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Robust Analytics and Reporting

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 ABOUT THE SEVENTH EDITION
The fact that The Philosophical Journey is now in its seventh edition is very rewarding.
From the responses I have received, it is clear that professors are finding that this text-
book takes students who are passive learners and transforms them into active learners
who are engaged with the ideas, thus enriching what they bring to the classroom. Like-
wise, students report that the thought experiments and activities provided in this book
make philosophy intriguing, relevant, and fun. Finally, I am delighted that a number of
readers have picked up the book on their own and have found it to be an enjoyable source
of personal enrichment.
The newest and most unique addition to this edition is the feature Making Philosophy
Personal, which occurs at the end of each of the seven chapters. While this book provides
interesting intellectual ideas to think about, this particular feature will give the readers
something practical to carry away from the book. It will ask thought-provoking and per-
sonal questions and provide conceptual exercises that will help the readers apply some of
the ideas and issues in the chapter to their personal lives. Additionally, throughout the
book, a number of passages have been rewritten for the sake of greater clarity.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
From the first rough outline to the final chapter revisions I have had the help of numer-
ous reviewers who read this text with an eye to its suitability for the classroom as well as
its philosophical clarity and accuracy. I appreciate the comments of the following
­reviewers on the first six editions: Judy Barad, Indiana State University; Chris Blakey,
College of the Canyons; David Carlson, Madison Area Technical College; Anne
DeWindt, Wayne County Community College; Reinaldo Elugardo, University of
Oklahoma; Louise Excell, Dixie State College; Kevin Galvin, East Los Angeles College;
Eric Gampel, California State University at Chico; Garth Gillan, Southern Illinois
University; Robert A. Hill, Pikes Peak Community College; Achim Kodderman, State
University of New York College; Pat Matthews, Florida State University; Brian L.
Merrill, Brigham Young University–Idaho; Mark A. Michael, Austin Peay State
University; Benjamin A. Petty, Southern Methodist University; Michael Punches,
Oklahoma City Community College; John F. Sallstrem, Georgia College; Nancy Shaffer,
University of Nebraska–Omaha; Kathleen Wider, University of Michigan, Dearborn;
Gene Witmer, University of Florida; Jay Wood, Wheaton College; Michael J. Booker,
Jefferson College; Michael Boring, University of Colorado, Denver; Michael J. Cundall,
Jr., Arkansas State University; ­Hye-Kyung Kim, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay;
Joseph Michael Pergola, ­Lewis-Clark State College; Robert Reuter, Saint Joseph’s
College; Alan Schwerin, Monmouth University; Tully Borland, Ouachita Baptist
University; Catherine Mary Driscoll, North Carolina State University; David Bishop,
Pima Community College; Marcia Andrejevich, Ivy Tech Community College; Miriam
Newton Byrd, University of Texas, Arlington; Christina Mary Tomczak, Cedar Valley
College; Peter Celello, Ohio State University at Newark; Rocco Gangle, Endicott
College; Carlos Bovell, Gloucester County College; Marcos Arandia, North Lake
College; Jerry Cherrington, Pima Community College; Heather Coletti, Cabrini College.
I am particularly grateful to both my current and former colleagues for sharing
their expertise with me throughout all the editions of this book. The reviewers of this
seventh edition were: Ronald Glass, University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse; James E.
Taylor, Westmont College; James A. Dunson III, Xavier University of Louisiana;
Diane Gaston, Cuyahoga Community College; Angela Cotner, Oklahoma City
Community College; Doug Fishel, Maple Woods Community College; Craig Payne,

viii Preface
Indian Hills College; Douglas Anderson, Front Range Community College; Aaron
Bartolome, College of DuPage; Binita Mehta, Texas State University; Robert
F. O’Connor, Texas State University; Quan Jin, Saint Louis University; Scott Berman,
Saint Louis University; Holly Lewis, Texas State University; Joshua Stuchlik,
University of St. Thomas. Michael Lynch answered numerous questions on epistemol-
ogy, Robert Westmoreland on ethics and political philosophy, and Neil Manson on
contemporary design arguments. I have also had helpful conversations on philosophy
of mind with Robert Barnard, on Greek philosophy with Steven Skultety, and on reli-
gion with Laurie Cozad and Mary Thurkill. My former student, Richard Howe, sug-
gested helpful improvements to chapter 4. My thanks to Ken Sufka for his course on
brain science and many hours of stimulating conversations and debates. Furthermore,
I want to thank all my Mississippi Governor’s School students who interacted with
me during the summers of 1987 to 2005 and who were the first to test many of the
exercises in this book. Finally, I have to express my gratitude to all the students in my
Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College freshman course during the years 2013–
2017. Besides being an amazing group of students, they were very helpful in allowing
me to try out new ideas and exercises.
I have been fortunate to work with one of the best editorial teams in the business.
Ken King, my first editor, immediately grasped my vision for this book and energetically
made it a reality. Jon-David Hague worked on the second and third editions, and helped
make it the book that it is today. For this current edition, Erika Lo, my Product Devel-
oper, helped oversee all the phases of this edition. I particularly appreciated the assis-
tance of my Development Editors, Dionne Soares Palmer and Amy Oline of Lumina
Datamatics, who handled so many of the details.
Whether you are a student or a teacher, I hope that you will enjoy interacting with my
book as much as I enjoyed writing it. I would be glad to hear about your experiences with
the book and its exercises as well as any suggestions you have for future improvements.
You may e-mail me at wlawhead@olemiss.edu.
William F. Lawhead

Preface ix
This page intentionally left blank
Contents

Preface iii

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to the Philosophical Journey 3

1.0 OVERVIEW OF THE JOURNEY 4
1.1 SOCRATES AND THE SEARCH FOR WISDOM 15
FROM PLATO, Apology 18
FROM PLATO, Republic 24

1.2 PLATO’S ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE 30

FROM PLATO, Republic 32

1.3 ARGUMENT AND EVIDENCE: HOW DO I DECIDE WHAT

TO BELIEVE? 37
1.4 MAKING PHILOSOPHY PERSONAL: Introduction to the
Philosophical Journey 46

CHAPTER 2

The Search for Ultimate Reality 53

2.0 OVERVIEW OF METAPHYSICS 54
2.1 OVERVIEW: THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM 64
FROM HUGH ELLIOT, Tantalus 64

2.2 DUALISM 71
FROM RENÉ DESCARTES, Discourse on the Method 73
FROM RENÉ DESCARTES, Meditations on First Philosophy 74
FROM DAVID CHALMERS, The Puzzle of Conscious Experience 78

2.3 PHYSICALISM 83
FROM JEFFREY OLEN, Persons and Their World 92

2.4 FUNCTIONALISM AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 98

FROM JERRY FODOR, The Mind-Body Problem 102
FROM MARVIN MINSKY, Why People Think Computers Can’t 108

2.5 OVERVIEW: FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM 116

2.6 HARD DETERMINISM 127
FROM B. F. SKINNER, Walden Two 128
FROM SAMUEL BUTLER, Erewhon 135
FROM CLARENCE DARROW, The Leopold and Loeb Trial 137

2.7 LIBERTARIANISM 142

FROM JEAN-PAUL SARTRE, Being and Nothingness 152

xi
 2.8 COMPATIBILISM 155
2.9 MAKING PHILOSOPHY PERSONAL: Metaphysics 161

CHAPTER 3

The Search for Knowledge 171

3.0 OVERVIEW OF THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 172
3.1 SKEPTICISM 180
FROM RENÉ DESCARTES, Meditations on First Philosophy 187
FROM RENÉ DESCARTES, Meditations on First Philosophy 191

3.2 RATIONALISM 193

FROM PLATO, Phaedo 200
FROM RENÉ DESCARTES, Meditations on First Philosophy 205
3.3 EMPIRICISM 209
FROM GEORGE BERKELEY, A Treatise Concerning the Principles
of Human Knowledge 221
FROM DAVID HUME, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 227
FROM DAVID HUME, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 228
FROM DAVID HUME, An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding 230

3.4 KANTIAN CONSTRUCTIVISM 238

FROM IMMANUEL KANT, Critique of Pure Reason 241
FROM IMMANUEL KANT, Critique of Pure Reason 247

3.5 EPISTEMOLOGICAL RELATIVISM 253

FROM FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Beyond Good and Evil 263

3.6 RETHINKING THE WESTERN TRADITION:

PRAGMATISM 270
FROM WILLIAM JAMES, Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth 279

3.7 RETHINKING THE WESTERN TRADITION: FEMINIST

EPISTEMOLOGY 283
3.8 APPLYING EPISTEMOLOGY: WHAT IS THE NATURE OF
SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE? 295
3.9 MAKING PHILOSOPHY PERSONAL: THE PROBLEM
OF KNOWLEDGE 304

