Principles
and Persons An Ethical
Interpretation of Existentialism 2nd Edition Frederick Olafson
Visit to download the full and correct content document: https://textbookfull.com/product/principles-and-persons-an-ethical-interpretation-of-exi stentialism-2nd-edition-frederick-olafson/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant download maybe you interests ...
Dante’s Persons: An Ethics of the Transhuman Heather
Webb
https://textbookfull.com/product/dantes-persons-an-ethics-of-thetranshuman-heather-webb/
Wiley Not-for-Profit GAAP 2018: Interpretation and Application of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
2nd Edition Richard F. Larkin
https://textbookfull.com/product/wiley-not-for-profitgaap-2018-interpretation-and-application-of-generally-acceptedaccounting-principles-2nd-edition-richard-f-larkin/
Stretch to Win 2nd Edition Ann Frederick
https://textbookfull.com/product/stretch-to-win-2nd-edition-annfrederick/
Enrique Dussel’s Ethics of Liberation: An Introduction
Frederick B. Mills
https://textbookfull.com/product/enrique-dussels-ethics-ofliberation-an-introduction-frederick-b-mills/
Arrhythmia Recognition The Art of Interpretation 2nd Edition Garcia
https://textbookfull.com/product/arrhythmia-recognition-the-artof-interpretation-2nd-edition-garcia/
Existentialism and Education: An Introduction to Otto Friedrich Bollnow 1st Edition Ralf Koerrenz (Auth.)
https://textbookfull.com/product/existentialism-and-education-anintroduction-to-otto-friedrich-bollnow-1st-edition-ralf-koerrenzauth/
Analysis in Nutrition Research: Principles of Statistical Methodology and Interpretation of the Results 1st Edition George Pounis
https://textbookfull.com/product/analysis-in-nutrition-researchprinciples-of-statistical-methodology-and-interpretation-of-theresults-1st-edition-george-pounis/
The Mathematical Principles of Scale Relativity Physics: The Concept of Interpretation 1st Edition
Nicolae Mazilu
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-mathematical-principles-ofscale-relativity-physics-the-concept-of-interpretation-1stedition-nicolae-mazilu/
Wiley GAAP 2016: interpretation and application of generally accepted accounting principles 1st Edition
Joanne M. Flood
https://textbookfull.com/product/wiley-gaap-2016-interpretationand-application-of-generally-accepted-accounting-principles-1stedition-joanne-m-flood/
Frederick A. Olafson
and Persons
An Ethical Interpretation of Existentialism
Open access edition supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
© 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press
Published 2019
Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu
The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
CC BY-NC-ND
ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-3009-6 (open access)
ISBN-10: 1-4214-3009-6 (open access)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-3054-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4214-3054-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-3094-2 (electronic)
ISBN-10: 1-4214-3094-0 (electronic)
This page supersedes the copyright page included in the original publication of this work.
PRINCIPLES AND PERSONS
An Ethical Interpretation of Existentialism
PRINCIPLES AND PERSONS
An Ethical Interpretation of Existentialism
Frederick A. Olafson
The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore and London
Copyright© 1967 by The Johns Hopkins Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America
The Johns Hopkins Press; Baltimore, Maryland 21218 The Johns Hopkins Press Ltd., London
ISBN-0-8018-0497-3 (clothbound edition)
ISBN-0-8018-1213-5 (paperback edition)
Originally published, 1967 Johns Hopkins Paperbacks edition, 1970
To the Memory of My Father and Mother
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank the Humanities Council of Princeton University for appointing me to their Hodder Fellowship for the year 1960-61 and thus enabling me to undertake the studies on which this book is based. The intellectual debts I have incurred in the writing of this book are unfortunately too numerous to acknowledge here; but I must express my gratitude to my wife for her invaluable editorial assistance over a period of years, and to Mrs. Dorothy Spotts for her excellent typing of the manuscript.
I should also like to thank Editions Gallimard and Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. for t�eir courtesy in permitting me to translate the passages from Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique de la raison dialectique which appear on pp. 228-29.
INTRODUCTION
Among contemporary philosophical movements, none has addressed itself more directly to ethical issues than has existentialism. As popularly understood, it is, in fact,_not so much an ethical theory as itself an ethical attitude; and in this form it has attracted and repelled large numbers of people who have no knowledge of the philosophical position on which this attitude is allegedly based. As a result, "existentialism" has come to designate almost any sort of unconventional or arbitrary style of living or thinking; and the very idea that an understanding of existentialism might require the making of careful distinctions and sustained argument would undoubtedly strike many of its partisans and its critics as incongruous.
This state of affairs is unfortunate because, as I hope to show, the real interest of existentialism lies not in any special affinity it may have with the contemporary Zeitgeist nor in the selfconscious attitudinizing it has inspired, but in what it has to say about the nature of value and choice and moral freedom. It is as an ethical theory, i.e., as a reasoned interpretation of the fundamental concepts of morality, that existentialism deserves· serious consideration; and it is as an ethical theory and not as a set of prescriptions for our moral practice that it will be presented and appraised in this book. Whether or not that theory has implications, direct or indirect, for the conduct of life is, of course, one of the principal questions that a study like this will have to consider. But it is important to see that this is itself a question of ethical theory, and that it must be answered at the level of ethical
PRINCIPLES AND PERSONS
theory before any existentialist ethic in . the usual sense can be promulgated. 1
In this connection, it must be noted in passing that most current philosophical accounts of existentialism do little to correct mistaken popular assumptions, particularly with respect to the alleged irrationalism of the existentialist ethic. One recent study, for example, explicitly endorses the prevalent view of existentialism as the philosophy of irrationalism and defends it as such, apparently on the ground that man has in fact been shown to be strongly influenced by irrational motives and drives. 2 It is not difficult, to be sure, to collect passages from the writings of the existentialists which sound very much_ like a repudiation of reason and a glorificadon of adionfof action's sake. In most cases, however, it turns out on closer irispectiori that the point being made is a point about the nature and 'circumstances of human action and not a piece. of special pleading in f.avor of some drastically curtailed coriception of ourresponsibilities as moral agents. In short, if existentiaiist ethical theory �s to be describ_ed as· "irrationalistic" at all; it must be understood that the rationality in question is one that it regards as nierely specious and delusive; and it mustbe pointed out that within their positive account of. human action theexistentialists m_ake room for what we ordinarily· call reasons for acting. Certainly existentialism involves a reinterpretation of the "place of reason' in ethics," but it is unfair and inaccurate to represent nas exalting instinct and impulse at the expense of deliber�tiori arid foresight in the conduct of life. There is much that is highly controversial in the existentialist po-
··1 For an interesting study of the moral and social aspect of existentialism that li:aves aside questions· of ethical -theory, see Norman Greene, Jean-Paul Sartre:_ The .Existential4t Ethic (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1960) .
2 William Barrett, Irrational Man (New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday a:1,1d Co., Inc., 1958). In this book, existentialism is declared to be "the counter-Enligp.tenment come at last to philosophical expression,'.' and its message is said to be "to bring the whole man.:._the concrete individual in the whole context of his everyday life;• and his · total mystery and questionablenes-into philosophy." (p. 274-75) For a better balanced account that is also. more detailed in its treatment of points of philosophical interest, see James Collins, The Existenti4lists: A Critical Study (Chicago: H. Regnery Co., 1952). . .. . Xll
INTRODUCTION
sition, correctly understood, but l shall try to show that what is at issue is not whether the existentialists are giving bad moral advice but whether their general interpretation of the relation of individual choice to moral rules. is a correct one.
To treat existentialism as an ethical theory may occasion surprise for inany reasons, not least among them the fact that the chief existentialist writers have in soine cases explicitly disclaimed any interest in such. an interpretation of their thought and in others have failed to present .anything readily recognizable as an analysis of leading ethical concepts. It is certainly true that neither Heidegger nor Sartre has given more than a sketch of an ethical theory in the current Anglo,American sense of that term; but I hope to show that the 'difficulty of recognizing'even that sketch for what it is is due to the special philosophical context in which it is developed and more ,specifically to the unfamiliar philosophicalidiom in which it is presented. None of the philosophers whose views will be considered in this book conceives of philosophy as a whole or of philosophical ethics in particular as 'an activity of conceptual analysis. They are an in their different ways ontologists, and their views of the nature of value are acwrdingly stated in terms of "structures" that are held to be particular to certain modes of being. The central contention of this bookis that it is both possible and worthwhile to disengage the elements of an ethical,theory from the forbidding ontologicalterminology which the .existentialists use and to restate themin terms that are intelligible · to those philosophers who. do not share this special "ontological" orientation.
