But I must not be led astray into another subject than that which we are discussing. We also, I say, ought to copy these bees, and sift whatever we have gathered from a varied course of reading, for such things are better preserved if they are kept separate; then, by applying the supervising care with which our nature has endowed us—in other words, our natural gifts—we should so blend those several flavors into one delicious compound that, even though it betrays its origin, yet it nevertheless is clearly a different thing from that whence it came.
This is what we see nature doing in our own bodies without any labor on our part; the food we have eaten, as long as it retains its original quality and floats in our stomachs as an undiluted mass, is a burden; but it passes into tissue and blood only when it has been changed from its original form.
So it is with the food which nourishes our higher nature—we should see to it that whatever we have absorbed should not be allowed to remain unchanged, or it will be no part of us. We must digest it; otherwise it will merely enter the memory and not the reasoning power.
Let us loyally welcome such foods and make them our own, so that something that is one may be formed out of many elements, just as one number is formed of several elements whenever, by our reckoning, lesser sums, each different from the others, are brought together. This is what our mind should do: it should hide away all the materials by which it has been aided, and bring to light only what it has made of them.
This is what we see nature doing in our own bodies without any labor on our part; the food we have eaten, as long as it retains its original quality and floats in our stomachs as an undiluted mass, is a burden; but it passes into tissue and blood only when it has been changed from its original form.
So it is with the food which nourishes our higher nature—we should see to it that whatever we have absorbed should not be allowed to remain unchanged, or it will be no part of us. We must digest it; otherwise it will merely enter the memory and not the reasoning power.
Let us loyally welcome such foods and make them our own, so that something that is one may be formed out of many elements, just as one number is formed of several elements whenever, by our reckoning, lesser sums, each different from the others, are brought together. This is what our mind should do: it should hide away all the materials by which it has been aided, and bring to light only what it has made of them.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 84
Break it down, and then build it back up. This process takes place whenever a bee makes its honey, or a stomach digests its food, or a mind arrives at understanding. The first step is to distinguish the parts. The second step is to incorporate them into the whole. In the contemporary lingo, it is the interplay between analysis and synthesis.
Left to itself, the flower does not produce honey. Left to itself, my supper does not give me strength. Left to itself, a fact does not become knowledge. It is the power of the bee, and of my organs, and of my intellect that transforms the old into something new.
This letter is already full of analogies to help us describe the activity of learning, but the wife would surely add that preparing a delicious recipe is far more than a pile of ingredients, and my father would remind me to carefully sort through the pieces before I attempt to assemble the appliance. The Aristotelian might say that a change requires an efficient cause to modify a material cause; as the old Scholastic phrase goes, “every agent forms matter for the sake of an end.”
The dull mechanics of our industrial society can so easily overlook the creative force that animates Nature, the way that a vital understanding will bind together the disparate circumstances into a shared meaning and purpose.
Do not believe the technicians when they tell you that a house is just a framework of lumber or stone, for a man knows why it is a place to live. Do not believe the bureaucrats when they tell you that prosperity is about arranging the ideal socio-economic conditions, for a man knows why happiness is within the judgements of each individual.
Whatever is touched by awareness is thereby also charged with estimation and intention, so that we can never treat learning as if it were only receptive. A state of affairs has been given—now how will I discern it, and what will I make of it? However mundane the elements, the composite is now distinctly mine, because I have provided for myself an account of the reasons why.
“Don’t be so silly! Someone else has already added up all the separate numbers before!”
Perhaps, but by doing so in my own mind I have explained the causes by my own power, which makes that critical difference between blindly repeating and independently comprehending.
Break it down, and then build it back up. This process takes place whenever a bee makes its honey, or a stomach digests its food, or a mind arrives at understanding. The first step is to distinguish the parts. The second step is to incorporate them into the whole. In the contemporary lingo, it is the interplay between analysis and synthesis.
Left to itself, the flower does not produce honey. Left to itself, my supper does not give me strength. Left to itself, a fact does not become knowledge. It is the power of the bee, and of my organs, and of my intellect that transforms the old into something new.
This letter is already full of analogies to help us describe the activity of learning, but the wife would surely add that preparing a delicious recipe is far more than a pile of ingredients, and my father would remind me to carefully sort through the pieces before I attempt to assemble the appliance. The Aristotelian might say that a change requires an efficient cause to modify a material cause; as the old Scholastic phrase goes, “every agent forms matter for the sake of an end.”
The dull mechanics of our industrial society can so easily overlook the creative force that animates Nature, the way that a vital understanding will bind together the disparate circumstances into a shared meaning and purpose.
Do not believe the technicians when they tell you that a house is just a framework of lumber or stone, for a man knows why it is a place to live. Do not believe the bureaucrats when they tell you that prosperity is about arranging the ideal socio-economic conditions, for a man knows why happiness is within the judgements of each individual.
Whatever is touched by awareness is thereby also charged with estimation and intention, so that we can never treat learning as if it were only receptive. A state of affairs has been given—now how will I discern it, and what will I make of it? However mundane the elements, the composite is now distinctly mine, because I have provided for myself an account of the reasons why.
“Don’t be so silly! Someone else has already added up all the separate numbers before!”
Perhaps, but by doing so in my own mind I have explained the causes by my own power, which makes that critical difference between blindly repeating and independently comprehending.
—Reflection written in 12/2013
IMAGE: Gerrit Dou, Woman at Prayer Before Her Meal (c. 1650)
No comments:
Post a Comment