CHAPTER 4

The Search for God 315

4.0 OVERVIEW OF PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 316
FROM PETER KREEFT, Does God Exist? 316

4.1 THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR GOD 322

FROM THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologica 323
FROM RICHARD TAYLOR, Metaphysics 326

xii Contents
4.2 THE DESIGN ARGUMENT FOR GOD 330
FROM WILLIAM PALEY, Natural Theology 332
FROM DAVID HUME, Dialogues Concerning Natural
Religion 334

4.3 THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR GOD 339

FROM ST. ANSELM, Proslogium 341

4.4 PRAGMATIC AND SUBJECTIVE JUSTIFICATIONS OF

RELIGIOUS BELIEF 344
FROM BLAISE PASCAL, Thoughts 346
FROM WILLIAM JAMES, The Will to Believe 350
FROM SØREN KIERKEGAARD, Selections 353

4.5 THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: ATHEISTIC AND THEISTIC

RESPONSES 358
FROM ALBERT CAMUS, The Plague 359
FROM JOHN HICK, Evil and the God of Love 366

4.6 RETHINKING THE WESTERN TRADITION: ASIAN

RELIGIONS 373
FROM THE UPANISHADS 376
FROM THE BUDDHA, Selected Teachings 384
FROM HERMAN HESSE, Siddhartha 391

4.7 APPLYING PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: HOW DOES

RELIGION RELATE TO SCIENCE? 394
4.8 MAKING PHILOSOPHY PERSONAL:
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 400

CHAPTER 5

The Search for Ethical Values 409

5.0 OVERVIEW OF ETHICS 410
FROM PLATO, Republic 410

5.1 ETHICAL RELATIVISM VERSUS OBJECTIVISM 425

FROM HERODOTUS, The Histories 429
FROM JAMES R ACHELS, The Challenge of Cultural
Relativism 438

5.2 ETHICAL EGOISM 446

FROM W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM, Of Human Bondage 446
FROM AYN R AND, The Virtue of Selfishness 457

5.3 UTILITARIANISM 462

FROM JEREMY BENTHAM, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals
and Legislation 466
FROM JOHN STUART MILL, Utilitarianism 470
FROM ALASTAIR NORCROSS, Comparing Harms: Headaches and Human Lives 474

5.4 KANTIAN ETHICS 480

FROM IMMANUEL KANT, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals 483

Contents xiii
 5.5 VIRTUE ETHICS 498
FROM ARISTOTLE, Nicomachean Ethics 507
FROM CONFUCIUS, The Analects 512

5.6 RETHINKING THE WESTERN TRADITION: FEMINIST

ETHICS 517
5.7 ETHICAL THEORIES AND PRACTICAL MORAL PROBLEMS 532
5.8 MAKING PHILOSOPHY PERSONAL: ETHICS 538

CHAPTER 6

The Search for the Just Society 549

6.0 OVERVIEW OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 550
6.1 THE JUSTIFICATION OF GOVERNMENT 555
FROM ROBERT PAUL WOLFF, In Defense of Anarchism 558
FROM JOHN LOCKE, An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent and
End of Civil Government 564
FROM THE DECLAR ATION OF INDEPENDENCE (JULY 4, 1776) 567

6.2 THE QUESTION OF JUSTICE 569

FROM PLATO, Republic 571
FROM THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologica 576
FROM JOHN STUART MILL, Utilitarianism 578
FROM JOHN R AWLS, A Theory of Justice 584

6.3 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE 588

FROM JOHN STUART MILL, On Liberty 590
FROM KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS, Communist Manifesto 604

6.4 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 611

FROM PLATO, Crito 614
FROM MOHANDAS GANDHI, Young India 621

6.5 MAKING PHILOSOPHY PERSONAL: POLITICAL

PHILOSOPHY 627

CHAPTER 7

Philosophy and the Meaning of Life 635

FROM LEO TOLSTOY, My Confession 643
FROM HAZEL E. BARNES, An Existentialist Ethics 648

7.0 MAKING PHILOSOPHY PERSONAL: THE MEANING OF LIFE 659

APPENDIX

Reasoning Effectively: What to Do and What Not to Do A-1

Index I-1

xiv Contents
To my daughters-in-law,
Julie Lawhead and Christin Lawhead
Our lives are richer because
you joined our family.
Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Winslow Homer, Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), 1873–1876

Philosophy is a journey which, like the sailing of a ship, requires constant engagement to stay on our chosen course.
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO
THE PHILOSOPHICAL
JOURNEY
Where Are We Going and
How Will We Get There?

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

On completion of this chapter, you should be able to

1. Explain several approaches to what philosophy is all about.
2. Identify various areas of thought traditionally investigated by
philosophers.
3. Discuss how philosophy is a journey.
4. Relate the story of Socrates’ life and death.
5. Explain the Socratic method.
6. Discuss three central theses about living well held by
Socrates.
7. Interpret various levels of meaning in Plato’s Allegory of
the Cave.
8. Apply six criteria for evaluating philosophical claims and
theories.
9. Define an argument in the philosophical sense.
10. Distinguish the three kinds of arguments: deductive,
inductive, inference to the best explanation.

3
 1. 0 OV E RV IEW O F T H E J O UR N E Y

In a 19th-century work, the Danish philosopher and literary genius Søren Kierkegaard
depicted one of his fictional characters sitting in a café worrying about the fact that he
has no mission or purpose in life.* He despairs over the fact that many in his age have
served humanity and have achieved fame and admiration by making life easier and easier
for people. He mentions the convenience and ease that have been brought by the inven-
tion of railways, buses, steamboats, the telegraph, and easily accessible encyclopedias.
With a sense of failure he asks himself, “And what are you doing?” It seems clear to him
that he could not compete with other people in making life easier. Searching for his mis-
sion in life, he finally comes up with this idea:
Suddenly this thought flashed through my mind: “You must do something, but inas-
much as with your limited capacities it will be impossible to make anything easier
than it has become, you must, with the same humanitarian enthusiasm as the others,
undertake to make something harder.” This notion pleased me immensely, and at the
same time it flattered me to think that I, like the rest of them, would be loved and
esteemed by the whole community. For when all combine in every way to make
everything easier, there remains only one possible danger, namely, that the ease
becomes so great that it becomes altogether too great; then there is only one want
left, though it is not yet a felt want, when people will want difficulty. Out of love for
mankind, and out of despair at my embarrassing situation, seeing that I had accom-
plished nothing and was unable to make anything easier than it had already been
made, and moved by a genuine interest in those who make everything easy, I con-
ceived it as my task to create difficulties everywhere.1

STOP AND THINK

Why would someone want to make life more difficult? In what ways could a philosopher
such as Kierkegaard make life more difficult for his readers? Even more important, why
would we want to read an author who took this as his mission in life?

PHILOSOPHY AND AEROBICS

You might get some perspective on the questions in the box if you notice that those
things that are cheap and come easiest in life are usually those things that are worth little
in the long run. A quarter will get you a gum ball from a machine. A gum ball is cheap
and easy to obtain, but its only value is a few minutes of pleasure. On the other hand, the
mother’s labor pains bring forth new life, the musician’s long hours of practice produce
musical perfection, the athlete’s pain and determination are rewarded with self-mastery
and athletic records, and the writer’s creative struggles in the face of dozens of rejection
slips may produce a great novel. In each case, something of value was gained, but only as
the result of great difficulty and persistent effort.

*Although it is not always safe to assume that the words of Kierkegaard’s fictional characters
reflect his own sentiments, in this case they repeat what Kierkegaard says many times over about
himself.