In spite of the hazards that such an attempt to translate out of one_ philosophical idiom into another inevitably faces, there is reason to think .that the resulting restatement of existentialist ethical theory may have real advantages over the original by virtue of lending itself less readily to a number of misinterpretations that distort mucli current discussion of existentialism. It c:ari
also contribute materially to the correcting.of the widespread but erroneous belief that the interests and views of European philosophers of the phenomenological persuasion are· absolutely different from those of philosophers in this country and in Great Britain. While such differences obviously exist, it is one of the
PRINCIPLES AND PERSONS
guiding assumptions of this study that there has been nevertheless a substantial parallelism in the development of ethical theory on the Continent and in the English-speaking countries during the twentieth century.a More specifically, I think it can be shown that much contemporary moral philosophy in this country and England of the kind that is usually called ''prescriptivistic" or "noncognitivistic" has close,affinities with the ethical theory of existentialism, and that both are descended from a common tradition of ethical theory of which the principal stages are briefly outlined in Part 1.4
The common strain that unites the ethical theories assignable to this tradition is their progressive elaboration of the idea of moral autonomy and their substitution of this idea for the older conception of moral truth as the fundamental concept of morals. I have accordingly presented the ethical theory of existentialism as essentially an attempt to give a definitive account of what autonomous moral personality is; and I have neglected many other aspects of the existentialists' contribution to ethical theory. I have also been led, by this choice of a focus for this study, to use as my primary representatives of the "ethical theory of existentialism" only those writers who conceive moral autonomy as· the final and ineluctable condition of man and not as a kind of interim state that may possibly be surmounted by an eventual intuition of ultimate being or by a mystical communion with God. As I understand them, this view is the one held by those religious or Christian existentialists who, like Marcel arid Jaspers, are critical of traditional metaphysical conceptions of natural teleology, but do not despair entirely_ of the possibility of an external source
a A very helpful review of the development of twentieth centu y ethical theory in both continental Europe and the English-speaking world is pro· vided by William Frankena in his contribution, "Ethics," to R. Klibansky (ed.), Philosophy in the Mid-Century: A Survey (Florence: Nuova Italia, 1958-59), Vol. 3, pp. 42-77.
4 I have in mind especially the work of R. M. Hare whose principal works, The Language of Morals (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952) and Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963) show many obvious points. of affinity with the views of such existentialists as Sartre. It would not do, however, to press these affinities too hard, as Hare's essay, "'Rien n'a d'importance,'" in La philosophie anal ytique (Cahiers de Royaumont, Philosophie, No. 4 [Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1962], pp. 305-19) clearly shows.
of moral direction. 5 By contrast, Heidegger and Sartre, at least in a certain period of their philosophical development, do seem to me to have committed themselves to the idea of moral autonomy in a truly radical way, and to have produced a view of yalue that breaks much more sharply with established traditions in ethical theory than does that of the religious existentialists.6 Needless to say, all of the general statements I make about the "ethical theory of existentialism" must be understood as applying only to this more restricted group of writers-Heidegger and Sartre, together with Maurice Merleau- Ponty and a num ber of French writers who seem to be principally influenced by them. 7 Even in the case
5 For a study of these philosophers and of the relationship of their views to one another, see Paul Ricoeur, Gabriel Marcel et Karl Jaspers (Paris: Editions du Temps Present, 1948) . Both Jaspers and Marcel have written extensively on what they regard as the spiritual and moral crisis of our time, and these wo rks have done much to identify existentialism as a philosophy which addresses itself to the variously defined malaise of modern Western civilization. See Jaspers' Die geistige Situation der Zeit (Berlin: W. de Gruyter and Co., 1931) and Marcel's Les hommes contre l'humain (Paris: La Colombe, 1951). A critical review of Sartre's L'P.tre et le nt!ant can be found in Marcel's Homo Viator (Paris: Aubier, Editions Montaigne, 1945), pp. 233-256.
6 Even in the case of Heidegger and Sartre, some question arises as to whether they have maintained this position in their more recent work. It seems clear to me, as it has to many critics, that Heidegger's writings from the late thirties onward reflect a quite different spirit and a quite different conception of the relationship of man to being than was characteristic of his earlier works; and I have accordingly based my interpretation of his thought mainly on the latter, especially Sein und Zeit (8th ed.; Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1957) and Vom Wesen des Grundes (4th ed.; Frankfurt-am-Main: V. Klostermann, 1955). Similarly, my treatment of Sartre rests primarily on L'P.tre et le nt!ant; and while, as I try to show in Chapter VIII, the doctrines he is developing in his still incomplete Critique de la raison dialectique (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), are an extension rather than a repudiation of ideas he had developed earlier, I have relied heavily on only one section of that work.
1 In this group, I would cite particularly Raymond Polin, whose La creation des valeurs (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1944) was one of the first statements in French of a non-cognitivistic theory of value; and Francis Jeanson, whose Le probleme morale et la penst!e de Sartre (2d ed.; Paris: Editions du Myrte, 1965) offers an interesting interpretation of Sartre's treatment of morality-an interpretation to which Sartre gave his express approval in the preface he contributed to the book. Simone de Beauvoir's Pour une morale de l'ambiguitt! (Paris: Gallimard, 1947) is useful for such light as it casts on Sartre's thought; and her larger work, Le deuxieme sexe (Paris: Gallimard, 1949) contains much material that has an indirect bearing on questions of morality and moral theory. A highly original account of moral
PRINCIPLES AND PERSONS
of this restricted group, however, the account I give in Part I is intended primarily as a deli nea tion of a type of ethical theory rather th an as a faithful textual study of their ipsissima. verba, My principal interest throughou t has been to state clearly a very general position in: ethical theory that is shared by a group of writers, and to do so without too great a concern for minor divergencies among them. In the footnotes to each chapter, however, I ha;ve given rather extensive references to the texts on which. my interpretations are based ; and I have also tried to illustrate in several especi ally important cases the principles of philo sophical "translatio n'! on which I have relied.
My original intention was to follow the historical review, in · Part I, of the development of the ethical · theory of existentialism with a full-scale restatement and defense of that theory in its mature form along the lines of interpreta tion ! propose .in Chapter ,V . I found this too a mbitious a task, however, and I have chosen instead to deal in Part II with only three major questions that confront the ethical theory of existentialism. These questions concern : first, the adequacy of the grounds alleged by the existentialists for rejecting all obj ectivistic theories of value; second, the rela tionship between particular choices al). d uni versal moral principles; and finally, the place of moral obligation and moral community in an ethical theory based on the concept of au tonomy. Criticism of the ethical aspect of existentialism frequ ently centers on these questions, and jt must be admitted that the difficulties raised by critics have not often been met or even squ arely faced by the leading existentialist writers. I believe that .the objections to which I have alluded can be successfully answered and I have acco rdingly tried to show how the ethical theory of existentialism can be amplified and refined in such a way as to make it less vulnerable to criticism and misunderstanding on these three cru-
experience that runs parallel .at many points to th at of the existentialists was worked .ou t by Jean Nabert in his Elements pour une ethique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1943) . By contrast with the above works, Georges Gusdorfs Traite de l'existence morale (Paris: A. Colin, 1949) is of only rou tine interest. A detailed bibliography of recent work in ethics by Fre nch writers is provided by Georges Bastide in his "Ethics. and Political Philosophy," French Bib li ograp hi cal Digest (February, 1961) , No.. 34; Series II.
