a Soul in ev'ry Stone WAS Re: GRGR(29) - The Grid, The Comb

[Terrance]

Paul Mackin wrote:

> I'm guessing that if God is pure Act then any further Act
> (actualizing) would be superfluous. But what I wanted to report was
> that while looking in the Summa Theologica (for the real answer) I came
> upon a section where St. T. quotes Aristotle concerning stones and
> souls--believe it or not. Not the soul in the stone unfortunately but
> visa versa. "The stone is not in the soul but the likeness
> is." Again unfortunately they are talking about human souls not stone
> souls.
> 
>                         P.

"This also appears from the opinion of the ancient
philosophers, who said that "like is known by like." For
they said that the soul
knows the earth outside itself, by the earth within itself;
and so of the rest. If,
therefore, we take the species of the earth instead of the
earth, according to Aristotle
(De Anima iii, 8), who says "that a stone is not in the
soul, but only the likeness of
the stone"; it follows that the soul knows external things
by means of its intelligible
species."

I think the answer to the soul in every stone is not going
to be found in any Christian text (although, as Eddins makes
clear, William Slothrop's "heretical text" provides one of
the cornerstones) or in the Greek texts (Chiefly Plato and
Aristotle) that form the bedrock of the
intellectual/rational Christian Soul. I suspect that America
(Emerson and so on), Africa (Herero paradox and chance/god)
and pre-Hellenic Orphism, are where find the soul in the
stones.  Although Aristotle's comments, quoted from De Anima
by St. Thomas Aquinas, could be in part a reply not to Plato


whose notion of the movement of the soul, say from man to
beast, would not appeal to Pynchon since it involves, lets
say, all sorts of  "elect/preterit" doctrine, including, "a
law of Destiny" with nine (the magic trinity three or  nine
of Dante etc.) degrees, the first being that of the
philosopher (surprise) and artist-musical lover of nature
(the artist though, like the poet is not quite equal to the
philosopher in all things, see Phaedrus-Madness), states of
probation in which he who sins deteriorates his lot,
judgment and punishment, the "gnostic" disdain for the
Material-body and earth and Absolutes, including "knowledge
absolute",

it may be a reply to Anaxagoras, no stranger to stones or
not:

Here, at least, Aristotle points out what is obvious, that
when a thinker's soul is
made like its cognitive object, it does not become one with
some hylomorphic
compound, but with its form: "for it is not the stone which
is in the soul, but its
form" (De Anima iii 8, 431b29-432a1; cf. iii 4, 429a27). The
suggestion is, then,
that when S comes to think of a stone, as opposed to merely
perceiving some
particular stone, S has a faculty which is such that it can
become one in form with
that stone. Aristotle sometimes infers from this sort of
consideration that thought is
of universals, whereas perception is of particulars (De
Anima ii 5, 417b23,
Posterior Analytics i 31, 87b37-88a7), though he elsewhere
will allow that we also
have knowledge of individuals (De Anima ii 5, 417a29;
Metaphysics xiii 10,
1087a20). These passages are not contradictory, since
Aristotle may simply be
emphasizing that thought tends to proceed at a higher level
of generality than
perception, because of its trading in comparatively abstract
structural features of its
objects. A person can think of what it is to be a stone, but
cannot, in any direct and
literal sense of the term, perceive this.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-psychology/ 



>From Melville's Clarel

10. A HALT  
 
 In divers ways which vary it
 Stones mention find in hallowed Writ:
 Stones rolled from well-mouths, altar stones,
 Idols of stone, memorial ones,
 Sling-stones, stone tables; Bethel high
 Saw Jacob, under starry sky,
 
 On stones his head lay--desert bones;
 Stones sealed the sepulchers--huge cones
 Heaved there in bulk; death too by stones
 The law decreed for crime; in spite
 As well, for taunt, or type of ban,
 The same at place were cast, or man;
 Or piled upon the pits of fight
 Reproached or even denounced the slain:
 So in the wood of Ephraim, some
 Laid the great heap over Absalom.
   Convenient too at willful need,
 Stones prompted many a ruffian deed
 And ending oft in parting groans;
 
 By stones died Naboth; stoned to death
 Was Stephen meek: and Scripture saith,
 Against even Christ they took up stones.
 Moreover, as a thing profuse,
 Suggestive still in every use,
 On stones, still stones, the gospels dwell
 In lesson meet or happier parable.
 
   Attesting here the Holy Writ--
 In brook, in glen, by tomb and town
 In natural way avouching it--
 BEHOLD THE STONES! And never one
 A lichen greens; and, turn them o'er--
 No worm--no life; but, all the more,
 Good witnesses.
                The way now led
 Where shoals of flints and stones lay dead.
 The obstructed horses tripped and stumbled,
 The Thessalonian groaned and grumbled.
 But Glaucon cried: "Alack the stones!...

 "The stone was man's first missile; yes,
 Cain hurled it, or his sullen hand
 Therewith made heavy. Cain, confess,
 A savage was, although he planned
 His altar. Altars such as Cain's
 Still find we on far island-chains
 Deep mid the woods and hollows dark,
 And set offlike the shittim Ark.
 Refrain from trespass; with black frown
 Each votary straight takes up his stone--
 As once against even me indeed:
 I see them now start from their rocks
 In malediction."...