4 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNEY

 Perhaps Kierkegaard’s point is that only by facing the really difficult issues in life will we
gain something that is truly valuable. His mission was to coax us, to irritate us, and to pro-
voke us into making the effort necessary to overcome our reticence to face one of life’s most
difficult but rewarding tasks: honest, personal reflection. For Kierkegaard, this activity was
the heart and soul of philosophy. Like many other strenuous but valuable activities, becom-
ing a philosopher can involve intellectual labor pains, practice, determination, and creative
struggling. But philosophy obviously does not produce the tangible rewards of the sort
enjoyed by the mother, musician, athlete, or novelist. What, then, is the reward of doing
philosophy? According to Kierkegaard, what philosophy can give us is self-understanding.
Self-understanding involves knowing who I really am apart from the masks I present to oth-
ers, the social roles I fulfill, or the labels and descriptions imposed on me by my society and
my peers. It also involves understanding my beliefs and values and being aware of why I act
the way I do, including knowing whether my actions result from my own authentic choices
or from taken-for-granted, unexamined assumptions, or the influences of my culture.
At first glance, it would seem that self-understanding is something that everyone would
desire. But Kierkegaard thought that it was not only the most important goal in life, but also
the most difficult one. Furthermore, he claimed that it is something that we are often tempted
to avoid. It is much easier to be complacent, to be self-satisfied, and to stick with beliefs that
are comfortable and familiar than to be painfully and fully honest with ourselves and to sub-
ject our deepest convictions to examination. Fitness centers promote the saying, “No pain, no
gain.” The same is true with our struggles to become fully realized and actualized persons. In
fact, philosophy could be viewed as “aerobics for the human mind.” In Kierkegaard’s day,
everyone was claiming to provide the answers to everyone else’s problems. Kierkegaard, how-
ever, thought that his greatest contribution to society would be to provide the problems to
everyone’s answers. Only in this way, he thought, would we be goaded into searching for those
answers that are worthy of our belief. Kierkegaard has provided us with our first definition of
philosophy: Philosophy is the search for self-understanding.

PHILOSOPHY AND LOVE

The term philosophy literally means “the love of wisdom.” It is said that the first one to call
himself a philosopher was Pythagoras, a Greek who lived somewhere between 570 and
495 b.c. and spent most of his life in southern Italy. He is, of course, best known for his
famous mathematical theorem. When once asked if he was wise, he replied that no one
could be wise but a God, but that he was a lover of wisdom. To love something does not
mean to possess it but to focus our life on it. Whereas Pythagoras introduced the term
­philosopher, it was Socrates who made it famous. He said that the philosopher was one who
had a passion for wisdom and who was intoxicated by this love. This description makes
quite a contrast with the image of the philosopher as being cold and analytical—sort of a
walking and talking computer. On the contrary, the cognitive and the emotional are com-
bined in philosophy, for we do not rationally deliberate about those issues in life that are
deeply trivial. When I pick up my copy of the daily campus newspaper, for example, I don’t
stand there and reason about which copy to grab. On the other hand, those issues that are
most important to us are such things as our religious commitments (or lack of them), our
moral values, our political commitments, our career, or (perhaps) who we will share our
lives with. Unlike the trivial task of choosing a newspaper, such issues as our deepest loves,
convictions, and commitments demand our deepest thought and most thorough rational
reflection. Philosophy, in part, is the search for that kind of wisdom that will inform the
beliefs and values that enter into these crucial decisions. Thanks to Pythagoras and
Socrates, we now have a second definition: Philosophy is the love and pursuit of wisdom.

Overview of the Journey 5

 PHILOSOPHY AND PEANUT BUTTER
Everyone knows that philosophy deals with questions, with very basic questions such
as, “Is there a God?” “Does life have meaning?” “Do I have freedom or am I determined
by forces beyond my control?” “How do I decide what is morally right?” What makes
these questions philosophical questions? One answer is that philosophical questions deal
with our most basic concepts such as God, meaning, freedom, moral rightness. To get a
better grasp on the nature of philosophical questions, try the following thought
experiment.2

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
1. Consider the following two questions.
Where can I find the peanut butter?
Where can I find happiness?

In what ways are these two questions similar? In what ways are they different? Which
question is the easiest to answer? Which question is the most important one?

2. Look at what is represented on the cover of this book and answer this question:
Is this a flimdoggal?

Are you having difficulty answering the question? Why?

3. Suppose that someone slipped you a drug that made it impossible for you to answer
the following questions: Is this a hat or an ice cream sundae? Is this belief true or
false? Is this real or an illusion? Is this action morally good or evil? Now ask yourself:
What would be some practical problems created by these confusions?

The questions about where to find the peanut butter or happiness seem very similar,
yet there is a world of difference between them. We have a tendency to suppose that the
“real” issues are ones that are concrete and have verifiable and certain answers. If we
believe that tendency, then we never ask any questions more profound than, “Where is
the peanut butter?” The answer is concrete (“On the top shelf behind the mustard”), and
we can be sure when we have found the answer (“Yep, this tastes like peanut butter”). On
the other hand, we have many conflicting opinions about where to find happiness (reli-
gion, sensual pleasure, wealth, fame, a meaningful career, service to others, and on and
on). We may think we have found happiness, but we can spend the rest of our lives trying
to make sure that what we found is really it. Clearly, happiness is much more abstract
and elusive than peanut butter. But maybe the goals in life that are the most abstract and
elusive are the ones that are the most important to pursue.
Obviously, you could not decide if the cover of this book represented a flimdoggal
because you did not know what such a thing is. What you would need in order to answer
the question are the criteria for determining whether something is a flimdoggal, or a
precise definition of the word flimdoggal. We have the same problem with words such as
God, meaning, freedom, or moral goodness. However, because these words are so familiar
(unlike flimdoggal), we often assume that we understand the corresponding concepts.
Yet the concepts that philosophy analyzes are those that we dare not leave unclarified. If
you could not distinguish a hat from an ice cream sundae, it could lead to some

6 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNEY

embarrassing moments as you tried to put a sundae on your head. But most of your life
would be unaffected. On the other hand, if you were confused about the concepts of
“true,” “false,” “real,” “illusion,” “good,” or “evil,” your life would be deeply impaired.
George Orwell, in his novel 1984, depicts a totalitarian society that controls its citi-
zens’ minds by controlling their language. The society’s official language of “Newspeak”
does not have a word for freedom. Without the word freedom, people do not have the
concept of freedom; without the concept they cannot think about freedom; and if they
cannot think about freedom they cannot aspire toward it. The citizens feel a vague sense
of discomfort with their society, but the government has robbed them of the ability to
speak and think about the causes of this dissatisfaction. This novel illustrates why the
meanings of words are so very important to philosophy. Sometimes philosophy is accused
of simply being “arguments about words.” It is true that some verbal disputes are fruitless,
but not all. Words give us a grasp of our fundamental concepts, which govern our think-
ing, and our thinking in turn guides the way we deal with reality, the actions we perform,
and the decisions we make. This discussion gives us our third definition of philosophy:
Philosophy is the asking of questions about the meaning of our most basic concepts.

PHILOSOPHY AND COLDS

The topic of examining our lives and examining our beliefs introduces an important
point about philosophy. In one sense, everyone is a philosopher. Everyone has some
beliefs (no matter how tentative) about the existence of God, about how to determine if
a statement is true or false, and about what is morally right and wrong (among other
things). Whether you realize it or not, philosophical conclusions are woven into the con-
duct of your daily life. As you go through this book, you will find that many of your
beliefs have been shared by some of the great philosophers in history. You will also find
philosophical labels for many of your beliefs as well as arguments supporting them or
arguments opposing them. With respect to philosophy, you are not like a spectator sitting
in the stands, watching the professionals engage in a game of tennis. Instead, you are
down on the court, already a participant in the activity of philosophy.
Whereas in a certain sense everyone is a philosopher, in another sense philosophy as a
way of looking at things has to be learned and practiced. The problem is that too often we
acquire our ideas, beliefs, and values the way we catch a cold. Like the cold virus, these
ideas, beliefs, and values are floating around in our environment and we breathe them in
without realizing it. The cold belonged to someone else, and now it is our cold. The beliefs
and values were those of our culture, but now they are our own. It could be that they are
true beliefs and excellent values, but how are we to know if we have internalized them
unthinkingly? In examining our own and other people’s fundamental beliefs, we must ask:
Are these beliefs justified? What reasons do we have to suppose that they are true? What
evidence counts against them? Thus, while everyone has philosophical beliefs, the philo-
sophical journey takes us one step further. This acknowledgment gives us the fourth aspect
of philosophy: Philosophy is the search for fundamental beliefs that are rationally justified.
If we summarize the discussion thus far, we have a multidimensional, working defini-
tion of philosophy. As you read through this book, note how each philosopher or
­philosophy addresses these four points. Philosophy is the
1. Search for self-understanding.
2. Love and pursuit of wisdom.
3. Asking of questions about the meaning of our basic concepts.
4. Search for fundamental beliefs that are rationally justified.

Overview of the Journey 7

 WHAT DO PHILOSOPHERS STUDY?
Many people have no idea what philosophy is all about. The term philosophy often con-
jures up the image of a vague, fuzzy realm of irreducibly subjective opinions. A common
question is, “What do philosophers study?” No one seems to have this problem with
other disciplines. For example (to put it glibly), biologists study frogs, geologists study
rocks, historians study wars, and astronomers study stars. But what part of the universe
or human experience do philosophers examine? The short answer, as one philosopher
put it, is that “philosophy’s center is everywhere and its circumference nowhere.”3 But
someone could raise the objection that this definition makes it seem as though philoso-
phy covers the same territory that the other disciplines do. The answer to this objection
is that philosophy is unique in comparison to other areas of study not because it thinks
about different things, but because it thinks about things differently. This feature of phi-
losophy can be made clear by comparing the sorts of questions asked by different disci-
plines with the sorts of questions asked by the philosopher in six different areas: logic,
metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of religion, ethics, and political philosophy.

