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IINTRODUCTION: THE FIVE KEY TERMS

OF DRAMATISM

WHAT is involved, when we say what people are doing and why theyare doing it? An answer to that question is the subject of this book.The book is concerned with the basic forms of thought which, in accordance with the nature of the world as all men necessarily experienceit, are exemplified in the attributing of motives. These forms ofthought can be embodied profoundly or trivially, truthfully or falsely.They are equally present in systematically elaborated metaphysicalstructures, in legal judgments, in poetry and fiction, in political andscientific works, in news and in bits of gossip offered at random.

We shall use five terms as generating principle of our investigation.They are: Act, Scene, Agent, Agency, Purpose. In a rounded state-ment about motives, you must have some word that names the act(names what took place, in thought or deed), and another that namesthe scene (the background of the act, the situation in which it oc-curred); also, you must indicate what person or kind of person (agent)performed the act, what means or instruments he used (agency), andthe purpose. Men may violently disagree about the purposes behind agiven act, or about the character of the person who did it, or how hedid it, or in what kind of situation he acted; or they may even insistupon totally different words to name the act itself. But be that as itmay, any complete statement about motives will offer some kind of answers to these five questions: what was done (act), when or where itwas done (scene), who did it (agent), how he did it (agency), andwhy (purpose).

If you ask why, with a whole world of terms to choose from, we se-lect these rather than some others as basic, our book itself is offered asthe answer. For, to explain our position, we shall show how it can beapplied.

Act, Scene, Agent, Agency, Purpose. Although, over the centuries,men have shown great enterprise and inventiveness in pondering mat-ters of human motivation, one can simplify the subject by this pentadof key terms, which are understandable almost at a glance. They need

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J(:vi INTR.ODUCTIONnever to be abandoned, since all statements that assign motives can beshown to arise out of them and to terminate in them. By examiningthem quizzically, we can range far; yet the terms are always there forus to reclaim, in their everyday simplicity, their almost miraculous easiness, thus enabling us constantly to begin afresh. When they mightbecome difficult, when we can hardly see them, through having staredat them too intensely, we can of a sudden relax, to look at them as wealways have, lightly, glancingly. And having reassured ourselves, wecan start out again, once more daring to let them look strange and diffi-cult for a time.

In an exhibit of photographic murals (Road to Victory) at the Museum of Modern Art, there was an aerial photograph of two launches,proceeding side by side on a tranquil sea. Their wakes crossed andrecrossed each other in almost an infinity of lines. Yet despite the intricateness of this tracery, the picture gave an impression of great simplicity, because one could quickly perceive the generating principle ofits design. Such, ideally, is the case with our pentad of terms, used asgenerating principle. It should provide us with a kind of simplicitythat can be deVeloped into considerable complexity, and yet can be discovered beneath its elaborations.We want to inquire into the purely internal relationships which the

live terms bear to one another, considering their possibilities of transformation, their range of permutations and combina tions-and then tosee how these various resources figure in actual statements about human motives. Strictly speaking, we mean by a Grammar of motives1a concern with the terms alone, without reference to the ways in whichtheir potentialities have been or can be utilized in actual statementsabout motives. Speaking broadly we could designate as "philosophies"any statements in which these grammatical resources are specifically \utilized. Random or unsystematic statements about motives could b..:Jconsidered as fragments of a philosophy.

One could think of the Grammatical resources as principles, and ofthe various philosophies as casuistries which apply these principles totemporal situations. For instance, we may examine the term Scenesimply as a blanket term for the concept of background or setting ingeneral, a name for any situation in which acts or agents are placed. Inour usage, this concern would be "grammatical ." And we move intomatters of "philosophy" when we note that one thinker uses "God" as

pINTR.ODUCTION XVll

his term for the ultimate ground or scene of human action, anotherth o d ". ""h'"'' ofses "nature," a 11' uses enVIronment, or Istory, or means

production," etc. And whereas a statement about the grammaticalprinciples of motivation might lay claim to a universal validity, or complete certainty, the choice of anyone philosophic idiom embodyingthese principles is much more open to question. Even before we knowwhat act is to be discussed, we can say with confidence that a roundeddiscussion of its motives must contain a reference to some kind of background. But since each philosophic idiom will c h a r a c t e r i z ~ this background differently, there will remain the question as to whIch characterization is "right" or "more nearly right."