INTRODUCTION
cially import ant points. At the same time, while I feel that the kind of reconstructed existent ialism I propose remains consistent with the deepest inspiration of the writers on whom I draw as my primary sources and is in fa ct adumbr a ted in their writings, I recognize that my emend ations m ay strike some readers as dilutions of the authentic a nd hea dy brew of existentialism with ani nsipid a na lytical thinner. I would simply ask those who may be unable to recognize any true affinity between the existenti alism of Heidegger and Sartre and the reformulation I propose, to consider the latter on its own merits alone without any concern for its degree of fa ithfulness to such origin als, and with full appreciation of the seriousness of the criticisms it is designed to meet
PART I
HI STO RI CAL
CHAPTER I
THE INT ELLECT UA LISTIC TRA DITION
Existentialism is often regarded as a typical expression of a style of thought and sensibility that is characteristically contemporary. Certainly the widespread in terest it has aroused and its numerous points of affinity with much that is pe cu liarly modem in the literature and other im_agi na tive arts of the twentieth ce11tury speak in favor .o f such a view, which, in fact, is perfectly unexceptionable in the positive affirmation it makes. A one-sided emphasis on the contemporary character of existentialism could prove seriously misleadi 11g, however, if it e11couraged the assumptio11 that . the philosophy of existentialism is capable of being stated or und ers_t.ood without a constant effort to relate it to the very philosophical tradition which it claims to supersede. As even the mo st famous and most cryptic formulation of that philosophy-:--"Existence is prior to ess ence"-shows, the .terminology in which the existentialist couches his denials is, as often as not, drawn from the philosophies he is concerned to refute. Existentialism is, in fact, a reactive movement of thought which becomes fully comprehensible only when the philosophical positions against which it is reacting are identified and understood. Many of the commonest misunderstandings of existentialism as wen as many ." demonstrations" of its gross incompatibility with common sense have been due to an att empt to take its philosophy "neat, " Le., to in terpret its theses without giving sufficient at tention to the philosophical context in - which these have been developed. Too often the result has been to mistake the sense of the existen� tia:list's affirmations through having failed to grasp the point of his denials. This sta tement applies with special force t-o the relationship of existentialism to the main stream of Western inoral philo sophy; and hi this chapter and the three that follow it, an
PRINCIPLES AND PERSONS
effort will be made to describe, however briefly, the reactive or dialectical relationship in which existentialism stands to dominant trends in the history of ethical theory, and also to say something about earlier formu lations of the alternative conception of value . and choice of which exi stenti alism claims to be the definitive st atement. 1
I. The belief that the co ncepts of truth and falsity are applicable to ju dgm ents of value has been a central theme of Wes tern moral philosophy since its inception. While this view may have been first put forward by Socrates, it received an explicit philosophical in terpre tation at the hands of Plato; and it is no t too much to say that the whole subsequen t development of moral philosophy has been dominated by Plato' s original st atement of what may be called the in tellectualistic thesis. 2 This is the view that value predicates have meaning by virtue of standing for obj ective qualit ies or relations that are independent of our feelings and volitions; that rational beings are able to apprehend these qualities; and that true (and false) statem ents can accordingly be made about them. In this first formulation, as later, intellectu alism was in tended as a refutation of s k eptical views which m ade the moral quality Of things relative to the atti tudes and aspirations of individual human beings. Against the view that values are artificial
1 In the brief historical review that follows, I pass over in silence a number of questions concerning the correct interpretation of the doctrines of the writers I discuss. These questions have their own considerable importance, but for my purposes, even setting considerations of space aside, they must be secondary. My concern here is primarily with the way such writers as Plato and Aristotle influenced the subsequent develop ment of ethical theory; and in characterizing that influence I am not thereby denying the possibility that the traditional interpretation of their doctrines may be mistaken in certain important respects.
2 For a contrasting view of the ethical thought of Socrates which assimilates him to Kierkegaard, and thus to at least one wing of the existentialist tradition, see John Gould, The Development of Plato's Eth ics (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1955) . This view has been decisively refuted, I think, by G. Vlastos in "Socratic Knowledge· and Platonic Pessimism," Ph ilosophical Review, LXVI (195 7) , 226-2 38.
human c onventi ons, i nt ellectualism has al ways i nsisted th at the
g oodness or b adness of a thing an d the rightness or wrong ness of
an acti on are functions of the na ture of tha t thi ng or acti on
ra ther than of o ur feeli ngs ab out it. "Nature " in t his contex:t
m eans simply the set of c hara cteristics that an obj ect possesses
an d by' which it is classifiable as b el ongi ng to a certai n kind or
species of th ings. Si n ce thes e characteristics defi ne a cla ss of things
and are therefore not peculi ar, a t least in pri n ciple, to any single
o bj ect, t he natures t hey co mpose have traditi ona lly b een de
scribed as· "universals. "
T wo features of Pl ato's account of moral knowle dge were to
play an important role i n t he subs e qu ent evoluti on of i nt ellec
tu alism. First, his a ttributio n of l ogic al necessity to the rela ti on
s hip bet ween u niv ersals sugg ested a similar conc epti on of t he relati onship b et ween the form of t he g ood and other universals.
Knowledge of the m oral quality of things has thus often been
c onc eived to be of a type with ma th ematical knowle dge; and in
both cases the t est of truth is held to be essen ti ally logical i n ch ar
acter and to consist i n a set of dialectical operati ons perf ormed
upon the de fin iti ons of the terms i nvolved. At the s ame time,
however, Pla to often use d the lan gu age of percepti on and of vi
sion to characterize our app rehen si on of t he good as well as of
o ther universals. He did not, of course, m ean tha t i n sight i nto
m oral relatio n ship s was lit erally seei n g, but the metaphor of sight has a u nique capacity t o suggest ,the i ndependenc e or "o utthere-ness" of what is know n, and it was therefore natural that Plato and the whole i ntell ectualistic traditi on wh ich followed after him should m ake such extensive use of it. By c ombi ning these t wo features of moral knowledge, Plato worked out the c onc epti on of a necessity i nheren t i n t he obj ect of moral knowledge its elf t hat was perhaps h is pri ncipal legacy t o subsequ ent ethical theory. At the s ame time, by virtue of this very ass oci ati on of the idea of necessity with t ha t of a visi on directed upon selfsubsisten t en tities, he created one of the most difficult problems tha t the i nt ellectualistic traditi on has had to resolve.
If Plato g ave We stern e thical theory its i niti al inte llectu alistic be nt, ,it was Aristotle an d the medieval Aristotelians who recast h is teachi ng i nto the form of a de ta iled do ctri ne of h uman na-
ture. Since it was this form of in tellec tualism that prin cipally stimulated-by reac tion�the developments in ethical theory that eventually led to existentialism, a summary review of the main relevant features of Arist otle 's moral ph ilosophy is in order.
A theory of natural teleology and a theory of natural kinds provide ' the basis of that doctrine. According to the latt er, each indivi dualthing is endow ed with a nature or essence that it has in common with som e other individuals and by virtue of whic h they are classifiable as belonging to a certain genus and speci es and so on do wn to the infima species in the lowest tiers of the classifica tory pyramid. 3 Th is classificati on into kinds is natural in the sense that th e distinction between defining traits and acciden, tal or peripheral trai ts is conceived to be a real, and not a conventional, distinction. It is, in fact, a kind of prelingui stic datum that must be faithfu lly reproduced in language instead of being it self a pragmatically jus tified linguistic achievement . The metaphysical priori ty of the traits •that constitute these ''.natures" generates a ba sic vocabulary for identifying individual things; and the way of cutting up the world that is thus imp osed is emphatically not optional. To tinker with it would result not just in departures from a particular system of identifying reference but in a distortion of the nat ures of the things classi fied.
