Looking Back - At Bertie

Yesterday would have been my Mom's 97th birthday, if she had not left us in her 91st year.  But in her honor at this time, I want to post something I wrote while she was in her eighties, and still very much alive.  I know everyone loves their mother, and that is wonderful.  But I want to let you know that everyone loved MY mother, too.  And she pretty much loved them all back.  Here is my tribute to "Bertie," the most influential person in my life.

FLYING, LOOKIN’ BACK

            When I was about twelve years old, I received my most memorable lesson in avoiding stereotypes based on sex about household responsibilities and duties.  It came from my very traditional, role model mother.  I don’t remember if I was asked or not, but I do remember that I washed or dried the dishes after dinner.  My brother and I usually made a high-stakes game of it by tossing the dinnerware across the kitchen, piece by piece, from the drying rack to the cabinet where it was stored.  This was how we honed our skills as football receivers and gold-glove baseball defensive players.  It takes concentration and soft hands to avoid parental remonstrance.  In my memory, there was never a broken piece of pottery as a result of our game.

            On this evening, I do not remember if I was washer or dryer, pitcher or receiver.  What I do remember is that I sassily said to my mother after the last piece was put away, “That’s gratitude for you; you didn’t even say ‘thank you’.”  My mother was (and still is) the most traditional of Southern women.  She did not work for money outside the home except for a brief stint at a family restaurant which her brother was managing at the time.  What she said to me was all she needed to say to turn upside down my half-kidding reference to the belief that the household was her total responsibility.  She said, “And did you thank me?”  You see, she had made the dinner, as she always did, and it was ready for me when I returned from the paper route (from which I kept all the income).  The dinner probably consisted of four or five vegetables (three or four of which she had canned, pickled or preserved after picking from our garden), maybe some meat of an inexpensive variety, and at least three choices of dessert.  She always did that.  No, I had not thanked her nor had I thanked my father, whose labor provided the funds with which the purchased food was bought and who worked with her to plant, weed, and harvest the home garden.  It was all taken as my due until that night.

            Arresting and memorable as this moment was, it does not scratch the surface of the quotes, slogans, poems and prayers that are the pieces that make up the mosaic of my mother’s legacy to her children and to the rest of the world.

            We began calling her Bertie by the time I was in my teens, a name that had evolved from the time when I was six and was first allowed to see her after she had a serious operation.  I thought she sure was “purtie.”  Through the convolutions of time and word play (one of the favorite family recreations) her name became Bertie, just as my next elder brother became “Fog” and I (the youngest) was “Bones, Sr.: or “Sens Bonior,” alternately while the eldest brother evolved from “Bones, Jr.” to “Jones.”  And the last word on any factual disagreement was hers.  She knew everything and she remembered clearly, “Everything.”  It was not just an article of faith - it was fact.  When she spoke, we would look at each other, acknowledging the frailties of our own remembrances with the debate - ending litany, “Bertie Knows.”  She didn’t argue.  She didn’t have to.

            The store of sayings is folksy, funny and frequently obscure.  “Fine as frog’s hair,” is not original or particularly unusual.  But  “looking like he had corn to sell” seemed to describe a particularly self-congratulatory stance or manner.  To me it conjured up a vision of pomaded hair and a puffy chest.  The articles of clothing were not essential to the image - could be bib overalls or could be blue serge suit.  It was the attitude that mattered most.

            In my middle teens, my mother made sure I learned, “An answer to a maiden’s prayer is not a chin of stubby hair.”  This delayed my mustache for twenty years and my full beard for another fifteen.  By that time, I was no longer looking for maidens.  The only other advice I remember in the romance department was that in looking for a mate, I would do well to spend at least as much time considering the idiosyncrasies of the mother as the charms of the daughter.  Once again, Bertie knew.

            I’m not sure I ever figured out what a “Drugstore Cowboy” was.  I am reasonably sure it was not a compliment.  Maybe it was the way they straddled the stools at the ice cream bar.  More likely it was the way they sort of hung out in front of the store, looking important.  I’ll bet some of them looked like they thought they had corn to sell.

            The most obscure saying but also the most intriguing is the expression, “Flying, looking back.”  It seems to evoke in each person, a slightly different image:  maybe recklessness from not looking where you are going; or speed so great that the wind forces you to turn your eyes away; or such a happy feeling of being alive that you are looking back in pleasure over the movement, excitement, and the joy of life!  That’s my image.  But there is also just the slightest bit of the dog with its nose turned into the wind that we have all seen in windows of cars and the back of pickup trucks.  Excitement, happiness but speed so great that it’s not entirely comfortable.

            There are other stories and other sayings.  But the common thread that emerges is that they are about people, their attitudes, their foibles and their eccentricities.  And they are funny, rather than hurtful.  They are empathetic and not critical.  They recognize that we are all wonderfully different but yet distressingly similar.

