The New York herald., 1921-07-03
Reviewed by
BENJAMIN DE CASSERES.
NEW philosopher!


a cited about it. The smoke goes
up the chimney just the same and the
Dearborn Independent continues it's !
profound sociological studies.
A new philosopher, And still the |
Man in the Street will hearken not.
He turns as unconcernedly as ever to |
the home run score between Babe"
Ruth and First Bag Kelly Even H.
G. Wells retains his clammy calm.
The world. l fear. grows blase, men
tally as we'll as physically Nothing
shall evermore disturb the even tenor
of it's fatigue Nothing new under the
sun can bulge it from its disillusicn.
To everything novel. Man nowadays
mutters, "Old Stuff"-and keeps STIR
ring up the home brew or another
war.
But my contention has always been
that it is always interesting to know
what anybody thinks about ultimate
questions Why are we here? What
are we? What ought to be our atti-
tude toward the ncomprehensible but
all-pervasive. 1t? What is sense? What
is mind? These are the eternal mir
acles, and as we shall never solve |
them, the best fun in life is to swim |
around in the sea of guesses.
Burthogge is, strictly speaking, not |
new. He is rediscovered old philos-
opher. Margaret Landes has dug him
up out of an old English graveyard, |
rearticulated his broken syllogismS, |
blown the Kantian breath of life into
him. and made him look like a decent
Transcendentalist with a Pragmatic
walking stick.
Burthogse was a doctor, and he was
born in Plymouth, England, in 1888.
He wound up his philosophical career
around 1900. While he wasn't dosing
the sick. he wrote letters on the Soul
of the World Reason" and "Spon-
taneous Combustion" One of his let
ters was to old John Locke, who laid
It down fat that all knowledge comes
through the senses. Burthogge didn't
quite agree with this. Pigs is pigs all
right-but how do we knotc it? There
are things in the brain--ultimate
moulds-that never came through the
senses. Here the Doc seems about
to go back to Plato and his doctrine
Of innate Ideas but just as you think
he'll land in the camp of the Platonists
he skids toward Spinoza, who, as e''"''y
schoolboy knows, asserted that tne
Ideas were not in us but in God.
And so, there you are!
Burthogge, after he became a wild
over the second time (still sticking to
his theory that all wives come through
the senses). moved into, Totness, Dew
onshire. King James H. looked so
highly on the Doc as a forerunner of
Kant that he made him a Justice of
the Peace. He is said to have been
a fanatic" by one of his peevish
biographers. He was strong against
heavy drinking and Kelly pool on
Sunday. Which proves that doctors
ought to stick to their physic and
philosophers to their Ding.
Midway in his mortal life Bur-
thogge moved over to Leyden, where
he gave the world another mental jar
mostly religious essays.
There is, as a matter of fact, moth
ing very original in this new philoso-
pher" In the long run, he hung on to
intuition rather than knowledge as the
road to the Higher Lie.
He has a quaint style. Here Is
something / dug out of his Soul of
the Worlj':
Let us suppose a vast Organ con-
sisting of innumerable Pipes of differ
ent Sizes and Fabrick and this Organ
to be filed with Wind blown into it,
and the Wind TO be received and
some norton of IL appropriated by
each particular Pipe; Imagine also in
Vulnerable Fingers playing upon these
several Pipes For then each particular
Pipe being played upon will by means
of the Wind be made to sound a par
ticular Note. differing from the Notes
of all the other Pipes according as its
Qualities, Dispositions and Fabrick
differ"
The world is such an organ, he goes
on TO tell us. and you and 1 are the
pipes fun OF this Big Wind. Sounds
good to me, and as 1t is not philosophi-
cal to enter into controversy with a
dead thinker, / agree that 1t is true.
If It isn't, something just as interest
ing is.
In word. Burthogge tells us there
are only two sources OF knowledge.
These are mind--if you turn the I'm"
upside down you have "wind"-and the
senses. which scnop up images.
As every one knows this what's all
the shootin' for?
My library was dukedom large
Shakespeare.