Whitehead: Chapter IIIIdeals have sunk to the level of practice,

which resulted in stagnation

29. The drop from the divine wisdom, which was the goal of the ancients, to text-book knowledge of subjects, which is achieved by the moderns, marks an educational failure, sustained through the ages.

‘Lucian(Greek: Λουκιανός ὁ Σαμοσατεύς,

Latin: Lucianus Samosatensis (ca. A.D. 125 – after A.D. 180)

an A’ssyrian rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.

the first novelists in occidental civilization

‘Lucian was also one of the first novelists in occidental civilization. In A True Story, a fictional narrative work written in prose, he parodied some fantastic tales told by Homer in the Odyssey and some feeble fantasies that were popular in his time. He anticipated "modern" fictional themes like voyages to the moon and Venus, extraterrestrial life and wars between planets centuries before Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. His novel is widely regarded as an early, if not the earliest science fiction work.

In True History, Lucian and a company of adventuring heroes sailing westward through the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar) are blown off course by a strong wind, and after 79 days come to an island. This island is home to a river of wine filled with fish, and bears a marker indicating that Heracles and Dionysos have traveled to this point.

Shortly after leaving the island, they are lifted up by a giant waterspout and deposited on the Moon. There they find themselves embroiled in a full-scale war between the king of the Moon and the king of the Sun, involving armies which boast such exotica as stalk-and-mushroom men, acorn-dogs ("dog-faced men fighting on winged acorns"), and cloud-centaurs. Unusually, the Sun, Moon, stars and planets are portrayed as locales, each with its unique geographic details and inhabitants.

After returning to the Earth, the adventurers become trapped in a giant whale; inside the 200-mile-long animal, there live many groups of people whom they rout in war. They also reach a sea of milk, an island of cheese and the isle of the blessed. There, he meets the heroes of the Trojan War, other mythical men and animals, and even Homer. They find Herodotus being eternally punished for the "lies" he published in his Histories.

After leaving the Island of the Blessed, they deliver a letter to Calypso given to them by Odysseus explaining that he wishes he had stayed with her so he could have lived eternally. They then discover a chasm in the Ocean, but eventually sail around it, discover a far-off continent and decide to explore it. The book ends rather abruptly.

Freedom & Discipline Not oppositional but

appositional

Freedom Discipline

no mental development without interest

31. There can be no mental development without interest. Interest is the ‘sine ‘qua ‘non—

an indispensable condition, element, or factor; something essential--for attention and apprehension.

‘Sine ‘qua ‘non orcon’ditio sine qua non (plural

sine quibus non) was originally a Latin legal term for "(a condition) without which it could not be" or "but

for..." or "without which (there is) nothing." It refers to an indispensable and essential action, condition, or ingredient. For instance, “Her presence was the sine qua non of every social event.”

Medieval schoolboy got birched on the bare buttocks

A whipping with a birch rod, a flogging. to send one to Birching (Birchin, Birchen) Lane: i.e. for a whipping

(with a punning reference to Birchin Lane in London)

A birch rod (often shortened to "birch") is a bundle of leafless twigs bound together to form an implement for administering corporal punishment—till 1950s.

Only if the recipient was a small child could he or she practicably be punished over the knee of the applicant. Otherwise the child would be bent over an object such as a chair. For judicial punishments the recipient could even be tied down if likely to move about too much or attempt to escape.

brine (heavily salted water)

Traditionally, birches were soaked in brine (heavily salted water) before use, which greatly increased the weight, flexibility and strength of the twigs, making the punishment more severe both in terms of pain, and in terms of damage to the victim's flesh in the form of cuts and weals (ridge on the flesh raised by a blow). Because of its antiseptic properties, the brine also helped prevent infection developing in the wounds following the punishment.

Élan vital for “vital impetus” or “vital force”

Joy is the normal healthy spur for the Élan vital. Élan vital, coined by French philosopher Henri

Bergson in his 1907 book Creative Evolution, was translated in the English edition as "vital impetus", but is usually translated by his detractors as "vital force". It is a hypothetical explanation for evolution and development of organisms, which Bergson linked closely with consciousness. It was the existence of this vital force, which made people at that time believe that they were not able to synthesize organic molecules. Page 31

Paralysis of Thought

Generated by the aimless accumulation of precise knowledge

This term is also used by James Joyce who strongly opposes a dogmatic approach.

The fate of Russia will be the fate of England,

41 Joseph Stalin gained

the effective leadership of Russia in 1929

During the second half of the 1920s, Joseph Stalin set the stage for gaining absolute power by employing police repression against opposition elements within the Communist Party.

‘Phari’saic

Adjective 1.of or pertaining to the Pharisees. 2.(lowercase ) practicing or

advocating strict observance of external forms and ceremonies of religion or conduct without regard to the spirit; self-righteous; hypocritical.