            Bertie has always been a student of human nature, an affirming, loving and humorous observer of people.  On the affirming and loving side, she is the confessor, the therapist and the lay psychologist.  She is an unschooled practitioner of the therapy of just listening without comment.  My strongest memory of childhood is of Bertie, holding the phone to her ear and saying every five to ten minutes the only word needed to provide the talker on the other end of the line a breath before the next onslaught.  She would say, “Well,” in a slightly lilting way as if it were preceding a sentence which never followed; or as if it were a question; or an expression of sympathy.  That one word served to provide her side of the conversation.  And people always called with their problems.

            She has always cared about people.   When she’s worried, she bakes cakes, cookies and pies.  I had one uncle who, when presented with the usual three or four options being offered for dessert, would say “Have you been worrying about something this week, Addie?”  Most of the time, when she worries, it’s about other people.  That’s what her life is about.

            There is no way to describe the “little girl” sense of humor she has retained into her 80’s.  I can only give quick snap-shots of a seventy-something woman, sitting with her grandchildren around a table having a contest to see who could make the most realistic animal sounds.  She always won the donkey sound and I swear, I could see her nose vibrate.  Or the time we got her on a go-cart at a track.  She may not have broken the record for speed or shortest lap time but she still holds the record for smiles per mile. 

            No discussion of Bertie would be complete without mentioning her faith.  When I was about six or seven years old, I asked her about heaven.  I told her that  although I  enjoyed singing with the family, the thoughts of floating around playing a harp and singing all the time was not my idea of  fun.  I thought we should play baseball, hide-and-seek and flashlight tag.  Bertie responded with something which comforted my young mind a great deal. “ We don’t know what it’s like, but we can be sure that it is going to be much better than anything we have ever known here.”  Another example is when I complimented her on the dress she wore to her eldest granddaughter’s wedding.  She told me it was an answer to prayer.  I asked her if she thought God really cared what she wore to her granddaughter’s wedding and her response was classical simple faith:  “He might not care what I wear to the wedding, but He cares about the little things that are important to me.”

            If anyone ever gets to heaven it should be Bertie.  And on her way to heaven I believe she will be able to remember her life of service to others.  Then, maybe for the first time and maybe not for the first time, but definitely and for certain at that time, she will be flying, lookin’ back.  Looking back at a life well lived and a world made infinitely better because she was here.   

                                                                                                            Dennis S. Clower

                                                                                                           

                                                                                                           

                                                                                                           

The Ubiquitous Apostrophe

            For a long time I have been noticing a proliferation of little puppy dog tails in print (i.e., the apostrophe).  I have a tendency to over-punctuate in the comma area and I’ve never met a semicolon I didn’t like.  But commas which float above the line, at about crossing level for t’s and dot level for i’s, are distracting.  I’ve concluded that America’s love affair for the elevated comma must be stopped.

            I was taught almost all the grammar I know by Mrs. Hopkins in the seventh grade.  What I learned and still believe is that the apostrophe has two uses:  1) to indicate possession, as in Charlotte’s  Web, and 2) to show that letters are missing as in “I would’ve if I could’ve.”  I try to apply these rules as I drive around, looking at signs. 

            One of the most common uses is on mailboxes.  I say “uses”, though I suspect they are more commonly misuses.  Consider the following:  “The Smith’s.”  We must examine all the ways this two-word message may be correct before concluding it is wrong.  First, possession:  This mailbox belongs to someone named Smith.  But if that is the case, what monumental ego has convinced the owner of this insignificant piece of metal with a flag on it that of all the Smiths in the world, he or she is THE Smith.  If he, she, or they wish to convey the message that it is a plural possessive, a box claimed by a number of Smiths, the apostrophe should follow the word - The Smiths’ mailbox.  I suspect the real intent is to indicate that some Smiths live in the vicinity and, if that is the case, the apostrophe is unnecessary, superfluous and incorrect.  The only way I have resolved that The Smith’s is correct is if “The” is short for Theodore.  But even then, “The” should be followed by a period to denote an abbreviation as in Wm. for William or Thos. for Thomas.

           I was passing a Nursery or Garden Shop when I noticed the handpainted sign, “Mum’s.”  I thought, “How nice!  Someone has named a shop for their mother - probably an English mother.”  Then I realized it was late Summer, early Fall, and they were probably advertising the sale of Chrysanthemums.  Funny thing is if they had written ‘Mums, they would have been correct.  But as it was written, it could only mean that the shop belonged to Mum.  Or maybe this amateurish message in paint hearkens back to the saying encouraging confidentiality, “Mum’s the word.”  But why paint the word at a nursery and why include the contraction for “Mum is”?  I think they fell into the strange trap where any short word which is pluralized picks up that superfluous tail.

