BISHOP JOSEPH “EVERY THING IS WHAT

IT IS AND NOT ANOTHER THING” BUTLER

Henry Thoreau had in his personal library a volume published in1830 by the Boston firm Hilliard and Brown, Bishop JosephButler’s THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION, NATURAL AND REVEALED, TO THE CONSTITUTIONAND COURSE OF NATURE (evidently this had been required readingduring his course of instruction at Harvard College).

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Bishop Joseph Butler

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May 18, Sunday (Old Style): Joseph Butler was born at Wantage, in the English countryside that is now called Oxfordshire, a son of a Presbyterian linen-draper. For his education he would be sent to Samuel Jones’s dissenting academy, which was first located at Gloucester and then at Tewkesbury.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

1692

Bishop Joseph Butler “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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Joseph Butler, casting his vote for the established Church of England after obtaining the most reluctant consent of his dissenting father, matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford (eventually this would prove to have been a wise choice when he would be made rector at Stanhope, a rich living).

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

1714

ORIEL COLLEGE

Bishop Joseph Butler “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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Oxford

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Joseph Butler’s SEVERAL LETTERS TO THE REVEREND DR. CLARKE. In an exchange of letters with the Reverend Samuel Clarke, Butler had pointed out that there were flaws in his reasoning in his recently published proofs a priori, of the divine omnipresence and unity of a “necessarily existent being.”

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

1716

Bishop Joseph Butler “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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Joseph Butler became a priest of the Church of England. He would preach at Rolls Chapel.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD?— NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES.

LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

1718

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Bishop Joseph Butler

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The Reverend Joseph Butler’s FIFTEEN SERMONS PREACHED AT THE ROLLS CHAPEL.

Having insulted a powerful young nobleman, Voltaire had the options of imprisonment or exile. Until 1729 he would reside in England. While in England Voltaire would be attracted to the philosophy of John Locke and ideas of the great natural philosopher (that is to say, scientist) Sir Isaac Newton.

Here’s a Voltaire remark cited both by Emerson and byNietzsche:

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

1726

Croyez-moi, mon ami, l’erreur aussi a son mérite.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Bishop Joseph Butler

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The Reverend Joseph Butler’s ANALOGY OF RELIGION, NATURAL AND REVEALED demonstrated that since there was but one author both of the course of nature and of the Bible as revealed sacred literature –God himself– there could not conceivably ever be any actual disagreement between these two. It was as safe to study nature as to study the Bible! One might well illuminate the true meaning of the other! They are in fact complementary! One’s natural desires usually tend to reinforce one’s moral impulses and can function as an aid to conscience (he got this out of Arrian’s DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS). On the advice of Lancelot Blackburne, the Reverend Butler was made head chaplain (clerk of the closet) to King George II’s wife, Queen Caroline.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MINDYOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

1736

Bishop Joseph Butler “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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The Reverend Joseph Butler was appointed bishop of Bristol.

1738

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Bishop Joseph Butler’s SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE INCORPORATED SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS.

1739

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Bishop Joseph Butler’s A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD-MAYOR.

1740

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Bishop Joseph Butler’s A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

1741

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Bishop Joseph Butler’s A SERMON PREACHED IN THE PARISH-CHURCH OF CHRIST-CHURCH, LONDON.

1745

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Thomas Herring became Archbishop of Canterbury (there is a story that Bishop Joseph Butler had declined to be nominated).

1747

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Bishop Joseph Butler’s A SERMON, PREACHED BEFORE HIS GRACE CHARLES DUKE OF RICHMOND, LENOX, AND AUBIGNY, PRESIDENT.

1748

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Bishop Joseph Butler’s SIX SERMONS PREACHED UPON PUBLICK OCCASIONS.

1749

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Bishop Joseph Butler was appointed bishop of Durham.

1750

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Bishop Joseph Butler’s A CHARGE DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY AT THE PRIMARY VISITATION OF THE DIOCESE OF DURHAM.

1751

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June 16: Joseph Butler died in Bath, Somerset, England (in the calendars of the Anglican communion, therefore, his feast day is June 16th). The remains would be interred in Bristol Cathedral, of which he had once been the prelate.

1752

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William Paley was elected a fellow and tutor of Christ College, Cambridge, where he would become an intimate friend of John Law and would lecture on metaphysics, morals, the Greek Testament, John Locke, the Reverend Dr. Samuel Clarke’s A DISCOURSE CONCERNING THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD, THE OBLIGATIONS OF NATURAL RELIGION, AND THE TRUTH AND CERTAINLY OF THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION, IN OPPOSITION TO THOMAS HOBBES, SPINOZA, THE AUTHOR OF THE ORACLES OF REASON, AND OTHER DENIERS OF NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION, and Bishop Joseph Butler’s ANALOGY OF RELIGION, NATURAL AND REVEALED. In his lectures on divinity he would take the position he would maintain later in his MORAL PHILOSOPHY, that the 39 Articles of English history was nothing more than a politicolegal document inasmuch as by parsing these 39 thingies one might obtain some 240 distinct propositions some of which were mutually inconsistent.