It is even likely that, whereas one philosophic idiom offers the bestcalculus for one case, another case answers best to a totally differentcalculus. However, we should not think of "cases" in too restricted asense. Although, from the standpoint of the grammatical principlesinherent in the internal relationships prevailing among our five terms,any given philosophy is to be considered as a casuistry, even a culturalsituation extending over centuries is a "case," and would probably require a much different philosophic idiom as its temporizing c ~ l c u l ~ s ofmotives than would be required in the case of other cultural SItuations.

In our original plans for this project, we had no notion of writing a"Grammar" at all. We began with a theory of comedy, applied to atreatise on human relations. Feeling that competitive ambition is adrastically over-developed motive in the modern world, we thought thismotive might be transcended if men devoted themselves not so m u c ~ to"excoriating" it as to "appreciating" it. Accordingly, we began takmgnotes on the foibles and antics of what we tended to think of as "theHuman Barnyard."We sought to formulate the basic stratagems which people employ,in endless variations, and consciously or unconsciously, for the outwitting or cajoling of one another. Since all these devices had a "youand me" quality about them, being "addressed" to some person or tosome advantage, we classed them broadly u?der the heading of .a Rhetoric. There were other notes, concerned WIth modes of expreSSIOn andappeal in the fine arts, and with purely psychological or psychoanalyticmatters. These we classed under the heading of Symbolic.

We had made still further observations, which we at first strove uneasily to class under one or the other of these two heads, but which we

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xviii IN TRO D U CTIO Nwere eventually able to distinguish as the makings of a Grammar. Forwe found in the course of writing that our project needed a groundingin formal considerations logically prior to both the rhetorical and thepsychological. And as we proceeded with this introductory groundwork, it kept extending its claims until it had spun itself from an intended few hundred words into nearly 200,000, of which the presentbook is revision and abridgement.

Theological, metaphysical, and juridical doctrines offer the best illustration of the concerns we place under the heading of Grammar; theforms and methods of art best illustrate the concerns of Symbolic; andthe ideal material to reveal the nature of Rhetoric comprises observations on parliamentary and diplomatic devices, editorial bias, salesmethods and incidents of social sparring. However, the three fieldsoverlap considerably. And we shall note, in passing, how the Rhetoricand the Symbolic hover about the edges of our central theme, theGrammar.

A perfectionist might seek to evolve terms free of ambiguity and inconsistency (as wi th the terministic ideals of symbolic logic and logicalpositivism). But we have a different purpose in view, one that probably retains traces of its "comic" origin. We take it for granted that,insofar as men cannot themselves create the universe, there must remain something essentially enigmatic about the problem of motives, andthat this underlying enigma will manifest itself in inevitable ambiguitiesand inconsistencies among the terms for motives. Accordingly, whatwe want is not terms that avoid ambiguity, but terms that clearly revealth e strategic spots at which ambiguities necessarily arise.

Occasionally, you will encounter a writer who seems to get great exaltation out of proving, with an air of much relentlessness, that some philosophic term or other has been used to cover a variety of meanings, andwho would smash and abolish this idol. As a general rule, when aterm is singled out for such harsh treatment, if you look closer you willfind that it happens to be associated with some cultural or politicaltrend from which the writer would dissociate himself; hence there isa certain notable ambiguity in this very charge of ambiguity, since hepresumably feels purged and strengthened by bringing to bear uponthis particular term a kind of attack that could, with as much justice, bebrought to bear upon any other term (or "title") in philosophy, including of course the alternative term, or "title," that the writer would