            Another sign, “Sno Ball’s.”  It has to be owned by someone named Sno Ball, I guess, because if the intent is to impart the message that snow balls are being sold at the roadside stand to which the sign is affixed, then the apostrophe (if there must be one) should be on the first word, indicating the missing letter,” w:” Sno’ Balls.

            Say it’s poetic license if you want, but I’m not buying that.  Poets use the device, ‘tis true, but while sometimes forced to preserve rhyme or meter, the apostrophe does fall into places where letters are missing.  Oft’ ‘tis o’erdone, but still it has a purpose, a raison d’être.  Which raises another issue:  the French.  They will throw in an above grade mark just for pure cussedness.  Some are straight, some are crooked, some slant left, and some, right.  Whole paragraphs can change their meaning I’m sure, depending on whether there’s a slight bend in the floating fleck of ink.  Accent grave, accent acute, and apostrophes all blend together in a mind bending display of above the line, below the line, and on the line spatters.  I think it’s like playing a pipe organ with three banks of keys and foot pedals.  The floating flecks are the chimes, I suppose.

            But to get back to the mother tongue of King James, Shakespeare, and Bill Bryson, this is not ‘nit-picking nothingness about which I write.  Consider the following:  their (possession); there (location); and they’re (contraction for they are).  There’s (contraction for there is) a world of difference among words that are pronounced almost identically!  So the apostrophe must be used with precision to avoid complete confusion of the English speakers.  It’s really a matter of correct spelling as well as punctuation.

            I am not making a case for the elimination of the dangling dart - it has its place. (Though not between the t and s in “its” when denoting possession [this is an exception to the usual rule]; that  would turn an intended possessive pronoun into a contraction for “it is”).  I only object to its overuse and its incorrect usage, particularly in the pluralization of words.  For instance, the plural of gun is guns, not gun’s as I see it advertised consistently in the flyers of a local auctioneer.  And they are flyers, not flyer’s.  The plural of Smith is Smiths, not Smith’s as I wrote about in the beginning.

                                                Pity the poor apostrophe`,

                                                When dangling or just leaning;

                                                ‘Tis oft’ o’erused by the confused,

                                                ‘Til it’s lost a’ o’ its meaning.

Jefferson's Response to Darwin's Challenge about Slavery

Dear Sir:

Your last welcome favor has been duly received and I hasten to acknowledge and respond to your inquiry.  Indeed I welcome the opportunity to explain my thoughts, as well as my actions with regard to the Negro race and the blight of slavery upon my generation of Americans.  First, you have done me the honor of familiarizing yourself with my statements on the subject.  I believed then and now, with all my heart, that no man should have the ownership of another.  In my younger days I sought, by various means, to find a solution to that immoral institution.  There was no man on earth who would have been willing to sacrifice more than I to relieve us from that heavy reproach in any practicable way.  But as it was, we had the wolf by the ears, and we could neither hold him nor safely let him go.  Justice was in one scale and self-preservation in the other.  In order to make you appreciate fully the dilemma we faced, you would have to be transported to that time and place.

In my Notes on Virginia, in response to Query XIV, I set forth a plan for emancipation and migration, proposing therein a date after which no one would be born into slavery and that in due time, after educating and preparing them for independent living, all would be given passage to another colony, under the protection of the United States.  It was my belief then, and I never received sufficient evidence to change it, despite my wishes, that the deep rooted prejudices of the whites, the recollection by the blacks of past injuries, the real, natural distinctions between the races, and other circumstances would produce convulsions that would probably never end but in the extermination of one or the other race.  It is my strongest desire and my fervent prayer that now, with the wolf having been set free by the Civil War in America, I may be proven wrong.  The prospect is not made more salutary, however, by the means by which this event has come to pass.  War and its attendant sufferings can only deepen the prejudices and the hostility of the vanquished.

Before I passed from the scene of the living, it was my belief and constant counsel that until such time as a workable plan of emancipation and expatriation could be implemented, we should continue, with those whom fortune had thrown on our hands, to feed and clothe them well, to protect them from ill usage, to require only such reasonable labor as would be performed voluntarily by free men, and be led by no repugnancies to abdicate them and our duties to them.  This counsel I followed throughout my life.  In so doing, I was ever mindful of the duties imposed upon me as I saw them and as I stated in my last letter to you:  A moral instinct arising from a duty to and love for others.

When I previously wrote to you that my supreme delight was in the field of science, and that I envied your ability to devote all your energy and creativity to that noble pursuit, I was referring to the difference between the tranquility of your quest for pure knowledge and the turbulence of public life into which I could not seem to avoid being thrown.  This is not to say that your career has been devoid of controversy, by any means.  I do not doubt that the storms you have weathered to this date are not the only ones that your theories and conclusions will spawn.  But you have been able to pursue scientific knowledge for its own sake, as an end in itself, while my life in the public arena has been filled with compromise.  My first draft of the Declaration of Independence included clauses condemning slavery. They were stricken from the final document by the majority.  As a young man, I proposed legislation that would have ended the ownership of humans as property, but it did not receive sufficient support from the other delegates to the Virginia Legislature to become law.  During my presidency, we were able to enact a law, which prohibited trafficking in slavery.  This may seem a small step but it was all we were able to do at that time, given the constraints of democratic government.  I therefore was obliged to leave to the next generation the completion of the job.  One Revolution for each generation seems to be all that it can successfully handle.

