That coincidence inescapably conjures up thoughts of the long line of artists and scientists among those who bore the surname Harvey. While there was not much physical science in Eli Harvey, who sculpted a gorilla for the New York Geological Society, his death in 1937 marked the tercentenary of the death of William Harvey in 1637, whose studies of blood circulation have somewhat overshadowed his valuable investigations into ape reproduction. Philosophy boils down to the relationship between the pulchum and the utile , the beautiful and the useful. Only human beings ask that question. Angels already know the answer, and animals don t know Latin.
Human beings ask it because they are by nature both artists and scientists.
It is not blasphemous to put our signature on beauty or to boast of invention. But to make an ugly thing and call it beautiful, and to make a useless thing and call it useful is a very modern form of blasphemy known as ideolo gy. Rev. George W. Rutler is a priest of the archdiocese of New York.