The doctrine of natural teleology can be described as a further stipulation attached to the theory of natural ki nds. It asserts that the natures on which t h e "na tural" system of classification is based are compounded in such a way as to define a fu nction, or end, that is proper to the bearers of any given nat ure. According to this view, it will thus be impossible to identify a particular as h aving any specific nature without thereby committing oneself to a number of propositions wit h respect to the distin ctive ·g ood of that thing;. it is understood that right conduct for in telligent
·a In the account I give here of Aristotle's doctrine of the ontological basis of systems of classification, I have been influenced by the views set forth in Stuart Hampshire, Though t and Action (London: Chatto and Windus, 1959) , particularly in Chapter L While · Hampshire does not explicitly associate Aristotle with the conception of language and its reference to obj ects which he describes and criticizes there, there can be little doubt, I thin k, that Aristotle's philosophy offers a prime example . of the kind of view that Hampshire has in mind;
beings consists in doing what realizes their distinctive telos. A conceptual system that would enable us to identify someone as a human being, while leaving open all questions as to what he ought properly to. do, is thus in effect excluded. Once again, the reason is not to be sought in any linguistic conservatism on Aristotle 's part, but in his conviction tha t what is real, independently of all language, is a combinatio n of ac t uality with a special po, tentiality for realizing c ertain distinctive ends, and , that this fact must be reflected in any viable scheme of classification. In. summ ary, then, one may say that Aristotle 's normative ethic ,consists of a set of implications that is buil t into the very language he uses for the description of the subjects of that theory; and this language, in t urn, is in t erpreted as reflecting metaphysical structures that are a ntecedent to · language and immune to change; If this theory is applied to human action, it is clear that principles of right action will be derivable from the telos, or proper end, of man; and this end will be implicit in the "nature" that is peculiar to hu m an beings. These principles will have the status of moral or practical truths; and if we follow Aristotle, at least one of theni (i.e., the p rinciple that the end of man is the e xercise of intellectual virtue) , will be a necessary truth. Others that bear upon the mea n s to this end; will be among those thing s "that could be otherwise ." In any case, they will function as the major premises in practical s yllogisms; taken together with factual premises describing a given situation as of the t ype to which t he rule applies, the y will generate a p articular moral judgment that tells what action would be suitable in that situation. To this piece of moral knowledge the will is referred for .guidance. Aristotle 's way of putting this is to say that the conclusion in a practical syllogism is an a ction, but t his seems to prej udge the question of wh ether a person may not act otherwise while knowing what he ought to do.4 Intellectualism, as · I am using the term, is a thesis
4 Aristotle's theory of the practical syllogism has been . the subj ect of much recent discus�icm, particularly as it bears upon the much -vexed problem of akrasia. Much of this discussion is summarized in James Walsh, Aristotle's Conception of Moral Weakness (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960) ; there is also a helpful analysis of the relationship of practical and th eoretical reason which in general appears to support the view of that relationship which I .am defending. (See especially pp. 131 ff.)
PRINCIPLES AND PERSONS
about the kind of knowledge that is involved in the apprehension of the truth of moral principles; and care should be taken to distinguish this thesis from the view that the will is somehow constrained to seek what the intellect represen ts to it as good. As we shall see, this distinction has not always been observed.
One very important effect of this doctrine of natural ends that are proper to each kind of being is the restrictions it imposes upon the concept of choice. According to Aristotle, choice is the outcome of deliberation, and deliberation is concerned with means to an end and not with the end itself. 5 Deliberation and choice thus operate within a framework of goals over which they exercise no control; and the proper goal for any being is determined by the kind of being it is, i.e., by its nature. The te los or proper end of human beings may, of course, be misapprehended by them, and when it is, choice will be directed to means that do not realize their peculiar good. But even in this case, it would presumably not be correct, in Aristotle 's view, to speak of a ch oice of the mistaken end. Ends are apprehended (or misapprehended) by human reason, and precisely because our relation to them is cognitive, they are not objects of choice. If they were chosen, then there would either have to be some ulterior end to which they were means, and then this higher end would not be chosen; or the possibility would arise that in the absence of any end that has such a status, human beings might differ in their choice of the highest end. If such difference amounted to incompatibility, Aristotle's conception of man as a social being whose true good is necessarily compatible with that of other human beings would have to be called into question.
The view that man has a natural end and that the moral principles in which this end is defined have the status of necessary truths became a central tenet of the medieval theory of natural law by which the Greek tradition of ethical intellectualism was transmitted to the modern world. 6 In the classical formulation of
5 Aristotle's analysis of choice and deliberation is given in chs. 2-4, Bk. 3, of the Nicomachean Ethics. For a discussion of some of the problems raised by his doctrine, see G. Anscombe, "Thought and Action in Aristotle," in R. Bambrough (ed.) , New Essays on Plato and Aristotle (London : Rou tledge, Kegan, Paul, 19 65) , pp. 143-1 58; and also G. Anscombe, Inten tion (Oxford: B. H. Blackwell, 1957) , pp. 57 ff.
6 A compact review of the main stages in the development of natural law theory is to be found in Alessandro Passerin d'Entreves, Natural Law : an
natural law theory produced by St. Thomas, intellectualism has to accommodate itself to · the Christian view that the ultimate basis of morality is the will of a personal God. Such a view has str ongly anti-intellectualistic implications wich, as we shall see, were to be fully developed in the later medieval and early modern periods. To meet this difficulty, St. Thomas tried to construct a theory of the divine personality in which intellect and will were related in such a way as to render compatible with one another the demands of a theistic ethic and the intellectualistic position which makes choice and will subordinate to intellect. 7 In constructing this theory of the relation of will and intellect in the divine personality, St. Thomas was also providing a model by which the relationship of these faculties within human personality might be understood.
The premise on which Thomas ' s theory of God ' s personality rests is that God has a nature, or essence. This divine essence differs from the essences of finite creatures in many ways, but most notably by virtue of the fact that God ' s essence and his existence are one, as man ' s are not. It also differs in that all of God ' s attributes are perfecteq or complete forms of attributes which finite beings possess only in partial and fragmentary form. In spite of these differences, there is a real sense in which St. Thomas may be said to apply Aristotle ' s theory of natural kinds to God, since his being is tied to a constellation of attributes. As a result, God can-
Introduction to Legal Philosophy (London: H utchinson's University Library, 1951) . An ex cellent treatm ent of m uch the sam e subject is Hans Welzel, Naturrech t und materiale Gerechtigkeit (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1955) , although Welzel somewhat incongru ously treats as one form of na tural law theory the kind of ethical voluntarism which I interp ret rather as a directly antithetical doctrine worked out by critics of natural law theory. 7 St. Thom as 's doctrine of the nature of God's intellect and will and of their relationship to one another is set forth in his Summa Theo logica I, Qu. 14, 15, and 19 and in the Summa Con tra Gentes, Bk. l, chs. 44-96. In these discussions, St. Thom as often cites St. Augustine 's "De ideis" [De Diversis Questio nibus 83, No. 46, Opera Omnia (Paris: 186 1-65) , Vol. 6] which is un m istakably Platonic in inspiration. Although it is often clai m ed tha t St. Augustine develop ed a new conception of the will that ran counter to classical in tellectualism , the passages most often cited in De Trinitate B k. X, 11 (17-18) seem to indicate that this innovation should no t be in terpreted in such a way as to qualify the primacy of in tellect as the touchstone of moral truth, which is clearly expounded in the "De ideis."
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
The Inspector graciously accepted this aid to the readjustment of ruffled plumes.
Constable Graves, returning a trifle heated, a few moments later, also consented to be soothed in a like manner. It would be too much to say that Constable Graves had been sulking with his superior officer; it would not be too much to say that he had been feeling a trifle resentful. This was his little murder after all; it was he who had been enclosed in the cupboard; it was his astuteness which had bidden him lie low while the body was being removed, in order to collect invaluable evidence—yet here was the Inspector taking the whole thing into his own hands, bellowing at him as if he had been the actual criminal, and not allowing him to put a word in edgeways! Constable Graves felt he had legitimate cause for resentment. He had been able to work some of it off upon Mr. Foster and now felt a little better. A contemplation of the generous allowance of whisky which Guy poured into his glass made him feel better still.
The police were not the only persons to view Mr. Foster’s retirement with complacency. Mr. Doyle was also glad to see him go. The enlistment of Mr. Foster’s aid had seemed a mixed blessing to Mr. Doyle; certainly his testimony was useful in one way, in another it was embarrassing. While feeling all proper respect for his fiancée’s nimble exploitation of the situation, he did agree with Guy that the introduction of a Crown Prince was overdoing things a little. Besides, this man Foster was such a consummate ass that he might make trouble out of sheer well-meaning enthusiasm.
Another matter was also in the forefront of Mr. Doyle’s mind. So far he had only heard the Inspector’s version of the constable’s story, and that astute man’s sojourn in the cupboard had been glossed over a little hurriedly; Inspector Cottingham seemed to feel that his subordinate’s ignominy in this connection was reflected to some degree upon himself. Mr. Doyle was now anxious to put a few questions on this subject to the principal actor.
Permission to do so having been craved of the Inspector with tactful humility and graciously given, Doyle drew the constable a little aside. Guy, seeing what was in the wind, at once engaged the Inspector in earnest conversation. Doyle found himself with more or less of a free hand.
“While you were in the cupboard, constable,” he began, “I suppose you heard these people moving about when they took away the body, didn’t you?”