INTRODUCTION Xl:lCswear by. Since no two things or acts or situations are exactly alike,you cannot apply the same term b ~ t h of then: w ~ t l l o u t thereby introducing a certain margin of ambiguity, an an:'biguity gre.at as .thedifference between the two subjects that are given the Identical title.And all the more may you expect to find ambiguity in terms so "titular"as to become the marks of a philosophic school, or even several philosophic schools. Hence, instead of considering it o ~ r . task to " ~ i s p ? s e of 'any ambiguity by merely disclosing the fact that It IS an ambiguity, w.erather consider it our task to study and clarify the rC(Qurccs of amhkguity. For in the course of !!tis w o r _ ~ ~ < ~ e shall deal with many kinds_of transformatIon anOltls in the areas of ambiguity that transformations take place; in fad, without suCh areast transformation would beimpossible. Distinctions, we might say, arise out of a great c e n ~ a l moltenness, where all is merged. They have been thrown from a lIquid center to the surface, where they have congealed. Let one of thesecrusted distinctions return to its source, and in this alchemic center itmay be remade, again becoming molten liquid, and may enter intonew combinations, whereat it may be again thrown forth as a newcrust, a different distinction. So that A may become non-A. But notmerely by a leap from one state to the other. ~ t h e r , we must t a ~ e . A back into the ground of its existence, the logtcal substance that 15 Itscausal ancestor, and on to a point where it is consubstantial withnon-A' then we may return, this time emerging with non-A instead.

And'so with our five terms: certain formal interrelationships prevailamong these terms, by reason of their role as attributes of a commonground or substance. Thei r participation in a common ground makesfor transformability. At every point where the field covered by anyoneof these terms overlaps upon the field covered by any other, there is analchemic opportunity, whereby we can put one philosophy or doctrineof motivation into the alembic, make the appropriate passes, and takeout another. From the central moltenness, where all the elements arefused into one togetherness, there are thrown forth, in separate crusts,such distinctions as those between freedom and necessity, activity andpassiveness, cooperation and competition, cause and effect, mechanismand teleology.

Our term, "Agent," for instance, is a general heading that m i g ~ t , ina given case, require further subdivision, as an agent might have hiS ~ c t modified (hence partly motivated) by friends (co-agents) or enemies

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xx INTRODUCTION(counter-agents). Again, under "Agent" one could place any personalproperties that are assigned a motivational value, such as "ideas," "thewill," "fear," malice," "intuition," "the creative imagination." A portrait painter may treat the body as a property of the agent (an expressionof personality), whereas materialistic medicine would treat it as"scenic," a purely "objective material"; and from another point of viewit could be classed as an agency, a means by which one gets reports ofthe world at large. Machines are obviously instruments (that is, Agencies) ; yet in their vast accumulation they constitute the industrial scene,with its own peculiar set of motivational properties. War may betreated as an Agency, insofar as it is a means to an end; as a collectiveAct, subdivisible into many individual acts; as a Purpose, in schemesproclaiming a cult of war. For the man inducted into the army, waris a Scene, a situation that motivates the nature of his training; and inmythologies war is an Agent, or perhaps better a super-agent, in thefigure of the war god. We may think of voting as an act, and of thevoter as an agent; yet votes and voters both are hardly other than a politician's medium or agency; or from another point of view, they are apart of his scene. And insofar as a vote is cast without adequate knowledge of its consequences, one might even question whether it should beclassed as an activity at all; one might rather call it passive, or perhapssheer motion (what the behaviorists would call a Response to aStimulus).Or imagine that one were to manipulate the terms, for the imputing

of motives, in such a case as this: The hero (agent) with the help of afriend (co-agent) outwits the villain (counter-agent) by using a file(agency) that enables him to break his bonds (act) in order to escape(purpose) from the room where he has been confined (scene). Inselecting a casuistry here, we might locate the motive in the agent, aswere we to credit his escape to some trait integral to his personality,such as "love of freedom." Or we might stress the motivational forceof the scene, since nothing is surer to awaken thoughts of escape in aman than a condition of imprisonment. Or we might note the essen-tial part played by the co-agent, in assisting our hero to escape-and,with such thoughts as our point of departure, we might conclude thatthe motivations of this act should be reduced to social origins.

