You’d Better Come Quietly – Three Sketches, Some Outlines And Additional Notes

The poet is to the philosopher what the saint is to the theologian. The theologian expounds and proves things, the saint intensifies and lives them. The philosopher uses his discursive mind, and arrives at a much larger and more coherent body of truth than the poet does. But the philosopher uses a much poorer process of thought than does the poet. The poet’s way is that of insight, intuition, realization. The philosopher’s way is that of ratiocination, which is an inferior form of knowing, for all that it arrives at such extensive conclusions. Est per imperfectionem intellectus quod abstrahat. God is neither ratiocinative nor discursive. But He is not imaginative either.

The impatience of the saint with the theologian, or of the poet with the philosopher, is unreasonable. We are constituted in an imperfect state, and logic must correct love and keep it from getting out of hand. The mystic needs the doctor of divinity, and the dreamer the dialectician. A star, however bright, needs the discipline of the celestial organization in order to keep it from veering off alone into space, or of crashing into other stars. Dante needed Saint Thomas Aquinas.

The poet wants truth to be thrilling. The philosopher wants it to be correct, to be truth. One cannot get at truth in any systematic and satisfactory fashion by simply submitting himself to another’s thrills. In this comparison the poet suffers dreadfully, becomes almost ridiculous. Still, what is the value of truth to us if it is not made attractive, alluring, alive? In this comparison the philosopher comes off as the dismal one.

Philosophy is a science, not an art, and its findings can be as monotonous as they are exact. Nobody ever comes out of a class in metaphysics shouting: “Oh, hurrah, hurrah! Did you know that the primary formal effect of quantity is not to give a material substance local actual extension, but simply to arrange the parts aptitudinally? Isn’t it exciting! Doesn’t it make you want to cry?” Still, the poet has a right to say to the philosopher when he has executed a faultless syllogism and arrived at an irrefutable conclusion: “Well, what about it! Now that you’ve got it, what are you going to do with it?” The philosopher, as such, does simply nothing about it. He goes back to his room, lights his pipe, and buries himself in the want ads of the evening newspaper.

The poet has been prepared to unlace his shoes, tear off his stockings and run barefoot through the grass shouting the joy of a discovery. The philosopher discovers lots and lots of things, but, if you will notice, never seems very pleased about it. He knows lots more than the poet does, but he does not know what he knows so richly or so well. Theologian and saint oppose each other with the same differences. It is conceivable that there are some Doctors of Sacred Theology (Licentiates of Sacred Theology, a poet would call them with his usual inexactitude) in Hell. The Curé of Ars seems to have assimilated only one thesis of this sacred science, namely, God is good; and is a Saint, crowned for our altars.

The philosopher goes for a whole, and then endeavors to find the parts. The poet goes for a part, and through it endeavors to find the whole. Think of a philosopher attempting to qualify in examination in only one thesis in psychology: The human soul is immortal! And yet a poet could qualify in this one subject in a single piece of inspired verse. Think of a seminarian expecting to be advanced to the priesthood upon having studied only one treatise in dogmatic theology: The childhood of Jesus! And yet the Little Flower was advanced to sainthood for knowing nothing else.

I repeat that philosophy is a science, and it is best learnt with all imaginative and emotional implications left out. Putting emotion and imagination into a science can be disastrous. Two and two are four, says the mathematician. The poet will, of course, want him to say: Two peacocks and two peacocks are four peacocks. But if you start in to add that way, you may be distracted from the accuracy of the computation by the brilliance of the objects added.

Should the poet and the philosopher fuse together and present us with the perfect man? There is no harm in it, but I think it best to keep them apart; but as friends, not adversaries. Each should have proper sympathies for the other. The poet should not look upon the philosopher as an old fogey. Neither should the philosopher look upon the poet as an old fool. The poet should go to the philosopher for direction. But the philosopher might profitably go to the poet, for relief.