Logic
The psychologist studies how people think and the causes of people’s beliefs, whether
their thinking is rational or irrational. But the philosopher studies how we ought to think
if we are to be rational and seeks to clarify the good reasons for holding a belief. The
study of the principles for distinguishing correct from incorrect reasoning is the area of
philosophy known as logic, which is discussed at the end of this chapter under the head-
ing “1.3: Argument and Evidence: How Do I Decide What to Believe?”

Metaphysics
The physicist studies the ultimate constituents of physical reality such as atoms, quarks,
or neutrinos. On the other hand, the philosopher asks, Is physical reality all that there is?
The neurobiologist studies the activity of the brain, but the philosopher asks, Are all
mental events really brain events, or is the mind something separate from the brain? The
psychologist attempts to find causal correlations between criminal behavior and the indi-
vidual’s genetic inheritance or social influences. The philosopher, on the other hand,
asks, Is all behavior (good or bad) causally determined, or do we have some degree of
genuine freedom that cannot be scientifically explained? Is there necessarily a conflict
between the scientific attempt to explain and predict behavior and our belief in human
freedom? Metaphysics is the area of philosophy concerned with fundamental questions
about the nature of reality. In chapter 2, “The Search for Ultimate Reality,” you encoun-
ter different models of what reality is like as well as questions concerning human reality
such as, What is the relationship between the mind and the body? and Are we free or are
our lives predetermined?

Epistemology
The historian seeks to increase our knowledge of the Civil War by gathering facts and
determining which accounts of the events are the most true. The philosopher asks, What
is knowledge? What is a fact? What is truth? How could we know that something is true
or not? Is there objective truth, or are all opinions relative? Fundamental questions about

8 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNEY

the nature and source of knowledge, the concept of truth, and the objectivity or relativity
of our beliefs are the concern of the theory of knowledge, or epistemology, which you
encounter in chapter 3, “The Search for Knowledge.”

Philosophy of Religion
The astronomer studies the laws that govern the heavenly bodies such as the stars. How-
ever, the philosopher asks these questions: Is the existence and nature of the universe
self-explanatory, or does it need an explanation or a divine creator that lies outside it?
How do we account for the order in the world that makes science possible? Is the evi-
dence of design sufficient to prove a designer?
The meteorologist asks, What causes hurricanes? and the medical researcher asks,
What causes childhood leukemia? On the other hand, the philosopher asks, Is there any
rational way to believe in a good, all-powerful God who permits the undeserved destruc-
tion by hurricanes or the suffering of innocent children? Or is the evidence of undeserved
suffering an argument against such a God?
The sociologist studies the religious beliefs of various groups and the social needs that
these beliefs fulfill without making any judgments about the truth or rationality of these
beliefs. However, the philosopher asks, Is faith opposed to reason, compatible with rea-
son, or supported by reason, or is faith something that necessarily goes beyond reason?
These sorts of questions about the existence of God, the problem of evil, and the rela-
tionship of faith and reason constitute the area of philosophy known as philosophy of
religion, and it is discussed in chapter 4, “The Search for God.”

Ethics
The anthropologist studies the moral codes of various societies and describes both their
similarities and differences, but does not decide which ones are best. On the other hand,
the philosopher asks, Are there any objectively correct ethical values, or are they all rela-
tive? Which ethical principles (if any) are the correct ones? How do we decide what is
right or wrong? These questions are the concern of ethics, which is the topic of chap-
ter 5, “The Search for Ethical Values.”

Political Philosophy
The political scientist studies various forms of government, but the philosopher asks,
What makes a government legitimate? What is justice? What is the proper extent of indi-
vidual freedom? What are the limits of governmental authority? Is disobeying the law
ever morally justified? These questions fall under the heading of political philosophy and
are discussed in chapter 6, “The Search for the Just Society.”

The Philosophical Foundations of Other Disciplines

In addition to these six topics that will be covered in this book, other areas in philosophy
raise philosophical questions about specific disciplines. These additional areas of phi-
losophy include philosophy of art (aesthetics), philosophy of education, philosophy of
history, philosophy of language, philosophy of law, philosophy of mathematics, philoso-
phy of psychology, philosophy of science, and so on.

Overview of the Journey 9

 WHAT IS THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY?
Philosophers (and philosophy students) are frequently asked the question, What is the
practical value of philosophy? This question seems to be easier to answer with respect to
other disciplines. The study of computer science certainly leads to endless practical
applications, not to mention career possibilities. Biological research can produce new
cures for the diseases that plague us. Engineers learn how to build better bridges and
produce marvelous inventions. Psychologists help us deal with test anxiety and other
maladies. But what does philosophy do? A contemporary of Socrates, the satirical play-
wright Aristophanes, wrote a play titled The Clouds in which the actor representing
Socrates delivered his speeches while suspended from the clouds in a basket. For many
people, this image typifies the philosopher—someone who does not have his or her feet
on the ground. Philosophy is often thought to be an optional enterprise, a detached,
erudite hobby for the intellectually elite or the socially disabled. Someone once defined
the philosopher as “a person who describes the impossible and proves the obvious.”
In order to answer the question, What is the practical value of philosophy? we need to
first clarify the concepts and question the assumptions contained in the question. What
does it mean for something to be “practical”? A good answer might be that something is
practical if it is an efficient and effective means for achieving a goal. If your goal is to
learn your French vocabulary words for a test, a practical (efficient and effective) way to
do this is to write the words on note cards that you can review throughout the day. But
when we ask, “Is philosophy practical?” what goal do we have in mind? To answer this
question we need to know what goals, ends, or values are really important in life in order
to measure whether philosophy is or is not a practical means for achieving them. By now
you may realize that to think about these issues is to think philosophically. Ironically, to
ask whether philosophy is a useful activity you must have made some previous philo-
sophical assumptions about what is important in life. In other words, unlike any other
discipline, a person cannot criticize philosophy without having first engaged in
philosophy!
More concrete points can be made about the value of studying philosophy. The Amer-
ican Philosophical Association has identified four important skills that we acquire in
studying philosophy: (1) general problem solving, (2) communication skills, (3) persua-
sive powers, and (4) writing skills. Obviously, these skills are important in any discipline
as well as any high-level career. In fact, studies have repeatedly shown that philosophy
majors tend to do better than average on admissions tests for law school, medical school,
and graduate programs in business administration, to name a few examples. Further-
more, in an economy that is based on the communication and analysis of information,
the skills of analytical reasoning, critical reading, effective writing, and conceptual analy-
sis are essential. Consequently, The New York Times Career Planner reports: “Philosophy
is one fundamental area of study that has found a new role in the high-tech world.”4
Although the analytical and logical side of philosophy is important, philosophy
should not be thought of as a dull, impersonal, logic-chopping enterprise. The history of
philosophy is the story of men and women with soaring imaginations who were able to
think creatively and free our minds from the well-worn ruts left by our mundane, taken-
for-granted assumptions. Philosophers have given us new conceptual lenses for looking at
the world, asked questions that no one else thought to ask, discovered creative answers to
age-old questions, and woven new patterns out of the threads of human experience. Phi-
losophy can give you practical skills that can be applied to a wide range of tasks in school
and in your career, but the most important benefit in studying philosophy is the changes
it can make in your growth as a person. Hence, the question about the practical value of