Or if one were given to the brand of speculative enterprise exemplified by certain Christian heretics (for instance, those who worshipped

INTRODUCTION XXI

Judas as a saint, on the grounds that his betrayal of Christ, in leadingto the Crucifixion, so brought about the opportunity for mankind'sredemption) one might locate the necessary motivational origin of theact in the counter-agent. For the hero would not have been proddedto escape if there had been no villain to imprison him. Inasmuch asthe escape could be called a "good" act, we might find in such motivational reduction to the counter-agent a compensatory transformationwhereby a bitter fountain may give forth sweet waters. In his Anti-Dii.hring Engels gives us a secular variant which no one could reasonably call outlandish or excessive:

It was slavery that first made possible the division of labour between agriculture and industry on a considerable scale, and alongwith this, the flower of the ancient world, Hellenism. Withoutslavery, no Greek state, no Greek art and science; without slavery,no Roman Empire. But without Hellenism and the Roman Empire as a basis, also no modern Europe.We should never forget that our whole economic, political andintellectual development has as its presupposition a state of things inwhich slavery was as necessary as it was universally recognized. Inthis sense we are entitled to say: Without the slavery of antiquity, nomodern socialism.

Pragmatists would probably have referred the motivation back to asource in agency. They would have noted that our hero escaped byusing an instrument, the file by which he severed his bonds; then in thissame line of thought, they would have observed that the hand holdingthe file was also an instrument; and by the same token the brain thatguided the hand would be an instrument, and so likewise the educational system that taught the methods and shaped the values involvedin the incident.True, if you reduce the terms to anyone of them, you will find thembranching out again; for no one of them is enough. Thus, Meadcalled his pragmatism a philosophy of the act. And though Deweystresses the value of "intelligence" as an instrument (agency, embodiedin "scientific method"), the other key terms in his casuistry, "experience" and "nature," would be the equivalents of act and scene respectively. We must add, however, that Dewey is given to stressing theoverlap of these two terms, rather than the respects in which they aredistinct, as he proposes to "replace the traditional separation of nature

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xxii INTRODUCTIONand experience with the idea of continuity." (The quotation is fromIntelligence and the Modern World.)

As we shall see later, it is by reason of the pliancy among our termsthat philosophic systems can pull one way and another. The marginsof overlap provide opportunities whereby a thinker can go without aleap from anyone of the terms to any of its fellows. (We have alsolikened the terms to the fingers, which in their extremities are distinctfrom one another, but merge in the palm of the hand. If you wouldgo from one finger to another without a leap, you need but trace thetendon down into the palm of the hand, and then trace a new coursealong another tendon.) Hence, no great dialectical enterprise is necessary i f you would merge the terms, reducing them even to as few asone; and then, treating this as the "essential" term, the "causal ancestor" of the lot, you can proceed in the reverse direction across themargins of overlap, "deducing" the other terms from it as its logicaldescendants.

This is the method, explicitly and in the grand style, of metaphysicswhich brings its doctrines to a head in some over-all title, a word forbeing in general, or action in general, or motion in general, or development in general, or experience in general, etc., with all its other termsdistributed about this titular term in positions leading up to it and awayfrom it. There is also an implicit kind of metaphysics, that often goesby the name of No Metaphysics, and aims at reduction not to an overall title but to some presumably underlying atomic constituent. Itsvulgar variant is to be found in techniques of "unmasking," whichwould make for progress and emancipation by applying materialisticterms to immaterial subjects ( the pat tern here being, "X is nothing butY," where X designates a higher value and Y a lower one, the highervalue being thereby reduced to the lower one).

The titular word for our own method is "dramatism," since it invitesone to consider the matter of motives in a perspective that, being developed from the analysis of drama, treats language and thought primarilyas modes of action. The method is synoptic, though not in the historical sense. A purely historical survey would require no less than a universal history of human culture; for every judgment, exhortation, oradmonition, every view of natural or supernatural reality, every intention or expectation involves assumptions about motive, or cause. Ourwork must be synoptic in a different sense: in the sense that it offers a

INTRODUCTION xxiiitem of placement, and should enable us, by the systematic manipula-sys . . " th . 1 ftion of the terms, to "generate," or "antiCIpate e varIOUS c asses 0tivational theory. And a treatment in these terms, we hope to sh?w,mo . . treduces the subject synoptically while still permIttmg us to apprecia e

its scope and complexity. .It is not our purpose to import dialectical and metaphYSIcal concernsinto a subject that might otherwise be free of them. On the c o n t r ~ y , hope to make clear the ways in which dialectical and metaphYSIcalwe ., a 1. ues necessarily figure in the subject of motIvatIOn. ur specu a-ISS . f . .tions, as we interpret them, should show that the .subJect 0 m o t l v ~ t ~ o n is a philosophic one, not ultimately to be solved m terms of empmcalscience.