Your own work, sir, speaks persuasively of the process by which species adapt to their natural surroundings and, by natural selection, the species is “improved.”  Such improvement, you lead us to believe, takes many generations.  But that improvement by alteration to surrounding conditions would be no improvement at all if the creature were to be uprooted and placed in a totally different environment.  Here he would be forced to compete for survival with members of his species who have been equally “improved” by natural selection to fit their natural surroundings and enhance their opportunities to survive and thrive.  The transported creature would be at an extreme disadvantage in the other’s environment, would it not?  This was the plight of the African, brought against his will to live in a society dominated by white men of European descent.  Indeed it was inhumane to force such people to work as slaves at the arbitrary bidding of their white masters, regardless of their own desires, of their talents or particular skills, which had been inbred through many generations of natural selection to improve their abilities to cope with life in tribal Africa.  They were not equipped, however, to take their place in the society into which they had been transplanted, without many generations of adaptation to it.  Neither were they likely to be aided in the process of adaptation by a continuation of involuntary servitude unless wise and far-seeing “Masters,” of great vision and integrity took it upon themselves to prepare those unhappy people for a time when they would be thrown into that world to survive on their own. 

These were the only alternatives which presented themselves: (1) Emancipation and
Migration; or (2) Education and Assimilation.  I failed at the former because I could not summon enough support and will among my contemporaries to make the necessary sacrifices.  As legislator, as President, and in all my public roles, I did all that I could to accomplish this goal of returning the creature to his natural habitat.   Failing that, I did only what one man could do.  I saw that those whom Providence had placed in my care were fed and clothed, expected to do only a reasonable amount of work in exchange for their sustenance, treated fairly, and that they learned skills of carpentry, masonry, animal husbandry, agriculture, and some drafting and architecture.  In this way, I hope to have aided their transition into the alien environment to which they had been transported.

As you see, I was forced to compromise in this matter, which, like so many others in life, did not lend itself to absolutes.  I could have made the grand gesture of setting free all of these people and have been praised by many righteous and well-intentioned people for that act.  In my failure to do so, however, my conscience is clear.  I followed the moral precept to which I previously referred, of deciding a course of action based upon the sum of good it would do for the whole.  I suppose this may seem to you like a long apology but I am indeed grateful for the opportunity to explain to so great a mind as yours, the factors which led to the actions taken, and those not taken as well.  I believe that your scientific training and experience will be beneficial in reaching an understanding of a time and location that you did not experience first-hand.

 If I may indulge myself further to refer back to your response to my ethical musings, I like very much the suggestion that Nature has implanted in us a moral sense (my words to you) by means of natural selection (your words) under which the species has learned that social, even altruistic, behavior is beneficial to the perpetuation of the species.  This would be in accord with my belief that a lack of the moral sense in a human being is an imperfection more degrading than any physical deformity.  But it is a deformity, and is an aberration in the species.  The cure for this infirmity, when it is found to exist, is education; and we can be said to owe to our species the development of this moral sense to do good for the whole of mankind in pursuit of its perpetuation.

I look forward with great hope for the continuation of our correspondence.  I hope that upon reflection you may continue to hold me in some measure of the esteem in which I do most sincerely hold you, my dear sir.

Respectfully,

                                                                                    Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson's Letter to Darwin about Religion and Morality

Jefferson to Darwin II

Dear Sir:

I have been informed that you have been ill but that you are currently on the recovery.  I sincerely rejoice that you are so.  Yours is one of the lives precious to mankind, and for the continuance of which every thinking man is solicitous.  Bigots may be exceptions.  What an effort, my dear sir, of bigotry in science and religion I can imagine you have been through.  All advances in science are proscribed as innovations.  While continuing to encourage and praise education, there are those who wish it to be only the education of our ancestors.  They prefer to look backward, not forward, for improvement. 

I have read your last letter with great interest and satisfaction and I have found in it a great deal with which I agree.  I can imagine the outrage with which your findings and conclusions were greeted by many of the stalwart members of the established religions.  To many, the belief in the literal words of Genesis, with respect to creation, is the foundation of all knowledge about Nature.  If one stone is removed from that

foundation, the entire structure must topple.  There are those Deists, however, with which your findings are entirely compatible.  And of course, the Atheists are happy to have an alternative theory to the beginning of life on this planet.  I am most interested, not only in the effect your theory has upon the religions of the world regarding Nature and its beginnings, but how it may also affect the principles by which they have guided themselves, morally. 