10 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNEY

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“Yes, sir.” He went back to his hut, delighted.
Escape. Escape. Even the illusion of escape for a few hours, it must
be at least that, for if the 469 Trench Mortar Battery were in the same
Division, the same Corps even, he would have heard of them. They
must be at least a day’s journey away, and he would be able to get
away from the blasting and withering boredom for at least that.
Colonel Birchin, a regular, who had been on various Staff
appointments since the very early days, had no conception how
personnel changed and units shifted, and unless he (Dormer) were
very much mistaken, it would be a jolly old hunt. So much the better.
He would have his mind off the War for a bit.
The reply came from Corps that, according to the order of battle, 469
Trench Mortar Battery was not in existence, but try Trench Mortar
School at Bertezeele. It was all one to Dormer. He might simply be
exchanging one cold hut for another, he might travel by rail and lorry
instead of on horse or foot. But at any rate it would be a different hut
that he was cold in and a different mode of conveyance that jolted
him, and that was something, one must not be too particular in war-
time. So he jumped on a lorry that took him into Doullens and at
Doullens he took train and went through Abbeville and the endless
dumps and camps by the sea, up to Étaples, where the dumps and
camps, the enormous reinforcement depôts and mile-long hospitals
stretched beside the line almost into Boulogne, where was a little
pocket, as it were, of French civilian life, going on undisturbed amid
the general swamping of French by English, on that coast, and of
civilian life by military. Here he got a meal and changed and went off
again up the hill, past Marquise, and down a long hill to Calais, in the
dark, and then on, in the flat, where the country smelled different
from the Somme, and where the people spoke differently and the
names of the stations sounded English, and where there were
French and Belgian police on the platforms.
He slept and woke at St. Omer, and slept again and woke to find all
the lights out and a general scurry and scatteration, with the drone of
aeroplanes and the continual pop-popping of anti-aircraft fire. Then
came the shrieking whirr and sharp crash of the first bomb, with its
echo of tinkling glass, barking of dogs, and rumour of frightened
humanity.
Like most people accustomed to the line, Dormer regarded the
bombing of back billets as a spectacle rather than as one of the
serious parts of warfare, and got out to stroll about the platform with
officers going up as reinforcements. They exchanged cigarettes and
news and hardly stopped to laugh at the horrified whisper of the
R.T.O., “Don’t light matches here!” It was soon over, like all bombing.
If you were hit you were hit, but if you weren’t hit in the first minute or
two, you wouldn’t be, because no plane could stay circling up there
for very long, and the bomber was always more frightened than you
were. Then the train moved on, and Dormer could feel on each side
of him again the real camp life of units just behind the line, mule
standings, gun parks, and tents and huts of infantry, and services. It
was midnight before he got out at Bailleul. He had left the camp on
the Arras road in the morning, had made a great loop on the map
and reached a railhead as near the line as he had been twenty-four
hours before. He stumbled up the stony street to the Officers’ Rest
House, drank some cocoa out of a mug and fell asleep, his head on
his valise.
In the morning he got a lift out to Bertezeele, and found the Trench
Mortar School. He reflected that it would really be more correct to
say that he took a lift to the Trench Mortar School, and incidentally
touched the village of Bertezeele. For the fact was that the English
population of the parish exceeded the French native one. Men of all
sorts and conditions from every unit known to the Army List (and a
good many that had never graced the pages of that swollen
periodical) were drawn into this new device for improved killing.
Dormer himself, one of those who, since the elementary home camp
training of 1915, had been in or just behind the trenches, wondered
at the complicated ramifications with which the War was running.
Apparently those curious little brass instruments, the bane of his life
as an infantry platoon commander, which used to come up behind
his line and there, while totally ineffective in the vital matter of
beating the Germans, were just sufficiently annoying to make those
methodical enemies take great pains to rob him of his food and sleep
for many ensuing days, were all done away with.
Stokes, whoever he was, but he was certainly a genius, had effected
a revolution. Owing to him, neat tubes, like enlarged pencil-guards,
with a nail inside the blind end, upon which the cap-end of the
cartridge automatically fell, were being used, as a hosier might say,
in all sizes from youths’ to large men’s. Stokes was branded with
genius, because his invention combined the two essentials—
simplicity with certainty. He had brought the blunderbuss up to date.
What else were these short-range, muzzle-loading, old-iron
scattering devices? Just blunderbusses. History was not merely
repeating itself. As the War went on it was moving backwards. Tin
helmets of the days of Cromwell, bludgeons such as Cœur de Lion
used upon Saladin, and for mere modernity, grenades like the
original British Grenadiers of the song. He had never had any head
for poetry, but he could remember some of the stuff Kavanagh had
sung in the dug-out. Not tow-row-row. That was the chorus. Ah! he
remembered.
“Our leaders march with fusees,
And we with hand-grenades,
We throw them from the glacis
About the enemy’s ears.
With a tow-row-row,” etc.
Well, now we didn’t. If we had grenades we carried them in aprons,
like a market woman, with a skirt full of apples. And if we had a
blunderbuss, like the guard of the coach in the “Pickwick Papers,” we
kept it, and all the ironmongery that belonged to it, on a hand-barrow,
and pushed it in front of us like fish-hawkers on a Saturday night.
What a War! Kavanagh was quite right of course. There was neither
decency nor dignity left in it. Wouldn’t do to admit that though! And
putting on his very best “Good-mornin’-Sah-I-have-been-sent-by-
Divisional-Head-quarters” expression, he asked his way to the
“office” as they were beginning to call the orderly room in most
detachments, and inquired for 469 Battery. Yes. They were to be
seen. Orderly room, as a Corps formation, was distant and slightly
patronizing, but the information was correct. He could see the Officer
commanding the battery. Certainly he could, as soon as morning
practice was over. That would do. He made himself as
inconspicuous as possible until he saw the various parties being
“fallen in” on the range, and heard the uncanny ear-tickling silence
that succeeded the ceaseless pop-pop of practice and then drifted
casually into the wooden-chair-and-table furnished ante-room, where
the month-old English magazines gave one a tremulous home-
sickness, and men who had been mildly occupied all the morning
were drinking all the vermouth or whisky they could, in the fear of
being bored to the point of mutiny in the afternoon.
There was, of course, the usual springtime curiosity as to what the
year might bring forth, for every one always hoped against hope that
the next offensive would really be the last. An orderly wandering
among the tables appeared to be looking for him, and he found
himself summoned before the Officer commanding the School.
Although his appointment was new, Colonel Burgess was of the
oldest type of soldier, the sort who tell the other fellows how to do it.
The particular sort of war in which he found himself suited him
exactly. He had the true Indian view of life, drill, breakfast, less drill,
lunch, siesta, sport, dinner, cards. So he ruled the mess cook with a
rod of iron, took disciplinary action if the stones that lined the path
leading to the door of the ante-room and office were not properly
white, and left the technical side of the business to Sergeant-
instructors who, having recently escaped from the trenches, were
really keen on it.
He received Dormer with that mixture of flattery due to anyone from
Divisional Head-quarters and suspicion naturally aroused as to what
he (Dormer) might be after. He was annoyed that he had not heard
of Dormer’s arrival, and hastened to add:
“Not a very full parade this morning, units come and go, y’know. We
can never be quite sure what we are going to get! What did you think
of our show?”
Dormer realized that the old gentleman was under the impression he
was being spied on:
“I really didn’t notice, sir. I have been sent to see the Officer
commanding 469 Trench Mortar Battery. Matter of discipline arising
out of a claim for compensation.”
“Oh, ah! Yes indeed. Certainly. See him now. Sergeant Innes!”
The efficient Scotch Sergeant to be found in all such places
appeared from the outer office.
“Have we anyone here from 469 T.M.B.?”
The officer required was duly produced, and the Colonel retired to
the Mess, leaving them together. Dormer sized up this fellow with
whom he was thus brought into momentary contact. This became by
necessity almost a fine art, during years of war. Dormer was fairly
proficient. The fellow opposite to him was of the same sort as
himself. Probably in insurance or stockbroking, not quite the
examination look of the Civil Service, not the dead certainty of
banking. He had obviously enlisted, been gradually squeezed up to
the point of a Commission, had had his months in the line and had
taken to Trench Mortars because they offered the feeling of really
doing something, together with slightly improved conditions (hand-
carts could be made to hold more food, drink and blankets than mere
packs) and was getting along as well as he could. He heard what
Dormer wanted and his face cleared.
“Why, that’s last April. I couldn’t tell you anything about that. I was in
Egypt!”
“You don’t know of any officer in your unit who could give some
information about the occurrence?”
“No. There’s only young Sands, beside myself. He couldn’t have
been there.”
“Some N.C.O. then?”
“Heavens, man, where d’you think we’ve been? All the N.C.O.’s are
new since I was with the crowd!”
“But surely there must be some record of men who were with your
unit?”
“Well, of course, the pay rolls go back to Base somewhere. But I
suppose you can pick the name and number up from the conduct
