was “metaphysically true.”

“Pray, Doctor,” said Uncle Tim, “tell me something about metaphysics; I have often heard of that science, but never for my life could find out what it was.”

“Metaphysics,” said the Doctor, “is the science of abstraction.”

“I’m no wiser for that explanation,” said Uncle Tim.

“It treats,” said the Doctor, “of matters most profound and sublime, a little difficult perhaps for a common intellect or an unschooled capacity to fathom, but not the less important on that account, to all living beings.”

“What does it teach?” asked the Schoolmaster.

“It is not applied so much to the operation of teaching,” answered the Doctor, “as to that of inquiring; and the chief inquiry is, whether things are, or whether they are not.”

“I don’t understand the question,” said Uncle Tim, taking the pipe out of his mouth.

“For example, whether this earth on which we tread,” said the Doctor, giving a heavy stamp on the floor, and setting his foot on the cat’s tail, “whether the earth does really exist, or whether it does not exist.”

“That is a point of considerable consequence to settle,” said my grandfather.

“Especially,” added the schoolmaster, “to the holders of real estate.”

“Now the earth,” continued the Doctor, “may exist–”

“Why, who ever doubted that?” asked Uncle Tim.

“A great many men,” said the Doctor, “and some very learned ones.”

Uncle Tim stared a moment, and then began to fill his pipe, whistling the tune of “Heigh! Betty Martin,” while the Doctor went on:

“The earth, I say, may exist, although Bishop Berkeley has proved beyond all possible gainsaying or denial, that it does not exist. The case is clear; the only difficulty is, to know whether we shall believe it or not.”

“And how,” asked Uncle Tim, “is all this to be found out?”

“By digging down to the first principles,” answered the Doctor.

“Ay,” interrupted Malachi, “there is nothing equal to the spade and pickaxe.”

“That is true,” said my grandfather, going on in Malachi’s way, “’tis by digging for the foundation, that we shall find out whether the world exists or not; for, if we dig to the bottom of the earth and find the foundation–why then we are sure of it. But if we find no foundation, it is clear that the world stands upon nothing, or, in other words, that it does not stand at all; therefore, it stands to reason–”

“I beg your pardon,” interrupted the Doctor, “but you totally mistake me; I used the word digging metaphorically, meaning the profoundest cogitation and research into the nature of things. That is the way in which we may ascertain whether things are, or whether they are not.”

“But if a man can’t believe his eyes,” said Uncle Tim, “what signifies talking about it?”

“Our eyes,” said the Doctor, “are nothing at all but the inlets of sensation, and when we see a thing, all we are aware of is, that we have a sensation of it: we are not aware that the thing exists. We are sure of nothing that we see with our eyes.”

“Not without spectacles,” said Aunt Judy.

“Plato, for instance, maintains that the sensation of any object is produced by a perpetual succession of copies, images, or counterfeits, streaming off from the object to the organ of sensation. Descartes, too, has explained the matter upon the principle of whirligigs.”

“But does the world exist?” asked the Schoolmaster.

“A good deal may be said on both sides,” replied the Doctor, “though the ablest heads are for non-existence.”

“In common cases,” said Uncle Tim, “those who utter nonsense are considered blockheads.”

“But in metaphysics,” said the Doctor, “the case is different.”

“Now all this is hocus-pocus to me,” said Aunt Judy, suspending her knitting-work, and scratching her forehead with one of the needles, “I don’t understand a bit more of the business than I did at first.”

“I’ll be bound there is many a learned professor,” said Uncle Tim, “could say the same after spinning a long yarn of metaphysics.”

The Doctor did not admire this gibe at his favorite science.

“That is as the case may be,” said he; “this thing or that thing may be dubious, but what then? Doubt is the beginning of wisdom.”

“No doubt of that,” said my grandfather, beginning to poke the fire, “and when a man has got through his doubting, what does he begin to build up in the metaphysical way?”

“Why, he begins by taking something for granted,” said the Doctor.

“But is that a sure way of going to work?”

“‘Tis the only thing he can do,” replied the Doctor, after a pause, and rubbing his forehead as if he was not altogether satisfied that his foundation was a solid one. My grandfather might have posed him with another question, but he poked the fire and let him go on.

“Metaphysics, to speak exactly–”

“Ah,” interrupted the Schoolmaster, “bring it down to vulgar fractions, and then we shall understand it.”

“‘Tis the consideration of immateriality, or the mere spirit and essence of things.”

“Come, come,” said Aunt Judy, taking a pinch of snuff, “now I see into it.”

“Thus, man is considered, not in his corporeality, but in his essence or capability of being; for a man, metaphysically, or to metaphysical purposes, hath two natures, that of spirituality, and that of corporeality, which may be considered separate.”

“What man?” asked Uncle Tim.

“Why, any man; Malachi there, for example; I may consider him as Malachi spiritual, or Malachi corporeal.”

“That is true,” said Malachi, “for when I was in the militia they made me a sixteenth corporal, and I carried grog to the drummer.”

“That is another affair,” said the Doctor in continuation; “we speak of man in his essence; we speak, also, of the essence of locality, the essence of duration–”

“And essence of peppermint,” said Aunt Judy.

“Pooh!” said the Doctor, “the essence I mean is quite a different essence.”

“Something too fine to be dribbled through the worm of a still,” said my grandfather.

“Then I am all in the dark again,” rejoined Aunt Judy.

“By the spirit and essence of things I mean things in the abstract.”

“And what becomes of a thing when it goes into the abstract?” asked Uncle Tim.

“Why, it becomes an abstraction.”

“There we are again,” said Uncle Tim; “but what on earth is an abstraction?”

“It is a thing that has no matter: that is, it cannot be felt, seen, heard, smelt, or tasted; it has no substance or solidity; it is neither large nor small, hot nor cold, long nor short.”

“Then what is the long and short of it?” asked the Schoolmaster.

“Abstraction,” replied the Doctor.

“Suppose, for instance,” said Malachi, “that I had a pitchfork–”

“Ay,” said the Doctor, “consider a pitchfork in general; that is, neither this one nor that one, nor any particular one, but a pitchfork or pitchforks divested of their materiality–these are things in the abstract.”

“They are things in the hay-mow,” said Malachi.

“Pray,” said Uncle Tim, “have there been many such things discovered?”

“Discovered!” returned the Doctor, “why, all things, whether in heaven, or upon the earth, or in the waters under the earth, whether small or great, visible or invisible, animate or inanimate; whether the eye can see, or the ear can hear, or the nose can smell, or the fingers touch; finally, whatever exists or is imaginable in the nature of things, past, present, or to come, all may be abstractions.”

“Indeed!” said Uncle Tim, “pray, what do you make of the abstraction of a red cow?”

“A red cow,” said the Doctor, “considered metaphysically or as an abstraction, is an animal possessing neither hide nor horns, bones nor flesh, but is the mere type, eidolon, and fantastical semblance of these parts of a quadruped. It has a shape without any substance, and no color at all, for its redness is the mere counterfeit or imagination of such. As it lacks the positive, so is it also deficient in the accidental properties of all the animals in its tribe, for it has no locomotion, stability, or endurance, neither goes to pasture, gives milk, chews the cud, nor performs any other function of the horned beast, but is a mere creation of the brain, begotten by a freak of the fancy and nourished by a conceit of the imagination.”

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Aunt Judy. “All the metaphysics under the sun wouldn’t make a pound of butter!”

“That’s a fact,” said Uncle Tim.