Some have made the love of God the foundation of morality.  If we did a good act merely from the love of God and the belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist?  I have observed, indeed, generally, while in Protestant countries the defections from Platonic Christianity of the Priests is to Deism, in catholic countries they are to Atheism. 

Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis for morality.  But I consider our relations with others as constituting the boundaries of morality.  To ourselves, in strict language, we can owe no duties since obligation requires two parties.  Self-love is indeed the counterpart of morality.  It is the antagonist of virtue, leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others.  Egoism, in a broader sense, has been presented as the source of morality:  that we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bind up the wounds of the man beaten by thieves, pour oil and wine into them, set him upon our own beast and bring him to the inn, because we receive pleasure from these acts.  But how happens it that they give us pleasure?  Because Nature hath implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses.

It is true that such social dispositions are not planted in every man, because there is no rule without exceptions; but it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into the general rule.  Some men are born without the organs of sight, or of hearing, or without hands.  Yet it would be wrong to say that man is born without these faculties, and sight, hearing, and hands may with truth enter into the general definition of man.  The want or imperfection of the moral sense in some men, like the want or imperfection of the senses of sight and hearing in others, is no proof that it is a general characteristic of the species.  When it is wanting, we try to supply the defect by education, by appeals to reason and calculation, by presenting to the being so unhappily conformed, other motives to do good and to eschew evil, such as the love, or the hatred, or rejection of those among whom he lives, and whose society is necessary to his happiness and even existence. 

We may find, in fact, that the same actions are deemed virtuous in one country and vicious in another.  The answer is that nature has constituted utility to man the standard and best of virtue.  Men living in different countries, under different circumstances, different habits and regimens, may have different utilities; the same

act, therefore, may be useful, and consequently, virtuous in one country which is injurious and vicious in another differently circumstanced.  I think the moral sense is the brightest gem with which the human character is studded, and the want of it is more degrading than the most hideous of bodily deformities.

The leisure and solitude of my situation here has led me to the indiscretion of taxing you with a long letter on a subject whereon nothing new may be offered.  But your findings with respect to transmutation of species, and the attendant rethinking of the role of the Creator, have opened a great number of issues, which were thought to be firmly closed.  I will now indulge myself no further than to repeat the assurances of my continued esteem and respect.

Thos. J

Darwin's Response to Jefferson's letter re: Morality and Religion

My Dear Jefferson:

I feel we have reached that degree of intimacy where I may address you as I do my friends and school chums.  I hope it does not offend you.  I have come to treasure the exchange of experiences and ideas that our correspondence has created.  And once again, I find I must pay homage to your superior knowledge in many things.  While I certainly am interested in the effect my work might have on the attitudes and behavior of men and upon their beliefs, I do not feel myself adequately conversant in the field of moral philosophy to have a strong opinion, or an opinion in which anyone else would have interest.  Many have asked about my religious views as well, but I cannot see that they should have any consequence to anyone but myself.  At no time am I a quick thinker or writer:  whatever I have done in science has solely been by long, pondering, patience and industry.  I have never systematically thought much on religion in relation to science, or on morals in relation to society; and without steadily keeping my mind on such subjects for a long period, I am really incapable of writing anything worthy of publication.  But I will attempt to respond to you in this private correspondence.

In my years at Cambridge, I studied to be a clergyman, but my enthusiasm was never in that area; I spent more time with my beetle collection.  While there also, I fell under the influence of Professor Henslow, who had great knowledge in the fields of botany, entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology.  He was also very religious and I saw no conflict then between science and religion.  Indeed while onboard the Beagle,I was quite orthodox, for I remember that several of the officers laughed at my belief that the Bible was the unanswerable authority on all matters of moral dimension.  But I gradually came to realize that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos

I must conclude that the old arguments for God’s existence from design in Nature, which formerly seemed so persuasive to me, must now fail since natural selection has been discovered.  There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course that the wind blows.  And while I agree with you that if God is not the author of morality, there must be some other motivating force, my studies do not lead to the conclusion that Nature implants in us a moral instinct or, as you put it, a love for others, unless it can be said that it arises from the process of natural selection, as I will discuss further.  I believe that natural selection proves that all sentient beings have been developed in such a manner that pleasurable sensations serve as their habitual guides. 