sheet.”
“You see, I don’t know the man’s name. His number was given as
6494.”
“That’s a joke, of course. It’s the number that the cooks sing out,
when we hold the last Sick Parade, before going up the line.”
“Of course it is. You’re right. I ought to have remembered that, but
I’ve been away from my regiment for some time.” Dormer pondered
a moment, relieved. Then the thought of going back to the Q. office
with nothing settled, and the queries of the French Mission and the
whole beastly affair hanging over his head, drove him on again. He
made his air a little heavier, more Divisional, less friendly.
“Well, I’m afraid this won’t do, you know. This matter has got to be
cleared up. It will be very awkward if I have to go back and inform
Head-quarters that you can’t furnish any information. In fact, they will
probably think it’s a case of not wanting to know, and make a regular
Court of Inquiry of it.”
He watched the face of the other, and saw in a moment how well he
had calculated. The fellow was frightened. A mere unit commander,
and a small unit at that! To such a one, of course, Divisional Head-
quarters were something pretty near omniscient, certainly
omnipotent. Dormer watched the fellow shift in the chair without a
qualm. Let some one else be worried too. He himself had had worry
enough. The face before him darkened, smirked deferentially, and
then brightened.
“Oh, there was old Chirnside. He might know.”
“Who was he?”
“Chirnside? He was a sort of a quarter bloke. It was before we were
properly formed, and he used to look after all our stores and orderly
room business. He had been with the battery since its formation. We
were just anybody, got together anyhow, chiefly from the infantry, you
remember?”
Dormer saw the other glance at his shoulder straps and just refrain
from calling him sir, poor wretch. He took down the information and
thanked his friend. Chirnside had apparently gone to some stunt
Corps, to do something about equipment. That was all right. He
wouldn’t be killed.
Having got thus far, Dormer felt that he had done a good deal, and
went to take his leave of Colonel Burgess. But he soon found that he
was not to be allowed to get away like that. He was bidden to stay to
lunch. There was no train from Bailleul until the evening and he was
willing enough. The lunch was good. Food remained one of the
things in which one could take an interest. He did so. After lunch the
Colonel took him for a walk over the golf course. This was the
margin of land around the range, on which no cultivation was
allowed, and from which civilians were rigidly excluded, for safety’s
sake. At least during range practice, which took place every day
more or less, in the morning. After that, of course, they could be
without difficulty excluded for the remainder of the day for a different,
if not for so laudable a purpose.
The Colonel was a fine example of those qualities which have made
an island Empire what it is. Having spent most of his life from sixteen
years old at Sandhurst, then in India or Egypt, and finally at
Eastbourne, he knew better than most men how to impose those
institutions which he and his sort considered the only ones that made
civilization possible, in the most unlikely places and upon the most
disinclined of people. Dormer had seen it being done before, but
marvelled more and more. Just as the Colonel, backed of course by
a sufficient number of his like, and the right sort of faithful underling,
had introduced tennis into India, duck-shooting into Egypt, and
exclusiveness into Eastbourne, against every condition of climate or
geographical position, native religion or custom, so now he had
introduced golf into Flanders, and that in the height of a European
War.
At the topmost point of the golf course, the Colonel stopped, and
began to point out the beauties of the spot to Dormer. They were
standing on one of those low gravelly hills that separate the valley of
the Yser from that of the Lys. Northward, beyond Poperinghe, was a
yet lower and greener ridge that shelved away out of sight toward
Dunkirk. East lay Ypres, in an endless rumour of war. Southward, the
Spanish towers of Bailleul showed where the road wound towards
Lille, by Armentières. Westward, Cassel rose above those hillocks
and plains, among the most fertile in the world. But the Colonel was
most concerned with a big square old farmhouse, that lay amid its
barns and meadows, at a crook in the Bailleul road.
The Colonel’s eyes took on a brighter blue and his moustache puffed
out like fine white smoke.
“I had a lot of trouble with that fellow.” He pointed to the farm.
“Wanted to come and cultivate the range. I had to get an interpreter
to see him. Said he could grow—er—vegetables in between the
shell-holes. At last we had to order afternoon practice to keep him
off. Then he wanted this part of the land. Had to move the guns up
and make some new bunkers. Four rounds makes a bunker, y’know.
Come and have tea?”
It was very nice weather for walking, dry and clear. The Mess had
seemed tolerable at lunch, but Dormer had not been long at tea
before he recollected what he seldom forgot for more than an hour or
so, that it was not tea, one of the fixed occasions of his safe and
comfortable life. It was a meal taken under all the exigencies of a
campaign—chlorinated water, condensed milk, army chair, boots and
puttees on one, and on this particular afternoon a temperature below
zero, in an army hut.
The Colonel, of course, occupied the place of warmth next the stove.
The remainder of the Mess got as near to it as they could. The result
was, that when the Colonel began to question him as to the object of
his visit, and how he had progressed towards attaining it, everybody
necessarily heard the whole of the conversation. He now realized
that he was telling the tale for the fourth time. He had told it to
Kavanagh, then to Colonel Birchin. Now he had told it to the Officer
commanding 469 T.M.B. and finally here he was going over it again.
He resented it as a mere nuisance, but was far from seeing at that
moment the true implication of what he was doing. The matter was
not a State secret. It was an ordinary piece of routine discipline,
slightly swollen by its reactions in the French Mission, and by the
enormous size and length of the War.
If he had refused to say why he was there the Colonel would
certainly have put him down as having been sent by the Division, or
some one even higher, to spy on the activities of the School. He
didn’t want to be labelled as that, so told what he knew glibly
enough. The Colonel waxed very voluble over it, gave good advice
that was no earthly use, and dwelt at length on various aspects of
the case. The French were grasping and difficult and superstitious,
but on the other hand, drivers were a rough lot and must be kept in
check. They were always doing damage. The fellow was quite right
of course to look after his mules. The animals were in a shocking
state, etc., etc., but quite wrong, of course, to damage civilian
property, tradition of the British Army, since Wellington all the other
way, the French naturally expected proper treatment, etc., etc.
Dormer had heard it all before, from Colonel Birchin, Major
Stevenage and others, with exactly the same well-meant
condescension, and the same grotesque ineffectiveness. This old
Colonel, like all his sort, couldn’t solve the difficulty nor shut the
French up, nor appease G.H.Q.
Presently, the old man went off to the orderly room to sign the day’s
correspondence, the Mess thinned and Dormer dozed discreetly, he
had had a poor night and was desperately sleepy. Some one came
to wake him up and offered him a wash, and he was glad to move,
stiff with cold, and only anxious to pass the time until he could get
the midnight train from Bailleul. They were very hospitable, made
much of him at dinner, and he ate and drank all he could get, being
ravenous and hoping to sleep through the discomforts of the long
train journey in the dark. He was getting fairly cheerful by the time
the Colonel left the hut, and only became conscious, in the intervals
of a learned and interesting discussion of the relative theories of
wire-cutting, that a “rag” was in progress at the other end of the
room.
A gunner officer, a young and happy boy who was still in the stage of
thinking the War the greatest fun out, was holding a mock Court of
Inquiry. Gradually, the “rag” got the better of the argument and
Dormer found himself being addressed as “Gentlemen of the jury.” A
target frame was brought in by some one to act as a witness-box,
but the gunner genius who presided, soon had it erected into a sort
of Punch and Judy Proscenium. Then only did it dawn on Dormer
that the play was not Punch and Judy. It was the Mayor of
Hondebecq being derided by the troops, with a Scotch officer in a kilt
impersonating Madeleine Vanderlynden, and receiving with the
greatest equanimity, various suggestions that ranged from the feebly
funny to the strongly obscene. O.C. 469 T.M.B. found a willing
column formed behind him which he had to lead round the table, an
infantryman brought a wastepaper basket to make the Mayor’s top
hat, and in the midst of other improvisations, Dormer discovered the
gunner standing in front of him with a mock salute.
“Do you mind coming out of the Jury and taking your proper part?”
It was cheek, of course, but Dormer was not wearing red tabs, and
beside, what was the use of standing on one’s dignity. He asked:
“What part do I play?”
“You’re Jack Ketch. You come on in the fourth Act, and land Nobby
one on the nob!”
“I see. What are you?”
“Me? I’m the Devil. Watch me devilling,” and with a long map-roller
he caught the players in turn resounding cracks upon their several
heads.
They turned on him with common consent, and in the resulting
struggle, the table broke and subsided with the whole company in an
ignominious mass. The dust rose between the grey canvas-covered
walls and the tin suspension lamp rocked like that of a ship at sea.
Everybody picked themselves up, slightly sobered, and began to
discuss how to get the damage repaired before the Colonel saw it in
the morning.
O.C. 469 T.M.B. stood at Dormer’s elbow:
“We’ve just got time to catch your train.”
“Come on.” Dormer had no intention of being marooned in this place
another day. Outside a cycle and side-car stood panting. Dormer did
wonder as they whizzed down the rutted road how long such a
vehicle had been upon the strength of a Trench Mortar School, but
after all, could you blame fellows? They were existing under War
conditions, what more could one ask?