The constable smiled benignly. Here, at any rate, was somebody who took him and his cupboard seriously. He expanded, both metaphorically and literally, hooking a thumb in the front of his belt as if to guard against expanding too far. “Heard ’em, sir?” he repeated benevolently. “Bless you, I saw ’em!”
With a praiseworthy effort Mr. Doyle refrained from leaping violently into the air “The deuce you did!” he exclaimed, a little faintly. “Er—saw them, did you say?”
The constable was pleased with the evident impression he had made. He expanded a little further still, to the imminent danger of his belt.
“Yes, sir, that I did. Through the key-hole. Saw em as plainly as I see you this very minute.”
“That—that’s excellent,” said Mr. Doyle, wriggling uneasily under the constable’s kindly eye. He plunged at a question that was burning a hole in his tongue. “And—and do you think you would recognise them if you saw them again?”
“Not a doubt of it, sir,” replied the constable heartily. “Ho, yes, I’d recognise ’em quick enough. Desprit villains they was too,” he added with gusto.
Mr. Doyle was recovering his grip on himself. “That’s very important,” he said gravely. “You had a good view of them then?”
“Well,” said the constable with some reluctance, “pretty good, that is, sir. I couldn’t see ’em all the time, because of how the keyhole was facing, if you see what I mean. Just now and then I saw ’em. Pulling the body out, f’rinstance. On a mat, they did. Pulled him out on a mat. Wouldn’t ’ardly believe it, would you, sir? Now, I wonder why they did that.”
“So do I,” said Mr. Doyle in feeble agreement.
The constable ruminated. “Might just as well ’ave carried him. Not but what he wasn’t a tidy weight. Big man, he was. Crown Prince they say, don’t they?”
“So I hear. But look here, about these—er—villains, could you describe them, do you think?”
“Near enough, sir There was two of ’em, a big feller and a little un’. One of ’em was big, you see, and the other wasn’t; well, little you might call ’im. Undersized.”
“Little will do, I think. Yes?”
“They was wearing ’ats and coats, so I couldn’t see their faces not too well, I couldn’t, but you could see they were foreigners.”
“Oh? How?”
“Because they were talking a foreign language,” returned the constable with triumph. “That’s ’ow I knew they were foreigners. They were talking a foreign language. There was a girl too.”
“A girl, eh?” said Mr. Doyle uneasily.
“Yes. I’d seen her before, of course, and let ’er slip through my fingers, I’m afraid. She knew I was in the cupboard too, but she didn’t know I was watching ’er. Funny thing, too, she’d taken off her hat and furs and things. Now I wonder why she done that?”
“Perhaps she was hot. Er—I suppose you’d recognise her again, wouldn’t you?”
“I would, and all,” replied the constable grimly.
“That’s fine,” said Mr. Doyle, without conviction. This was a snag he had not foreseen. He blessed himself for the happy piece of foolery which had caused Nesbitt and himself to dress for their part and cover their faces with the mufflers. In the meantime Dora would certainly have to lie low till she got back to London.
“Now, sir,” the Inspector’s voice remarked in rolling tones. “Now, Mr. Doyle, if you’ll come with me down the road to where you’re staying, I’d just like to ask the members of the household there if they heard anything. Mr. Howard, isn’t it? Who else is there?”
For the fraction of a second Mr. Doyle lost his head. “Nobody!” he said swiftly.
To his guilty mind it seemed as if the Inspector’s eye became suddenly less genial. “What, nobody else?” he said.
“Nobody!” repeated the guilty one firmly.
“No maids, even?”
Mr. Doyle drew a breath of relief. “No, no maids. Their maids come in by the day. Mr. Howard and I were quite alone this evening.”
“Who keeps house for him, then?”
“Oh, his sister Er—Miss Howard. But she’s away for the weekend.” Mr. Doyle cocked an anxious eye at the door, to reassure himself that Laura was not coming down the passage towards them at that moment, complete with handcuff and accomplice.
“Oh, I see. Well, come along, then, sir. And, Graves, you’d better come, too. Thank you, Mr. Nesbitt, sir; I think I’ve finished here now. But it’s a pity you threw that note away. If you only remembered where you’d thrown it, I’d have a search made. Try and think during the next few hours. Mrs. Nesbitt might know; ask her. It’d be a valuable clue. Are you ready, then, Mr. Doyle, sir?”
As Doyle went out of the room he caught a look from Guy. The look said quite plainly: “Come back here when you’ve got rid of him.” Doyle nodded.
Followed by the constable, they made their way out to the road.
“And while I’m speaking to Mr. Howard,” remarked the Inspector very airily. “I expect you’d like to be telephoning your report through to The Courier, wouldn’t you?”
Doyle nodded. He had already taken the opportunity of ringing up The Courier, and asking the editor to hold a couple of columns for him if possible as he had a scoop of the first magnitude, and without divulging too much of its nature, he had succeeded in obtaining exceedingly good terms if it should, in the editor’s opinion, come up to its rosy forecast; it was too late to send one of The Courier’s own men down, and Doyle, being a freelance, had been able to make almost his own terms. They were very good terms indeed, and they provided for the future as well as for the present. Mr. Doyle ought to have been exceedingly buoyant.
Yet his nod in answer to the Inspector’s suggestion had been an absent one. To tell the truth, he was engaged in wondering very busily how he was going to warn George to say nothing about Dora’s presence in the house, and Dora to conceal herself with efficiency and despatch, before the Inspector surprised the truth out of either of them.
Mr. Doyle was not quite sure whether he was enjoying himself or not.
“It’s a funny business altogether,” pronounced the Inspector, as they turned in at the next gate. “Tell you what it reminds me of, sir.
It’s like nothing so much as one of those shilling shockers you read on a railway journey. Now, another case of murder I had down in these parts once….”
Even that could not resolve Mr. Doyle’s perplexity for him.
Chapter VIII.
Two into One Will Go
The truth was that Mr Priestley had suddenly given way to his overwrought nerves. He had a perfectly sound reason for wanting to get himself and his cuff-mate securely alone inside that bedroom, but when he heard himself being called a cad, before he had even had time to explain (if explanation were needed) that his intentions were strictly honourable, the words had simply frozen on his lips. The mildest of men will show signs of unrest on hearing the word “cad” directed at themselves from the lips of a pretty girl, and Mr. Priestley, as he had already proved to his own surprise, was apparently not the mildest of men. His subsequent outburst, the cumulative result of desperate anxiety manfully suppressed and blank horror, simply followed.
Before they had preceded the landlady into the charming pinkand-white bedroom, on whose hearth a fire was already miraculously burning, sanity had returned and he was mildly penitent for the freedom of his speech. Not very penitent, however, for the sooner some one told this obnoxious young woman a few home-truths, the better for the world in general.
Affectionately hand-in-hand they stood, while the landlady rapidly praised her room and apologised for it in the same breath, and, intent on their respective thoughts, heard not a single word. Mr. Priestley was now far too anxious regarding the outcome of the next few minutes to feel more than a passing embarrassment concerning that outcome’s setting; while as for Laura, that humorous young woman was still wondering in a dazed sort of way exactly what unpleasant consequences this ridiculous joke was going to bring upon her, and how on earth she was going to avoid at any rate the worst of them.
It had struck her with some force that to tell the truth now, as a last desperate resource, was simply to invite ridicule. The truth, in fact, sounded thinner than the thinnest story she could possibly invent—far less plausible than the one she had so proudly originated in the tube train about twelve years ago. Mr. Priestley would only take it as yet another of her endless subterfuges and hypocrisies, and no doubt wax correspondingly drastic. It was a singularly chastened young woman who clasped her companion’s hand with mechanical fingers and turned a dull ear to the stream of the little landlady’s volubility
“I think you’ll find the bed comfortable, mum,” the little landlady was now saying. “Not but what it mightn’t be newer than it is, but ——”
“Thank you, I’m sure we shall find it comfortable,” put in Mr. Priestley, whose one anxiety was to get the landlady out of the room and the door locked behind her.