That there is much suffering in the world, no one disputes.  Some have imagined that it serves for man’s moral improvement.  But the number of men in this world is as nothing compared with that of all other sentient beings, and they often suffer greatly, without any moral improvement.  The presence of much suffering agrees well with the view that all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural selection.  So to say that all creatures seek pleasure over pain does not answer the morality question.  If all seek the same thing, wherein lies the morality of decisions?  We are bound to decide our course of action, based upon the perception of the pleasure/pain quotient, and by doing so we enhance the likelihood of our species’ survival.  But the enhancement of the likelihood of survival does not seem like a moral impulse; it seems rather an instinctive selfishness.  I would not dismiss egoism as easily as your last letter does.  Rather than positing the natural implantation of a moral instinct in man, could it not be the result of natural selection, wherein man has learned that social behavior is advantageous to his happiness and to the perpetuation of his species?  Or perhaps we could agree by saying that what you refer to as natural implantation of a moral instinct has been implemented by the process of natural selection.   I believe, however, that it is the learned behavior of choosing pleasure and avoidance of pain, which has been the catalyst for this “natural” moral instinct.

I hope it will not disturb our emerging friendship for me to suggest that if suffering does improve one’s morals, then the most moral people of the world must be the African Negro race that has been held for so many years in slavery.  I have seen enough of this in my travels to know that I abhor it as the primary evil of mankind.  While it is well known that you also denounced slavery as contrary to the natural rights of man and as a great blight upon the citizens of parts of your country, as detrimental to the morals of both master and slave, yet you continued to hold slaves yourself.  I am most interested in learning from you how you were able to justify this practice and its continuation (until the recent turmoil in your country which seems to have decided the issue, finally).  I ask this not to confront, to be impertinent or as a rhetorical question, but in an honest desire to understand, as I am ever the scientist. 

Believe me, dear sir, that if I did not so greatly respect you and your great contributions to mankind, I would not ask these questions of you.  There are many apologists for slavery whose opinions or rationalizations I would not even care to hear.  It is well known, however, that you denounced slavery as repugnant to man and God; and that if the words of your Declaration of Independence are to be given credence, they conflict with the reality then existent and for many years thereafter in parts of your country, and with the actions of some of your most respected men.  I hope you will forgive my directness and respond in the spirit of my inquiry, as I am not trained in diplomacy and tact, but only in observation.

I look forward with great eagerness to your response to the issues raised here and to your further reflections upon science and natural philosophy.

                                                                                    Yours most truly,

                                                                                    Charles Darwin

Darwin's Response to Jefferson's First Letter

Darwin’s First Response to Jefferson

My Dear Mr. Jefferson:

I cannot express how deeply your letter has gratified me.  To receive the approval of a man whom one has long sincerely respected, and whose judgment and knowledge are most universally admitted, is the highest reward an author can possibly wish for; and I thank you heartily for your most kind expressions.  You do yourself grave injustice by not including the name of Thomas Jefferson among those greatest minds who ever lived.  For while my work may have influenced the scientific community, your clarion call for the rights of all mankind has affected the lives of almost every human being on the planet. 

I shall first respond to your request for my recollection of the process by which I reached the conclusions set forth in the Origin of Species.  After my return from the Voyage of the Beagle, I occupied myself for a number of years in various publications.  But all this time I was working on putting my notes together for the purpose of the work, which was to follow, on the transmutation of species.  It was evident that all of my observations could only be explained on the supposition that species gradually become modified; and the subject haunted me.  But it was equally evident that neither the action of the surrounding conditions, nor the will of the organisms (especially in the case of plants) could account for the innumerable cases in which organisms of every kind are beautifully adapted to their habits of life – for instance, a woodpecker or a tree-frog to climb trees, or a seed for dispersal by hooks or plumes.   

My first notebook was opened in July 1837.  I share with you a profound admiration for Mr. Bacon.  Accordingly, I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale scale, more especially with respect to domesticated productions, by printed enquiries, by conversation with skillful breeders and gardeners and by extensive reading.  I soon perceived that selection was the keystone of man’s success in making useful races of animals and plants.  But how selection could be applied to organisms living in a state of Nature remained for some time a mystery to me.

Upon reading Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on, it struck me that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavorable ones to be destroyed.  The result of this would be the formation of a new species.  Here then, I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it.

While continuing to work on this theory, which afterwards followed in my Origin of Species, I was forced to expedite my deliberate plans when I received a copy of Wallace’s On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type, an essay which contained exactly the same theory as mine.

In 1857, I had consented to have an abstract of my work published in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society along with Wallace’s essay. I was at first, unwilling to consent, as I thought Mr. Wallace might consider my doing so, unjustifiable, for I did not then know how generous and noble was his disposition.  Following our joint production, which excited little interest, I set to work over the course of thirteen months to produce the book which was published under the title of Origin of Species in November, 1859.  It is no doubt the chief work of my life.

Let me say once again, sir, how delighted I am with the approbation expressed in your letter.  As you might expect, my conclusions have not met with universal acceptance.  My book has been called “The Law of higgledy-piggledy,” which I may not completely understand but it is evidently, very contemptuous.  Even some of my friends and colleagues who have supported my work, generally, have criticized it as only what I believe, and not what I have proven.  The book has been described as hard to read.  It has been called illogical and unphilosophical and, of course, there are those who find my theories, like those of Newton, opposed to natural religion.