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ICONTAINER AND THING CONTAINED

The Scene-Act RatioVSING "scene" in the sense of setting, or background, and "act" inthe sense of action, one could say that "the scene contains the act.nAnd using "agents" in the sense of actors, or acters, one could say that"the scene contains the agents."

It is a principle of drama that the nature of acts and agents should beconsistent with the nature of the scene. And whereas comic and grotesque works may deliberately set these elements at odds with one another, audiences make allowance for such liberty, which reaffirms thesame principle of consistency in its very violation.The nature of the scene may be conveyed primarily by suggestionsbuilt into the lines of the verbal action itself, as with the imagery in thedialogue of Elizabethan drama and with the descriptive passages ofnovels; or it may be conveyed by non-linguistic properties, as with thematerials of naturalistic stage-sets. In any case, examining first therelation between scene and act, all we need note here is the principlewhereby the scene is a fit "container" for the act, expressing in fixedproperties the same quality that the action expresses in terms of devel.opment.

Ibsen's An Enemy of the People is a good instance of the scene-actratio, since the correlations between scene and act are readily observable,beginning with the fact that this representative middle-class drama isenacted against a typical middIe.class setting. Indeed, in this workwritten at the very height of Ibsen's realistic period, we can see howreadily realism leads into symbolism. For the succession of scenes bothrealistically reflects the course of the action and symbolizes it.The first act (we are now using the word "act" in the purely techni

cal sense, to designate the major division of a play, a sense in which wecould even reverse our formula and say that "the act contains itsscenes")-the first act takes place in Dr. Stockmann's sitting room, a

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4 WAYS OF P L A C E M E N Tbackground perfectly suited to the thoroughly bourgeois story that isto unfold from these beginnings. In the course of this act, we learn ofa scene, or situation, prior to the opening of the play, but central to itsmotivation. Dr. Stockmann refers to an earlier period of withdrawal,spent alone in the far North. During his isolation, he had conceivedof his plan for the public Baths. This plan may be considered eitherrealistically or symbolically; it is the dramatist's device for materializing, or objectifying, a purely spiritual process, since the plot has to dowith pollution and purification on a moral level, which has its sceniccounterpart in the topic of the Baths.

Act II. Still in Dr. Stockmann's sitting room. Dr. Stockmann haslearned that the Baths, the vessels of purification, are themselves polluted, and that prominent business and professional men would suppress this fact for financial reasons. This opposition is epitomized inthe figure of Peter Stockmann, the Doctor's brother. The intimate,familial quality of the setting thus has its counterpart in the quality ofthe action, which involves the struggle of two social principles, the conservative and the progressive, as objectified and personalized in thestruggle of the two brothers.

Act III takes place in the editorial office of the People's Messenger, alocal newspaper in which Dr. Stockmann had hoped to publish hisevidence that the water supply was contaminated. The action takeson a more forensic reference, in keeping with the nature of the place.In this Act we have the peripety of the drama, as Dr. Stockmann's ex-pectations are reversed. For he learns that the personal and financialinfluence of his enemies prevents the publication of the article. Thisturn of the plot has its scenic replica in mimicry involving Peter Stockmann's hat and stick, properties that symbolize his identity as mayor.In false hope of victory, Dr. Stockmann had taken them up, andstrutted about burlesquing his brother. But when Dr. Stockmannlearns that the editor, in response to the pressure of the conservatives,will not publish the article, it is Peter Stockmann's turn to exult. Thisreversal of the action is materialized (made scenic) thus:

PETER STOCKMANN. My hat and stick, if you please. (Dr. Stockmann takes off the hat and lays it on the table with the stick. PeterStockmann takes them up.) Your authority as mayor has come toan untimely end.