Laura started nervously. Had she been mistaken, or was there a ring of grim triumph in Mr. Priestley’s voice? For about the first time in her life Laura began to feel seriously frightened. With growing alarm she found her right wrist twisted round to the small of her back as Mr. Priestley put his arm about her waist and drew her towards him. She flinched, but the pressure was inexorable. Her knees feeling unpleasantly wobbly, she allowed herself to be pressed affectionately to Mr. Priestley’s side. As a matter of strict fact, all that Mr. Priestley wanted to do was to consolidate their joint front in order to advance upon the landlady in phalanx-formation and force her out of the room; but Laura did not know that. It was occurring to Laura very vividly that really one simply didn’t know where one was with men; the Girls’ Friendly Societies must be right after all; and she had thought Mr. Priestley of all men could be trusted.
By sheer weight of numbers Mr. Priestley succeeded in driving the landlady to the door The landlady did not wish to go at all. Beside her natural desire to give her tongue a little trot after having had nobody to exercise it for her since four o’clock that afternoon, except Annie (who didn’t count one way or the other), she was much enjoying the spectacle of this nice couple, so unaffectedly lover-like
even in her presence. Why, they never left go of one another for a single instant! It was a sight for sore eyes, that it was.
Still, when two persons relentlessly advance upon a narrow doorway, the third, and smallest, member of the trio must give way. “Well, if you’ll put your things outside the door in a few minutes,” she smilingly covered her retreat, “I’ll see they’re nice and dry for you in the morning. And I’m sorry about you not having no luggage with you, but I hope you’ll manage with what I’ve put out on the bed. Good-night, then, mum; good-night, sir.”
“Good-night,” said Mr Priestley, and feverishly shut the door on the good woman. He did not scruple to turn the key in the lock.
With a sigh of relief he turned back into the room. A voluminous red flannel night-gown, draped chastely over the end of the bed beside a still more voluminous white flannel night-shirt, caught his eye for the first time and he smiled absently. Somebody (he had not the faintest idea who) must at some time have explained away their absence of luggage, and this was the good woman’s reply. He smiled again.
Laura saw the smile and trembled. To her alarmed eye it was the smile of gloating anticipation. Her already enfeebled knees sagged a little further.
“And now,” said Mr. Priestley, “to business!” and he walked briskly towards the bed. The way to the wash-stand, it may be remarked, took him past the end of the bed.
It was the last straw. Unable to bear this final blow, Laura’s longsuffering knees collapsed altogether. She tottered into a chair.
“Please!” said Laura faintly. “Don’t!”
“Why not?” asked the surprised Mr. Priestley, who only wanted to go to the wash-stand.
“Because—because—well, surely you see.”
“Upon my soul, I don’t,” said Mr. Priestley, his eyes fixed longingly on the wash-stand.
Laura coloured deeply For a young woman who prided herself upon being above all things modern she found herself horribly embarrassed. “Well,” she said desperately, “it—it isn’t playing the game exactly, is it?”
“Why ever not?” asked Mr. Priestley in astonishment.
There was an uneasy pause.
“You’re—you’re stronger than me, of course,” Laura pleaded in her most heartrending tones. Laura had often employed these useful tones with malicious intent; now she was using them in deadly earnest. “You’re—you’re stronger than me, and you know I can’t very well cry for help. You know I’m in your power, if you do use force, but ——” Her voice, trembling with real terror, died away. She moistened her dry lips.
Mr. Priestley began to get annoyed. Here he was, anchored to a chair, when he wanted to be at that wash-stand. What on earth had the wretched girl got into her head now? It was the last hope. Did she want to go on wearing these damnable handcuffs?
“I shall certainly use force,” he said crossly, “if you persist in being so unreasonable.”
“I’m not unreasonable!” Laura cried, her fear giving way to indignation before this distorted view.
“Indeed you are,” said Mr. Priestley with legitimate irritation. “Extremely unreasonable. What’s the point? Besides, to put the matter on personal grounds, I’ve surely done enough for you to enable you to do this little thing for me.”
“Oh!” Laura gasped. “Little thing!”
“Besides,” said Mr. Priestley quite angrily, “it may not even be successful.”
“I’ll see that it isn’t!” said Laura grimly, when she had recovered her breath.
“But we must try it, at any rate. Now, please come along, and stop being so absurd.” And grasping her wrist, Mr. Priestley pulled. Her eyes sparkling stormily, Laura pulled back. Now that it had come to the point, her fears seemed to have left her. She was just furiously angry.
“I—I warn you,” she panted, “if you use force, you—you brute, I’ll fight back. I’ll—I’ll——”
Mr Priestley stopped pulling and looked at her with something like despair. “But, good Heavens!” he exclaimed. “In the name of goodness, why don’t you want to?”
Laura also stopped pulling in sheer amazement. She could hardly believe her ears. Could this absurd little man really be as
incredibly conceited as all that!
“You dare ask me that?” she demanded, her bosom heaving.
Mr. Priestley rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. He had heard a lot about the unreasonableness of women, but he had never heard anything that came within a mile of this. “Surely it’s an obvious question,” he murmured resignedly.
“Well, then, I’ll answer it,” Laura snapped. “Because I hate the sight of you! Now are you satisfied?”
It was Mr. Priestley’s turn to look incredulous. Besides being grossly unfair, considering all that had happened that evening, the answer appeared to be that of a complete imbecile. “That seems a very strange reason for wanting to go on being handcuffed to me,” he articulated.
“Good Heavens, I don’t want to go on being handcuffed to you! There’s nothing I want less in the world, you—you beast! I—oh!” And Laura, the devilish-minded Laura, terror of her brother and all who knew her, buried her face in the crook of her free arm and burst into real tears of mortification and alarm.
Mr. Priestley stared at her aghast. So far as he could see, this extraordinary young woman had suddenly gone off her head. After threatening to fight him if he tried their last resource for getting rid of the handcuffs, she was now apparently weeping at the idea of not doing so. Women, in Mr. Priestley’s mind at that moment, was represented by one large question-mark.
Then suddenly suspicion invaded him. She had pretended to weep once before, and that time he had been taken in, with horrible consequences. Was it not highly probable that she was doing exactly the same thing again, relying on its previous success? What could possibly be her objection to his proposal. Mr. Priestley was unable to understand, but whatever it was it must be swept aside. He was going to be trifled with no longer.
With sudden determination he gathered the drooping body up in his arms and pursued his interrupted journey
“Oh, no!” moaned a despairing voice from somewhere near his left shoulder. For a young woman who had just expressed her determination to fight to the death, Laura felt remarkably limp. But Laura was limp. For some strange reason the stuffing had been
knocked out of her just as suddenly as it had arrived. She could not at that moment have stood up to a blue-bottle; and Mr. Priestley was far more formidable than any blue-bottle. Perhaps the strain of the evening had told on her more than she had realised; she was still cold, she was still clammy, her nerves were in shreds and her food had only given her indigestion. She felt like one of her own wet stockings.
“No!” she moaned again, but without hope.
Mr. Priestley set his teeth. It was a heartrending cry and it did make him feel a brute not to be able to heed it, but really——!
He carried her swiftly to the wash-stand, set her on her feet and, keeping a wary grip on her wrist, reached for the soap.
“Now then!” he said triumphantly, dipping it in the warm water and doing his best to produce a serviceable lather with one hand.
Laura opened her eyes and watched him dazedly. He seemed to be washing one hand in the hot-water can. It was probably very devilish, but its exact purpose escaped her for the moment. He began to soap her own inert hand.
And then, in a series of blinding flashes, Laura’s mind was illuminated.
Her first coherent thought was overwhelming relief. Her next an equally overwhelming, but less reasonable, anger. She stamped her foot. “Is this what you were meaning all the time?” she asked wrathfully. From her tone one might have deduced that she was suffering a fearful disappointment, yet this was not really the case.
“Of course,” said Mr. Priestley in surprise, lathering vigorously.
“Then why on earth didn’t you say so?”
“But I did! Half a dozen times.”
“You didn’t!”
“Didn’t I?” Mr. Priestley’s surprise was genuine enough, but he was much more interested at the moment in his experiment with the soap. “But surely I told you downstairs? What else do you imagine I wanted this bedroom for?”
Laura brushed away the remnants of her tears with an indignant hand. It is seldom given to mortal man, and still less to mortal woman, to feel quite so incredibly foolish as Laura did at that
moment. She did not appear to appreciate the privilege conferred upon her.
“I didn’t know what you wanted it for,” she said, with feeble pettishness.