He woke to the slow jolting of the train as it slowed up in smoky

twilight at Boulogne. He bought some food, and sitting with it in his
hands and his thermos between his knees, he watched the grey
Picard day strengthen over those endless camps and hospitals,
dumps and training grounds.
He was retracing his steps of the day before, but he was a step
farther on. As he looked at the hundreds of thousands of khaki-clad
figures, he realized something of what he had to do. With no name
or number he had to find one of them, who could be proved to have
been at a certain place a year ago. He didn’t want to, but if he didn’t,
would he ever get rid of the business?
The “rag” of the previous evening stuck in his head. How true it was.
The man who did the thing was “Nobby” with the number 6494 that
was beginning to be folk-lore. Of course he was. He was any or
every soldier. Madeleine Vanderlynden was the heroine. O.C. 469
T.M.B. was the hero. The Mayor of Hondebecq was the comic relief,
and he, Dormer, was the villain. He was indeed Jack Ketch, the
spoiler of the fun, the impotent figure-head of detested “Justice,” or
“Law and Order.” And finally, as in all properly conducted Punch and
Judy shows, the Devil came and took the lot. What had Dendrecourt
said: “The Devil had taken the whole generation.” Well, it was all in
the play. And when he realized this, as he slid on from Étaples down
to Abbeville, he began to feel it was not he who was pursuing some
unknown soldier in all that nation-in-arms that had grown from the
British Expeditionary Force, but the Army—no, the War—that was
pursuing him.
When he got out at Doullens, and scrounged a lift from a passing
car, he found himself looking at the driver, at the endless transport
on either side of the road, at the sentry on guard over the parked
heavies in the yard of the jam factory, at the military policeman at the
cross-roads. One or other of all these hundreds of thousands knew
all about the beastly business that was engaging more and more of
his mind. One or other of them could point to the man who was
wanted.
He found himself furtively examining their faces, prepared for covert
ridicule and suspicion, open ignorance or stupidity. He had, by now,
travelled a long way from the first feelings he had about the affair,
when he had thought of the perpetrator of the damage at
Vanderlynden’s as a poor devil to be screened if possible. He
wouldn’t screen him now. This was the effect of the new possibility
that had arisen. He, Dormer, did not intend to be ridiculous.
On reaching the Head-quarters of the Division, he found the War in
full progress. That is to say, every one was standing about, waiting to
do something. Dormer had long discovered that this was war.
Enlisting as he had done at the outbreak of hostilities, with no actual
experience of what such a set of conditions could possibly be like, he
had then assumed that he was in for a brief and bitter period of
physical discomfort and danger, culminating quite possibly in death,
but quite certainly in a decisive victory for the Allies within a few
months. He had graduated in long pedestrian progress of Home
Training, always expecting it to cease one fine morning. It did. He
and others were ordered to France. With incredible slowness and
difficulty they found the battalion to which they were posted. Now for
it, he had thought, and soon found himself involved in a routine,
dirtier and more dangerous, but as unmistakably a routine as that in
which he had been involved at home.
He actually distinguished himself at it, by his thoroughness and care,
and came to be the person to whom jobs were given! Thus had he
eventually, after a twelvemonth, found another false end to the
endless waiting. He was sent to help the Q. office of Divisional Staff.
He had felt himself to be of considerable importance, a person who
really was winning the War. But in a few weeks he was as disabused
as ever. It was only the same thing. Clerking in uniform, with no
definite hours, a few privileges of food and housing, but no nearer
sight of the end of it. The Somme had found him bitterly
disillusioned. And yet even now, after being two days away from the
Head-quarters where his lot was cast, he was dumbfounded afresh
to find everything going on just as he had left it.
They were all waiting now for orders to go into a back area and be
trained. For, as sure as the snowdrop appeared, there sprang up in
the hearts of men a pathetic eternal hopefulness. Perhaps nothing
more than a vernal effusion, yet there it was, and as Dormer
reported to Colonel Birchin, in came the messenger they had all
been expecting, ordering them, not forward into the line, but
backward to Authun, for training. It was some time before he could
get attention, and when he did, it seemed both to him and to the
Colonel that the affair had lessened in importance.
“You’ve asked 3rd Eccleton to give you the posting of this
Chirnside?”
“Yessir!”
“Very well. That’s all you can do for the moment. Now I want you to
see that everything is cleared up in the three Infantry Brigade camps,
and don’t let us have the sort of chits afterwards that we got at
Lumbres, etc.”
So the Vanderlynden affair receded into the background, and
Dormer found before his eyes once more that everlasting mud-
coloured procession, men, men, limbers, cookers, men, lorries,
guns, limbers, men.
He looked at it this time with different eyes. His Division was one-
fiftieth part of the British Army in France. It took over a day to get on
the move, it occupied miles of road, absorbed train-loads of supplies,
and would take two days to go thirty miles. The whole affair was so
huge, that the individual man was reduced and reduced in
importance until he went clean out of sight. This fellow he was
pursuing, or Chirnside, or anyone who could have given any useful
information about the Vanderlynden claim, might be in any one of
those cigarette-smoking, slow-moving columns, on any of those
springless vehicles, or beside any of those mules.
He gazed at the faces of the men as they streamed past him, every
county badge on their caps, every dialect known to England on their
lips, probably the best natured and easiest to manage of any of the
dozen or so national armies engaged in the War. He was realizing
deeply the difficulty of discovering that particular “Nobby” who had
broken the front of the shrine at Vanderlynden’s. It was just the thing
any of them would do. How many times had he noticed their curious
tenderness for uncouth animals, stray dogs or cats, even moles or
hedgehogs, and above all the brazen, malevolent army mule. He
was no fancier of any sort of beast, and the mule as used in France
he had long realized to have two virtues and two only—cheapness
and durability. You couldn’t kill them, but if you did, it was easy to get
more. He had been, for a long while now, a harassed officer, busy
shifting quantities of war material, human, animal, or inanimate, from
one place to another, and had come to regard mules as so much
movable war stores. Added to the fact that he was no fancier, this
had prevented him from feeling any affection for the motive power of
first-line transport. But he was conscious enough that it was not so
with the men—the “other ranks” as they were denominated in all
those innumerable parade states and nominal rolls with which he
spent his days in dealing.
No, what the fellow had done was what most drivers would do. That
queer feeling about animals was the primary cause of the whole
affair. Then, balancing it, was the natural carelessness about such
an object as a shrine—this same brown-clothed nation that defiled
before him, he knew them well. As a churchwarden, he knew that not
ten per cent of them went inside a place of worship more than three
or four times in the whole of their lives. Baptism for some, marriage
for a good proportion, an occasional assistance at the first or last rite
of some relative, finally, the cemetery chapel, that was the extent of
their church-going.
A small number, chiefly from the North or from Ireland, might be
Catholics, but also from the north of Ireland was an equal number of
violent anti-Catholics, and it was to this latter section that he judged
the perpetrator of the outrage to belong. No, they would see nothing,
or at best something to despise, in that little memorial altar, hardly
more than an enlarged tombstone, in the corner of a Flemish
pasture. It was strange if not detestable, it was foreign; they never
saw their own gravestones, seldom those of any relative. He
sympathized with them in that ultra-English sentimentality, that
cannot bear to admit frankly the frail briefness of human life. And so
the thing had happened, any of them might have done it, most of
them would do it, under similar circumstances.
The tail of the last column wound out of B camp, the N.C.O. he took
with him on these occasions was reporting all clear, and might he
hand over to the advance party of the incoming Division. Dormer
gave him exact orders as to what to hand over and obtain a
signature for, and where to find him next, for he did not believe in
allowing an N.C.O. any scope for imagination, if by any possibility
such a faculty might have survived in him.
The weather had broken, and he jogged along in the mud to C camp
and found it already vacated, but no advance party ready to take
over, and resigned himself to the usual wait. He waited and he
waited. Of course, he wasn’t absolutely forced to do so. He might
have left his N.C.O. and party to hand over. He might have cleared
them off and left the incoming Division to shift for itself. That had
been done many a time in his experience. How often, as a platoon
commander, had he marched and marched, glancing over his
shoulder at tired men only too ready to drop out, marched and
marched until at length by map square and horse sense, and general
oh-let’s-get-in-here-and-keep-any-one-else-out, he had found such a
camp, a few tents subsiding in the mud, a desolate hut or two,
abandoned and unswept, places which disgusted him more than any
mere trench or dug-out, because they were places that people had
lived in and left unclean.
He had never experienced such a thing before he came into the
army. His nice middle-class upbringing had never allowed him to
suspect that such places existed. And now that he was Captain
Dormer, attached H.Q. Nth Division, he endeavoured to see that they
did not. So he hung about intending to see the thing done properly.
He got no encouragement. He knew that when he got back to the
Division Colonel Birchin would simply find him something else to do,
and the fact that no complaints followed them, and that the incoming
Division had a better time than they would otherwise have had,
would be swallowed up in the hasty expedience of the War. Still, he
did it, because he liked to feel that the job was being properly done.
To this he had been brought up, and he was not going to change in
war-time.
As he hung about the empty hut, he had plenty of time for reflection.
His feet were cold. When would he get leave? What a nuisance if
these d——d people who were relieving him didn’t turn up until it
was dark. The February day was waning. Ah, here they were. He
roused himself from the despondent quiescence of a moment ago,
into a crisp authoritative person from Divisional Head-quarters.
Never was a camp handed over more promptly. He let his N.C.O.
and men rattle off in the limber they had provided themselves with.
He waited for a car. There was bound to be no difficulty in getting a
lift into Doullens, and if he did not find one immediately there, he
would soon get a railway voucher. As he stood in the gathering dusk
his ruminations went on. If it were not for the War, he would be going
home to tea, real proper tea, no chlorine in the water, milk out of a
cow, not out of a tin, tea-cakes, some small savoury if he fancied it,
his sister with whom he lived believing in the doctrine. “Feed the
beast!” After that, he would have the choice of the Choral Society or
generally some lecture or other. At times there was something on at
the local theatre, at others he had Vestry or Trust meetings to attend.
Such employments made a fitting termination to a day which he had
always felt to be well filled at a good, safe, and continuous job, that
would go on until he reached a certain age, when it culminated in a
pension, a job that was worth doing, that he could do, and that the
public appreciated.
Instead of all this, here he was, standing beside a desolate Picard
highway, hoping that he might find his allotted hut in time to wash in
a canvas bucket, eat at a trestle table and finally, having taken as
much whisky as would wash down the food, and help him to become
superior to his immediate circumstances, to play bridge with those
other people whom he was polite to, because he had to be, but
towards whom he felt no great inclination, and whom he would drop
without a sigh the moment he was demobbed.
Ah! Here was the sort of car. He stepped into the road and held up
his hand. The car stopped with a crunch and a splutter. They were
going as far as Bernaville. That would suit him well. He jammed into
the back seat between two other people, mackintoshed and goggled,
and the car got under way again. Then he made the usual remarks
and answered the usual inquiries, taking care to admit nothing, and
to let his Divisional weight be felt. Finally he got down at a place
where he could get a lorry lift to H.Q.
His servant had laid out some clean clothes in the Armstrong hut.
For that he was thankful.