CONTAINER A N D THING CONTAINED sIn the next Act Dr. Stockmann does contrive to lay his case before

a public tribunal ?f a sort: a ~ ~ e r i n g of f e l l o w - t ~ w n s m e n , . a s s e m b l e ~ in "a big old-fashIoned room, il l the house of a friend. HIS appeal ISunsuccessful; his neighbors vote overwhelmingly against him, and thescene ends in turbulence. As regards the scene-act ratio, note that thesemi-public, semi-intimate setting reflects perfectly the quality of Dr.Stockmann's appeal.In Act V, the stage directions tell us that the hero's clothes are torn,and the room is in disorder, with broken windows. You may considerthese details either as properties of the scene or as a reflection of thehero's condition after his recent struggle with the forces of reaction.The scene is laid in Dr. Stockmann's study, a setting so symbolic of thedirection taken by the plot that the play ends with Dr. Stockmann announcing his plan to enroll twelve young disciples and with them tofound a school in which he will work for the education of society.

The whole plot is that of an internality directed outwards. Weprogress by stages from a scene (reported) wherein the plan of socialpurification was conceived in loneliness, to the scene in his study wherethe hero announces in the exaltation of a dramatic finale: "The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone." The pronouncement is modified by the situation in which it is uttered: as Dr. Stockmann speaks, he is surrounded by a loyal and admiring family circle,and his educational plan calls not for complete independence, but forcooperation. He is not setting himself up as the strongest man in theworld, but merely as one headed in the same direction. And, with theexception of his brother Peter, we may consider his family circle asaspects of his own identity, being under the aegis of "loneliness" sinceit began so and retains the quality of its ancestry.

The end of the third play in O'Neill's trilogy, MourfJing BecomesElectra, presents a contrasting instance of the scene-act ratio:

LAVINIA. (turns to him sharply) You go now and close theshutters and nail them tight.

SETH. Ayeh.LAVINIA. And tell Hannah to throw out all the flowers.SETH. Ayeh. (He goes past her up the steps and into the house.She ascends to the portico-and then turns and stands for a while,stiff and square-shouldered, staring into the sunlight with frozen

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~ . I It!"IJ

I

6 WAYS OP PLA CEMEN Teyes. Seth leans out of the window at the right of the doorand pullsthe shutters closed with a decisive bang. As if this were a word ofcommand, Lavinia pivots sharply on her heel and marches wooden lyinto the house, closing the door behind her.)

CURTAIN

We end here on the motif of the s h u t ~ i n personality, quite literallyobjectified. And the closing, novelistic stage-directions are beautifullysuited to our purpose; for note how, once the shutters have been closed,thereby placing before our eyes the scenic replica of Lavinia's mentalstate, this scene in turn becomes the motivation of her next act. Forwe are told that she walks like an automaton in response to the closingof the shutter, "as if this were a word of command."

Hamlet contains a direct reference to the motivational aspect of thescene-act ratio. In an early scene, when Hamlet is about to follow theGhost, Horatio warns:What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,Or to the dreadful summit of the cliffThat beetles o'er his base into the sea,And there assume some other horrible form,Which might deprive your sovereignty of reasonAnd draw you into madness? Think of it;The very place puts toys of desperation,Without mOre motive, into every brainThat looks so many fathoms to the seaAnd hears it roar beneath.

In the last four lines of this speech, Horatio is saying that the sheernatural surroundings might be enough to provide a man with a motivefor an act as desperate and absolute as suicide. This notion (of thenatural scene as sufficient motivation for an act) was to reappear, inmany transformations, during the subsequent centuries. We find avariant of it in the novels of Thomas Hardy, and in other regionalistswho derive motivations for their characters from what Virgil wouldhave called the genius loci. There are unmistakable vestiges of it inscientific theories (of Darwinian cast) according to which men's b e ~ havior and development are explained in terms of environment. G e ~ politics is a contemporary variant.