I do not pretend to perfection.  Whenever I have found out that I have blundered, or that my work has been imperfect, when I have been contemptuously, criticized, and even when I have been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been my greatest comfort to say to myself that “I have worked as hard and as well as I could and no man can do more than this.

I remember when In Good Success Bay in Tierra del Fuego, thinking that I could not employ my life better than in adding a little to natural science.  This I have done to the best of my abilities. Critics may say what they like, but they cannot destroy this conviction.  I have been fortunate that I could concentrate upon this, the love of science – with unbounded patience.  With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that I should have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of scientific men on some important points.

I am certain that with your great mind and diverse interests, you would have done greater things than I in the field if you had been able to devote yourself fully to it.  But your kind words are greatly appreciated, nonetheless.  I invite your further reflections upon this subject and natural science in general, if you should find time to indulge me. 

With my warmest and sincere admiration,

Charles Darwin

U U MUSINGS

            When I found the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, I was first impressed with the apparent intellectual level of the congregation  Then I began to see that my estimation of their intellectual prowess was only exceeded by their own.  I felt right at home, immediately, except for that continuous problem:  how can they recognize my mental superiority when they are so convinced of theirs?  It is not my nature to compete in these areas -- I shouldn’t have to.

            My understanding of what Unitarianism was about was the product of reading letters from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, Joseph Priestley, and others, plus the debate I had tried to initiate with my father for many years about the difficult concept of The Trinity.  It was my contention that if you attribute omniscience to Jesus, his story loses all its interest.  I mean what even borderline humanitarian, with any ego at all could resist the opportunity to die like Jesus did if we knew that:  (1) our death would insure for all of humanity the opportunity to live blissfully for all of eternity and avoid damnation; (2) we would be up and around again, none the worse for the experience, three days later; and (3) millions of people would worship us, die for us, and generally wax fanatical in our memory?  My argument was always that in order to really appreciate Jesus as a special guy we need to strip him of all that deification.  Palestinians choose to die every other day or so with much less of a sure thing about their future and their place in history.  And I wanted to think of Jesus as a special sort of guy.

            The other thing that I admired about Jesus, apart from his ability to carry on a conversation in King James English (I could never sustain it for more than two or three sentences), was his brilliant repartee - his rapier like wit:  “Then render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s; Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”  The Scribes and Pharisees were clearly outmatched.  In the battle of wits, they were relatively unarmed.  But if he knew for thousands of years that he was going to be asked those questions, well, how could he not be prepared?  It just took all of the fun out of it for me.

            Then there was the Holy Ghost.  I was always afraid of him (her?) -- not because of the ghost thing as much as the Biblical injunction against blasphemy.  Every sin was forgivable except blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.  I couldn’t quite figure out what blasphemy was but I thought maybe that if I just ignored the Holy Ghost I probably wouldn’t blaspheme.  It was an uneasy truce but I could usually rest at night without being afraid that I had committed, “The Unpardonable Sin.”

             But then I did.  I married a Catholic and we started attending the Unitarian Church.  Actually it was The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Newark, Delaware.  Having been a disciple of Thomas Jefferson for so long, it seemed natural, and right.  We were finding certain truths to be self evident.  That was before my Catholic mother-in-law and Fundamentalist father got involved.  Well, “involved” is a strong and deceptive term.  What they did was to ignore our spiritual commitment (like I had ignored the Holy Ghost).  Mom-in-law started scheduling family events at 11:00 A.M. on Sunday mornings.  Of course, she could (and did) attend Mass at any time.  If you miss the Eleven O’clock Coffee hour at the UU, your week is spiritually deficient.  It’s our little communion, le petite [last] diner.  My father started quoting Scripture:  “No one gets to the Father but through Me;” and talking about some historically insignificant event at which someone, who called himself a Unitarian, said something to cast doubt on the divinity of Jesus Christ.  Well, what did he think the Unitarian name came from?  We were not impressed; embattled, yes, but not impressed.

            We hung in there.  And we discovered the second “U” of the UU movement:  Universalism is the heart while Unitarianism is the head.  I was converted, galvanized, evangelized, (uncircumcised), within days of beginning the class on UU Roots and Branches.  It sounded like Walt Whitman but played out like Mother Teresa.  I loved it.  The Universalist component apparently arose as a counter-theory to the Puritanical, Jonathan Edwards’ “You-are-all-miserable-sinners-and-God-will-get-a-big-kick-out-of-sending-you-straight-to-Hell,” theology.  The theme is Universal Salvation or, if you are not eternity-oriented, universal goodness, universal worth, universal blessing. . . .

            This lined up with my inclination to take Jesus (the man) as a really special guy whose primary message was that we should be nice to each other.  So I think Jesus was a Universalist and, I suspect if you could ask him, he would say that he was Unitarian too - or pantheistic.  He taught that God is in all of us,  not just in him.