The Division now proceeded to train for the coming offensive.

“Cultivators” had been warned off a large tract of land, which was
partly devoted to “Schools,” at which were taught various superlative
methods of slaughter, partly to full-dress manœuvres over country
which resembled in physical features the portion of the German line
to be attacked. The natural result was that if any area larger than a
tennis court was left vacant, the “cultivators” rushed back and began
to cultivate it. Hence arose disputes between the peasants and the
troops, and the General commanding the 556 Brigade had his bridle
seized by an infuriated female who wanted to know, in English, why
he couldn’t keep off her beans.
The matter was reported to G. office of Divisional Head-quarters,
who told the A.P.M., who told the French Liaison Officer, who told an
Interpreter, who told the “cultivators” to keep off the ground
altogether, whether it were in use or not. In revenge for which
conduct the “cultivators” fetched the nearest gendarme, and had the
Interpreter arrested as a spy, and tilled the land so that the C.R.A.
Corps couldn’t find the dummy trenches he was supposed to have
been bombarding, because they had all been filled up and planted.
So that he reported the matter to Corps, who sat heavily on
Divisional Head-quarters, G. office, for not keeping the ground clear.
The A.P.M. and French Mission having been tried and failed, Q.
office had the brilliant idea of “lending” Dormer to G., upon the well-
tried army principle that a man does a job, not because he is fit, but
because he is not required elsewhere.
So Dormer patrolled the manœuvre area, mounted on the horses of
senior officers, who were too busy to ride them. He did not object. It
kept him from thinking. He was, by now, well acquainted with
manœuvre areas, from near Dunkirk to below Amiens. It was the
same old tale. First the various schools. The Bombing Instructor
began with a short speech:
“It is now generally admitted that the hand-grenade is the weapon
with which you are going to win this War!”
The following day in the bayonet-fighting pitch, the instructor in that
arm began:
“This is the most historic weapon in the hands of the British Army. It
still remains the decisive factor on the field!”
And the day following, on the range, the Musketry expert informed
the squad:
“Statistics show that the largest proportion of the casualties inflicted
on the enemy are bullet wounds.”
Dormer was not unkind enough to interrupt. He did not blame those
instructors. Having, by desperately hard work, obtained their
positions, they were naturally anxious to keep them. But his new
insight and preoccupation, born of the Vanderlynden affair, made him
study the faces of the listening squads intently. No psychologist, he
could make nothing of them. Blank, utterly bored in the main, here
and there he caught sight of one horrified, or one peculiarly
vindictive. The main impression he received was of the sheer
number of those passive listening faces, compared with the fewness
of the N.C.O.’s and instructors. So long as they were quiescent, all
very well. But if that dormant mass came to life, some day, if that
immense immobility once moved, got under way, where would it
stop?
It was the same with the full-dress manœuvres. Dormer had never
been taken up with the honour and glory of war. He was going
through with this soldiering, which had been rather thrust upon him,
for the plain reason that he wanted to get to the end of it. He
considered that he had contracted to defeat the Germans just as, if
he had been an iron firm, he might have contracted to make girders,
or if he had been the Post Office, he would have contracted to
deliver letters. And now that he watched the final processes of the
job, he became more than ever aware that the goods would not be
up to sample. How could they be? Here were men being taught to
attack, with the principal condition of attack wanting. The principal
condition of an attack was that the other fellow hit you back as hard
as he could. Here there was no one hitting you back. He wondered if
all these silent and extraordinarily docile human beings in the ranks
would see that some day. He looked keenly at their faces. Mask,
mask; mule-like stupidity, too simple to need a mask; mask and
mask again; one with blank horror written on it, one with a devilish
lurking cunning, as if there might be something to be made out of all
this some day; then more masks.
He wondered, but he did not wonder too unhappily. He was
beginning to feel very well. Away from the line, the hours were more
regular, the food somewhat better, the horse exercise did him good.
There was another reason which Dormer, no reader of poetry, failed
altogether to appreciate. Spring had come. Furtive and slow, the
Spring of the shores of the grey North Sea came stealing across
those hard-featured downs and rich valleys. Tree and bush,
blackened and wind-bitten, were suddenly visited with a slender
effusion of green, almost transparent, looking stiff and ill-assorted, as
though Nature were experimenting.
Along all those ways where men marched to slaughter, the magic
footsteps preceded them, as though they had been engaged in some
beneficent work, or some joyful festival. To Dormer the moment was
poignant but for other reasons. It was the moment when the
culminating point of the Football Season marked the impending truce
in that game. He did not play cricket. It was too expensive and too
slow. In summer he sailed a small boat on his native waters. Instead,
he was going to be involved in another offensive.
The Division left the manœuvre area and went up through Arras. Of
course, the weather broke on the very eve of the “show.” That had
become almost a matter of routine, like the shelling, the stupendous
activities of railways and aeroplanes, the everlasting telephoning.
Again Dormer saw going past him endlessly, that stream of men and
mules, mules and men, sandwiched in between every conceivable
vehicle, from tanks to stretchers. When, after what communiqués
described as “continued progress” and “considerable artillery
activity,” it had to be admitted that this offensive, like all other
offensives, had come to a dead stop, Dormer was not astonished.
For one thing, he knew, what no communiqué told, what had stopped
it. The Germans? No, capable and determined as they were. The
thing which stopped it was Mud. Nothing else. The shell-fire had
been so perfect, that the equally perfect and necessarily complicated
preparations for going a few hundred yards farther, could not be
made. The first advance was miles. The next hundreds of yards. The
next a hundred yards.
Then the Bosche got some back. Then everything had to be moved
up to make quite certain of advancing miles again. And it couldn’t be
done. There was no longer sufficient firm ground to bear the tons of
iron that alone could help frail humanity to surmount such efforts.
For another thing, he could not be astonished. For weeks he worked
eighteen hours a day, ate what he could, slept when he couldn’t help
it. Astonishment was no longer in him. But one bit of his mind
remained, untrammelled by the great machine of which he formed an
insignificant part. It was a bit of subconsciousness that was always
listening for something, just as, under long-range, heavy-calibre
bombardment, one listened and listened for the next shell. But the
particular detached bit of Dormer was listening and listening for
something else. Watching and watching, too, all those faces under
tin helmets, and just above gas-mask wallets, all so alike under
those conditions that it seemed as difficult to pick out one man from
another as one mule from another. Listening for one man to say “I