“But didn’t you understand what I was wanting you to come and do?” asked Mr. Priestley, but a little absently, for he really was extraordinarily interested in that soap. One might say that at that moment Mr. Priestley’s heart was in his soap. “What did you think I wanted, then?”
“Something else,” said Laura curtly, looking out of the window and feeling that she would begin to scream very loudly if Mr. Priestley asked her one single more awkward question on this topic.
Fortunately her powers of self-control were not to be put to such a drastic test. “There!” said Mr. Priestley, with mingled satisfaction and anxiety. “I don’t think I can get it any more soapy than that. Now, I’m going to pull. I’m afraid it may hurt you.”
“Hurt away!” said Laura grimly. She felt as if it was quite time that somebody hurt her—as indeed it was.
Mr. Priestley proceeded to gratify her wishes.
“Oh!” squeaked Laura, hastily changing her mind.
“Hold on!” exhorted Mr. Priestley through set teeth. “It’s nearly off!” He resumed his efforts.
There were two more squeaks, and many others nobly repressed, and then two sighs of triumph.
“Well played, by Jove!” said Mr. Priestley, with the wondering admiration of every male for a female who can stand up to pain without flinching.
“Thank God!” said Laura, tears of agony in her eyes. “And thank you, Mr. Mullins, too,” she added. It has already been mentioned that Laura was a just girl. So she was, quite often.
As if with a common understanding they dropped into chairs and relaxed. The next moment, with a more uncommon understanding, they got up simultaneously, drew their respective chairs as close as possible to the fire and relaxed again.
“And now,” said Mr. Priestley, beaming at his companion with benevolent triumph through his glasses, “now what are we going to do?” It was not the least of Mr. Priestley’s achievements that evening
that through all its hectic developments he had managed to keep his glasses intact upon the bridge of his nose, even when travelling at forty-five miles an hour in the teeth of a miniature blizzard.
Laura looked at him with something that was not quite respect, and not quite affection, but somehow, contained the ingredients of both. Now that he had succeeded in freeing her of that odious handcuff, and been displayed, incidentally, as the complete little gentleman he was, Laura’s feelings towards him had undergone yet another revulsion. At one bound Mr. Priestley had recovered his proper place m her estimation. Handcuffs are an excellent substitute for a time machine. Laura had only known Mr. Priestley, as time is ordinarily reckoned, for a paltry half-dozen hours; she felt as if she had known him intimately for as many years. And he really was rather a dear!
Undoubtedly, Laura now decided once more, it was a shame to be hoaxing him in this way, when the poor man was taking it all so desperately in earnest. For the hundredth time, but for different reasons on almost each occasion, it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him the truth, nearly the whole truth, and hardly anything but the truth. For the hundredth time she refrained. The continuance of the beam through Mr. Priestley’s glasses decided her this time. It was borne in upon Laura that in a way Mr. Priestley really was enjoying himself, at any rate he was living Life with a capital L; and she felt that, after the good turn he had just done her, he did deserve something better at her hands than such an anti-climax as the truth would be. Besides, Laura reminded herself more sternly, it was probably all exceedingly good for him.
“What shall we do?” she repeated meekly. “Well, that seems to be for you to say, Mr. Mullins. I’m rather in your hands, aren’t I?” And she edged uneasily away from some of her clamminess and suppressed a shiver.
Mr. Priestley noticed both movements. “Very well,” he said promptly “I want to have a talk with you, of course, but it’s no good running the risk of pneumonia. You must get out of those wet clothes of yours. I’ll go down to the kitchen and do the same.”
Laura approved of this programme, and intimated as much with some warmth. She had never felt much drawn towards red flannel
before, but just at that moment red flannel appeared the ideal material for the manufacture of night-gowns. Nice, warm, dry, beautiful red flannel! What could a girl want more?
Besides, she was not sorry to put off her talk with Mr. Priestley till the morning. It would give her time to collect her thoughts, and Laura felt that her thoughts needed a good deal of collecting. It was nice of Mr. Priestley to take it so naturally for granted that he should spend the night in the kitchen. How she had misjudged that blameless man!
“And I wonder if the landlady could run to a dressing-gown?” said the blameless man, gazing thoughtfully at the now empty handcuff dangling from his left wrist. It wore something of a wistful air. So did Mr. Priestley.
“I’ll ask her,” Laura said, jumping to her feet. She went to the door and made the noises of a person requiring the presence of her landlady, while Mr. Priestley hastily tucked his handcuff up his coatsleeve.
The landlady was enchanted with the idea of producing dressing-gowns. She produced two, one with pride and one with apologies. The first was of blue flannel trimmed with white lace; the other was of fairly pink flannel trimmed with fairly white lace. Her husband, it appeared, dispensed with such formalities as dressinggowns.
By common female consent the pink dressing-gown was allotted to Mr. Priestley. He clutched it, and snatched up his night-shirt.
“I shall be back, my dear,” he said with dignity, “in about five minutes.” He had not the faintest notion how long a girl takes to get herself out of wet clothes and into a red flannel night-gown, but five minutes seemed a liberal estimate.
“Lor’, sir,” remarked the landlady with frank astonishment, “you’re not going somewhere else to change your clothes, surely? Not after I’ve lighted this fire for you and all?”
“Five minutes!” squeaked Laura at the same time. “But—but you’re not coming back here, are you?”
Mr. Priestley looked from one to the other uneasily. The landlady eyed them both with undisguised surprise. Laura, realising that she had not said quite the right thing so far as the landlady was
concerned, began to blush gently, swore silently at herself for doing so, and blushed hotly. The landlady’s kindly eye grew less kindly; it clouded with suspicion. The demeanour of either Laura or Mr. Priestley at that moment would have roused suspicion in a blind woman; their very silence was eloquent.
“I suppose,” said the landlady very slowly, “that you two are married, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Really!” spluttered Mr. Priestley, trying hard to simulate anger. “Really, this is preposterous. I won’t——”
“Seeing,” pursued the landlady in the same tones, her eyes now glued to Laura’s left hand, “seeing, I mean, as the lady isn’t wearing no ring nor anything!”
This was not true. The modern girl does not wear very much, but she does wear something. Laura was wearing several things, each damper than the others.
A hundred despairing schemes flitted through Mr. Priestley’s mind. Now that the handcuffs were off, there was no need for them to pretend they were married. Should he say they were brother and sister? But then that would look suspicious, and real suspicion was the very last thing they wanted to arouse. There would certainly be an account of the crime in the next morning’s papers, and then if their behaviour gave the landlady any inkling that——
Laura’s laugh interrupted his frenzied thoughts. “I see,” said Laura quite naturally, “that we shall have to tell you the truth. No, we’re not——”
What Laura was going to say was never revealed, for with a despairing cry Mr. Priestley flung himself against this piece of suicidal short-sightedness. “No!” said Mr. Priestley loudly. “No, we weren’t married—at this time yesterday. Now we are. You’re right, my darling,” he went on rapidly, with the resource of desperation, “we must tell Mrs. Er-er-h’rrm the truth. We’ve eloped! We—er—we were married at a registry office this afternoon, with—with a key, you know Not even time to buy the ring. Oh, quite on the spur of the moment, it all was. Ha, Ha! Er—ha, ha!” He laughed without mirth, and waited breathlessly.
“Well, there now!” exclaimed the landlady, her clouds completely dispersed. “Well, isn’t that romantic? With a key, now! I’ve heard tell
of that before. Well, well! Eloped, did you say? Now, that is nice. You know, I thought there was something, I did. Fancy that! I always was a one for romance, meself. Of course you go down to the kitchen then, sir. You’ll find it nice and warm in there and when you come up again in ten minutes I’ll have your lady all tucked up in bed and dry and warm as toast for you.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Priestley wanly, taking some pains to avoid his lady’s eye.
“The poor lamb!” continued the landlady fondly, eyeing that now fuming young woman with delighted fondness. “Catching her death of cold, and all on account of shyness, as you might say. I used to feel like that once with my Will, I remember, but bless you, miss—or —mum, I should say—you’ll soon grow out of that.”
“Indeed?” said the lamb coldly. It was a very cold lamb.
“I think I’ll be getting downstairs, d-dearest,” mumbled Mr. Priestley, intercepting a most unlamblike glance. “Er—so long.”
