NPPF Commentary Line 230, P. 164

[Vincent A. Maeder]

> From: Terrance [mailto:lycidas2 at earthlink.net]
> 
> "Vincent A. Maeder" wrote:
> >
> > Line 230: a domestic ghost
> >
> > Line 230 is the last line of the 8th stanza of canto two.  Mr. Shade has
> > just completed an argument in the seventh stanza that if, before we came
> > to life, we tried to imagine life we would have dismissed such musings
> > as mere nonsense.
> 
> Is that right? I don't think that is it at all. That is not what he
> says, at all.
> 
> he says that
> 
> IF prior to life we had been able to imagine life,
> what mad, impossible, unutterably weird,
> wonderful nonsense it Might have appeared!
> 
> He doesn't say we would have dismissed it at mere nonsense. And I don't
> think that he implies that we Would have.
> 
> The stanza that  begins
> 
> so why join in the vulgar laughter?
> 
> doesn't make make that argument either.

Terrance:  Well, I agree you have properly recited what he says, but I think
he means we would dismiss such musings.  Unless we would entertain
"nonsense" as anything more than dismissive musings.  And vulgar laughter
further demonstrates the contempt there would be for such thoughts.

Mr. Kinbote's commentary of science vs. spirituality tends to bolster this
argument as it is usually the ken of science to dismiss spiritual claims.
If there were scientists in the world of life before life, they would
probably work toward dismissal of claims of life after pre-life as well.  V.