1766

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By this point the influence of the “Common Sense” school of Scottish philosophy, supremely universal and scientific and therefore beyond reproach as a tool for the generation of the requisite nonsectarian citizenry, was overwhelming in the PCness of American universities. By common-sensical was meant universally self-evident, which left the previous Humean skepticism out in the cold.1

1830

1. The revealed texts at the time were such as Bishop Joseph Butler’s THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION, NATURAL AND REVEALED (1736) and the Reverend William Paley’s NATURAL THEOLOGY: OR, EVIDENCES OF THE EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY, COLLECTED FROM THE APPEARANCES OF NATURE (1802). For a late and clear statement of this position, see the work of Thomas Reid (1710-1796). For a last gasp, refer to Mark Hopkins’s EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY (1846).

THOMAS REID

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Francis Joseph Grund’s FIRST LESSONS IN PLANE GEOMETRY. TOGETHER WITH AN APPLICATION OF THEM TO THE SOLUTION OF PROBLEMS. SIMPLIFIED FOR BOYS NOT VERSED IN ALGEBRA. BY FRANCIS J. GRUND, TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS, AT CHAUNCY HALL-SCHOOL (Boston: Published by Carter and Hendee).

Henry Thoreau would be found to have in his personal library a volume published in this year by the Boston firm of Hilliard and Brown, THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION, NATURAL AND REVEALED, TO THE CONSTITUTION AND COURSE OF NATURE (evidently this had been required reading at Harvard College). What I can offer you, courtesy of Google Books, is an edition of Bishop Joseph Butler’s works as one volume, that would be published in England in 1850.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

FIRST PLANE GEOMETRY

BISHOP JOSEPH BUTLER

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Bishop Joseph Butler

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March: Edgeley Woodman Todd’s “Philosophical Ideas at Harvard College, 1817-1837” (The New England Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 63-90).

1943

EDGELY WOODMAN TODDJOHN LOCKE

DUG. STEWART

THOS. BROWN

ABERCROMBIE

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March: Joseph J. Kwiat’s “Thoreau’s Philosophical Apprenticeship” (The New England Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 51-69).

Professor Ernest Erwin Leisy’s “Thoreau and Ossian” (The New England Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1 (March 1945), pp. 96-98), points out that rather than using James Macpherson’s version of the Ossianic poems, Thoreau relied instead on Patrick MacGregor’s 1841 blank verse retranslation of the material, THE GENUINE REMAINS OF OSSIAN. Professor Leisy comments gratuitously, however, that “Thoreau in his quotations from Ossian exercised his well-known perversity for selections which suited his particular needs.”2

Henry Thoreau did not ever make use of Macpherson’s fraudulent materials. The quote in WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS, that expresses the kinship of the wild to his nature, is traceable to MacGregor’s version of Croma, 193. The quote that appears in Thoreau’s “Night and Moonlight” is traceable to Ossian’s address to the sun from page 519 of MacGregor’s version of Trathal, beginning “Where has darkness its dwelling,” to illustrate how the light of day reflects “an inward dawn.” The quotes in “Friday” of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS also are traceable to the Macgregor version:

• Ca-Lodin, I, 125: “Thou glidest away”• Ca-Lodin, II, 132: “With murmurs loud”• Ca-Lodin, II, 134: “His soul departed”• Ca-Lodin, II, 137: “Whence have sprung”• Ca-Lodin, III, 138: “The wrathful kings”• Carric, 167: “Strangers build a tower”• Garon, 176: “A thousand orators inclined”• Garon, 176: “How beauteous...”• Oinamoru, I, 182: “I straightway seize”• Croma, 195: “My eyes have failed”• Fingal, III, 252: “— dragging his spear”• Fingal, V, 280: “The weak will find”• Fingal, VI, 292: “Thy mother shall find”• Timora, III, 343: “He strode away”• Timora, VI, 391: “Mounds will appear”

1945

2. Uh, selecting quotations that suit your particular needs is perverse? Well, yes, “cherry-picking” the quotations that support your point while disregarding quotations that would refute your point, that would be properly describable as tendentious — but I don’t consider that Thoreau in quoting from Ossian had any particular agenda to prove any particular point. His use of these materials was merely evocative.

However, this 3-page article was published in 1945, back in the day when it was considered seemly for academics to mention Thoreau with a subtle sneer — so we may be able to put down this remark about Thoreau’s “well-known perversity” as merely Professor Leisy’s obeisance to the popular trend.

JOSEPH J. KWIATJOHN LOCKE

DUG. STEWART

THOS. BROWN

ABERCROMBIE

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“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at <Kouroo@kouroo.info>.

Prepared: April 28, 2014

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Bishop Joseph Butler

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.

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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored inthe contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed to punch that button again and recompile the chronology —but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary“writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place requests with <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. Arrgh.