“Wait a minute, sir,” put in the landlady. “I know the very thing— you must have a glass of my elderberry wine first. I’ll get some this very minute. That’ll stop you catching cold, both of you. Bless me, why didn’t I think of that before? Never mind, I’ll have it up in a minute.” She whisked out of the room and shut the door behind her.
The lamb turned irately upon its good shepherd. “Why on earth did you butt in with that absurd story? I’d just thought of a splendid way of breaking the news to her that we aren’t married.”
“Yes, and ruining everything!” retorted Mr. Priestley, stung to annoyance once more. In brief, snappy sentences he showed this obtuse young woman exactly why it was necessary for the landlady to continue in her delusion.
His argument was unanswerable. Without giving her whole case away Laura was unable to pursue that particular line. Woman-like, she instantly directed her irritation into a fresh channel.
“Well, now you can hardly sleep in the kitchen,” she snapped. “Where do you imagine you’re going to sleep, I’d like to know?”
“Where I always did,” Mr. Priestley snapped back. “In here.”
Laura looked at him with wide eyes. “Don’t be absurd, please. That’s out of the question.”
“Anything else is out of the question,” Mr Priestley said angrily “It’s you who are being absurd. What you don’t seem to understand is that this is a question of life or death.”
Once again Laura was up against a brick wall. “Well, anyhow, you’re not going to sleep in here. Kindly get that out of your head once and for all. As soon as you’ve gone I shall lock the door.”
“In that case,” said Mr. Priestley grimly, “I shall break it in.”
They looked at each other stormily.
Upon this Pleasing domestic scene the landlady returned.
The constraint in the atmosphere was obvious, but the landlady did not mind that. Quite natural, most excitingly natural, in the circumstances. She dispensed elderberry wine with a generous hand. The occasion called for a generous hand, and the landlady did not fail to respond. Her hand was more than generous; it was prodigal.
“My best respex,” said the landlady happily, raising her tumbler, unlike the other tumblers only a quarter full.
“Uh-huh!” replied Mr. Priestley, with a brave attempt at a smile, and raised his tumbler. Mr. Priestley, as we have already seen, had a Palate. Elderberry-wine does not harmonise with a Palate. Life seemed very bleak at that moment to Mr. Priestley.
He swallowed three large gulps like the gentleman he was, then set his half-empty tumbler down. At precisely the same moment, with an astringent face, Laura was setting her tumbler down. Instantly the landlady pounced on them and re-filled them to the brim.
“That’ll put you as right as rain,” she announced.
Mr. Priestley looked at her with deepened gloom. “It was very nice,” he lied manfully. “Very nice indeed. But I think I won’t have any more, really.”
“And catch your deathacold, sir, instead?” retorted the landlady. “No, you drink that up, and you won’t have to worry about colds.”
“I don’t think I will, really,” Mr. Priestley wriggled. “I’ll be getting along now and——”
“If I were you, mum,” the landlady informed Laura, “I should make him. Mark my words, you’ll have him on your hands with the influenza if you don’t.”
“I think you’re quite right,” Laura agreed, a malicious twinkle in her eye. “Drink it up at once, darling!”
Mr. Priestley gazed at her with mute appeal.
“If I were you, mum,” the landlady added, “I wouldn’t let him go down to change ’is clothes till he had drunk it.”
“Darling,” said Laura, “you don’t go down to change your clothes till you have drunk it.”
There was no real reason why Mr. Priestley should not have said loudly: “Bosh!” and walked out of the room. But he didn’t. He drank up his elderberry wine.
Then he walked sadly to the door. Once he had a Palate….
“Half a minute, sir,” remarked the landlady. “Your good lady hasn’t drunk up hers yet.”
Mr. Priestley stopped short in his tracks.
“If I were you, sir,” observed the landlady with much enjoyment, “I should make her drink it. You’ll have her on your hands for a week with the influenza if you don’t, you mark my words.”
“Darling,” said Mr. Priestley in italics, advancing towards his adopted wife, “drink up your wine!”
“I don’t think I will, really,” Laura murmured, backing uneasily, “I —I’ve had enough.”
“I’m not going out of this room till you do,” said Mr. Priestley with triumph.
The battle of wills lasted only two minutes, but two minutes can seem a very long time. At the end of it, with a slightly dazed look in her eyes, Laura drank up her elderberry wine. Laura had not had very much practice in doing what she was told, and it did not come easily to her.
Then Mr. Priestley went downstairs.
The landlady watched him go, carrying as he did with him threequarters of a pint of her elderberry wine, with a triumphant eye. She felt that she had done her duty, and not only as an anti-influenza specialist; she felt that this couple would be grateful to her the next morning, and not only because their noses would not be streaming. The landlady had brought seven children into the world in her time, and she was an expert in many things beside influenza.
In the traditional way she proceeded to put the bride to bed.
Going downstairs with that uneasy young woman’s wet clothes, she found the groom hovering nervously. With words of homely encouragement she sent him flying upstairs with cheeks as red as his lady’s night-gown.
Mr. Priestley was proving himself to be a man of singular resolution. There were few things in this world that he wanted to do less than turn the key on the inside of that bedroom door; yet he knew the key must be turned. He turned it.
From the centre of the pillow in the large bed a small face, framed in sheet, regarded him with ill-concealed alarm. Even the sight of Mr. Priestley swathed in his pink flannel and lace appeared to bring it no joy. Two round eyes followed his every movement, and as he advanced towards the bed the sheet that framed the face took on a tense appearance beside either cheek, as if two small hands were gripping it convulsively. The face did not speak, for the simple reason that its owner was totally incapable of uttering a word. It is very difficult to inaugurate a chatty conversation when your throat has gone quite dry and your tongue has apparently affixed itself irrevocably to the roof of your mouth.
Carrying his pink flannel with the dignity of a Roman in his toga, Mr. Priestley halted beside the bed and stared down into the silent face with a look that was almost grim. “And now, young woman,” he said, in a voice which matched his look only too well, “I want an explanation, if you please.”
Reader, have you ever drunk home-made elderberry wine? Not a pale imitation, I mean, but the real, genuine, honest article? Have you gone still further and imbibed a full three-quarters of a pint of it? For, if you have, there is no need for me to explain. However, in case your life has been empty and vain, I will point out that home-made elderberry wine (the real, honest stuff) does practically nothing for about a quarter of an hour. During that period it just sits and ruminates. Then it makes up for lost time.
Suddenly the sheet on either side of Laura’s face relaxed She smiled. “Yes, I expect you do,” she agreed.
Mr. Priestley smiled too. “I certainly do.”
Laura laughed. “I’ve been wondering when you were going to ask for one.”
Mr Priestley laughed too. In the space of a few seconds the whole thing seemed to have taken on a completely different aspect. It was not a tragedy at all; it was—yes, utterly incredible but perfectly true—really quite funny!
Laura seemed to find it funny too. Her laugh degenerated into a giggle.
Mr. Priestley sat down on the bed. “Of course, you know I’m not that man Mullins,” he stated rather than asked. How very obtuse of him never to have realised that before! Of course she knew it. “When did you begin to find out?”
“I knew all the time,” giggled Laura. “Oh, dear, this is ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“Quite absurd,” grinned Mr. Priestley. “I’m afraid, by the way, that I must have been rather a handicap to you this evening.”
“Not at all,” said Laura politely.
“You see, I’ve never associated with professional criminals before. My name is——” A glimmer of sense returned to Mr. Priestley, and he withheld that confidence.
Laura was giggling again. “You know, I’m not really a professional criminal,” she volunteered. “I’m quite honest. Is that a dreadful disappointment?”
Mr. Priestley beamed. “No, are you really? That is a great relief, a very great relief. That’s really a load off my mind. But in that case— well, would you mind telling me the real truth about this evening?”
But Laura, though disposed to giggle, had not quite lost her head in her newly awakened sense of humour. She hastily searched her mind for a tale that should relieve Mr. Priestley’s mind as much as possible, without betraying her trust.
“Well,” she said slowly, “what I told you first of all was near enough. I knew you weren’t Mullins, of course, but I was desperately anxious for some one to help me, so I just pretended to think you were. Besides,” she added severely, “I thought it would serve you right.”
“I deserved it, I know,” agreed Mr. Priestley, but with no signs of contrition.
“That man has got some compromising letters of mine. He may have some miniatures too; I don’t know anything about that. But you