            So I found a spiritual home in the creedless, humanitarian teachings of the Unitarian Universalist Church.  I never really believed in original sin.  I’m not sure that there are any really evil people.  Bad things happen - true; and some people do really bad things.  Misguided they are and morally deficient, but evil? 

            All of this led me back to the contemplation of God, The Good, The Unmoved Mover, the Greater-than-Which-Cannot-Be-Thought of Philosophers, and Theologians:  I thought of the Cartesian approach to God.  COGITO ERGO SUM.  (Actually, DesCartes probably said, “Je pense, donc Je Suis,” but I can’t say that I ever read him in the original.)  I am attracted by the idealistic approach, however, and began to seek a way to adapt it to the UU experience.

     First of all let me posit, as they say, my belief that Unitarianism, Universalism, and Clowerism can all trace their roots to the Judaeo-Christian tradition.  The other components or beliefs that have come to be respected, if not embraced by all good UU types, such as Buddhism, Paganism, Shamanism, etc. came later and found a home there because of the liberal “theology” of the Unitarian Universalist Church.  It is time to insert the following disclaimer:

            The author of this piece is not a Unitarian Universalist Minister,             Theologian, Sunday School Teacher, or ANYTHING.

I’ve only been a member for a few months.  (Why do they say, “A few short months?”  Do they pick out February, April and June?)  So these observations are only that -- observations.  I do not speak for anyone in authority.

            Anyway, considering the ego and intellectual self assurance of most of the members, I began to construct or create the UU approach to God.  As well as I could remember and reconstruct the Cartesian, Ontological Approach to the proof of God’s existence, it fell into the belief that because something is thinkable, and the greatest thing that can be imagined, and because we all have this idea, it exists.  It has to!  Talk about your bootstrap argument. . . But I understood the proof of the belief system as saying that there is something greater than we are because there must be something greater than we are.  Which gets into the chicken/egg argument of whether man created God or God created man.

            So what I worked out is that for UU’s there must be a God out there because there must be something, some being, who is intelligent enough to understand us.  And that Being, Greater than Which Cannot Be Thought, is our intellectual equal.  It must be God.  Q.E.D.

Dennis S. Clower

            

CIRCA 1996

A letter from Thomas Jefferson to Darwin upon first reading Origin of Species

                                                                                                                                   

Dear Sir:

No pleasure can exceed that which I received from reading your brilliant work on Origin of Species, which only recently came to hand.  The contribution you have thus made to Natural History can only be likened to the contributions of Newton to his field.  If it were possible, I should be obliged to commission Mr. Trumbull to add one more portrait to the triumvirate of Bacon, Locke and Newton, representative of the greatest minds that have ever lived.  For you sir have provided the heretofore-missing link between the theories of natural classifications and the observed differentiation between and within species.

Prior to your work, at a time when I was able to read and study in the subject, we had observed and believed that no two particles of matter were of exact resemblance.  This infinitude of units or individuals being far beyond the capacity of our memory, we were obliged to distribute them into masses, throwing into each of these all the individuals who have a certain degree of resemblance; to subdivide these again into smaller groups, according to certain points of dissimilitude observable in them, and so on until we formed a system of classes, orders, genera and species.  Fortunately for science, Linnaeus appeared and conceived modes of classification, which obtained the approbation of the learned of all nations.  This classification was indeed liable to the imperfection of bringing into the same group individuals which, though  resembling in characteristics, yet have strong marks of dissimilitude in other respects.  I remarked to Dr. Manners that,  “Nature has not arranged her productions on a single and direct line.  They branch at every step and in every direction and he who attempts to reduce them into departments is left to do so by the lines of his own fancy.”  But you, my dear sir, have demonstrated that the belief that each species has been independently created is erroneous.  This explanation to what had confounded me, as well as many others, is brilliantly simple and yet all encompassing.

If you should find the time to write to me about the process by which you reached your conclusions, beyond those stated in your prodigious scientific work, I would be forever in your debt.  I am most curious about the method employed and the process by which you ingeniously reached the conclusions set forth in your scientific journals.

I cannot but repeat my profound admiration for your life’s work and the contribution you have made to the sum of knowledge possessed by the human family.  I must in all honesty confess a certain degree of envy for the opportunity, which you had, to devote yourself to this undertaking.  Nature intended me also for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight.  But the enormities of the time in which I lived, forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.  I was thus deprived of the opportunity to follow the course you have taken, but I am gratified that you have done so with such admirable ability and dedication.

I should seem to need apology for these personal remarks to you, who are so more recent and advanced than my own studies, but I hope to be pardoned for intruding some thoughts of my own.  Be pleased to accept the assurance of my greatest esteem and consideration.

                                                                                                                Thomas Jefferson