From the motivational point of view, there is i m p l i c ~ e ~ ~ l ~ y

CO N T A IN ER A N D THING CO N TA IN ED 7of a scene the quality of the action that is to t ~ e place w!thin it. T h i ~

ki be another way of saying that the act wlIIbe c o n s l s t e n T W i t I l ~ e ~ u s when the curtain rises to disclose a given s t a g e ~ s e t , thlSsc:ene. ... .... , th ..suge.:set contains, simultaneously, implicitly, a l ~ that e narratIve IS. todraw out as a sequence, explicitly. Or, if you will, the s t a g e ~ s e t contaInSthe action ambiguousl as re a r d ~ the n , o r ~ s ?f a c t i o n ) ~ d in _ __course 0 e play's development thIS ambigUlty IS conver:ed mto ~ _ ~ ~ ~ -respondmg arttcUlacy. In e proportion would be: scene IS to actp11Clt 15 to explicit. Onecould not deduce the details of the action fr?mme detaIls of the setting, but one could deduce .the q u ~ h t y of the actionfrom the quality of the setting. An extreme illustratIon would be anExpressionistic drama, having for its scenic reflex such abstract ~ r o p ertit..: as lines askew, grotesque lighting, sinister color, .and odd objects.

We have of course, chosen examples particularly SUIted to reveal the , '.distinction between act and scene as well as their interdependence. The " /itt \.matter is obscured when we are dealing with scene in the sense o ~ e \}ui-relationsrusrevailing among the various dramatis person,nc. F ~ r . the

aracters, by b ~ i n g in interaction, could be treated as scemc condltlOnsor "environment," of one another; and any act could ?e treated as partof the context that modifies (hence, to a degree motivates) the subse-quent acts. The principles of dramatic consistency w o ~ l d l ~ a d one toexpect such cases of overlap among the terms; but whIle bemg awareof them we should firmly fix in our minds such cases as afford a cleardifferentiation. Our terms lending themselves to b o ~ merger.division, we are here trying to divide two of them while recogmzmgtheir possibilities of merger.

The Scene-Agent RatioThe scene-agent ratio, where the s y n e c ~ ~ c h . i ~ _ E e l ~ ! i . Q n ~ is ~ b e t v v ~ ~ n

p e r ~ Q ~ ~ ! 1 5 : ! . ~ r a ~ : is partly exemplified in this citation from Carlyle'sj j ~ o e s and Hero-Worship:

These Arabs Mohammed was born among are c e : t a ~ n l y a notablepeople. Their country itself is n o t a b l e ~ the fit h a b I ~ a t l O n for such arace. Savage inaccessible rock-mountaIns, great gnm d e ~ e r t s , a l t ~ nating with beautiful strips of verdure; wherever water IS, ,there 1Sgreenness, beauty; odoriferous balm-shrubs, date-trees, f r a n k i n c ~ n s e trees. Consider that wide waste horizon of sand, empty, SIlent,

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8 WAYS OP PLAC EMENTlike a sand-sea, dividing habitable place from habitable place. Youare all alone there, left alone with the universe; by day a fierce sunblazing down on it with intolerable radiance; by night the great deepheaven with its stars. Such a country is fit for a swift-handed, deephearted race of men.

The corrdation between the quality of the_ country and the quality of~ ~ i t a n t s is h e r e p . r e g ! ! t ~ ~ in quite s e c u ~ ~ There isa sonnet by Wordsworth that is a perfect i ~ O f t h e scene-agent ratiotreated theologically:

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,The holy time is quiet as a NunBreathless with adoration; the broad sunIs sinking down in its tranquillity;The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea;Listen! the mighty Being is awake,And doth with his eternal motion makeA sound like thunder--everlastingly.Dear Childl Dear Girl! that walkest with me here,I f thou appear untouched by solemn thought,Thy nature is not therefore less divine:Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,God being with thee when we know it not.

By selecting a religious image in which to convey the purely naturalistic sense of hush, the octave infuses the natural scene with hints of awider circumference, supernatural in scope. The sestet turns fromscene to agent; indeed, the octave is all scene, the sestet all agent. Butby t h . ~ logic !?f the s ~ y a Q 2 ) _ g _ the scene is supernatur'!JjI'l,gual.ity, the a g e ! 1 ! ' - ( ) ~ t a i n e d by this ~ ~ ~ ! 1 _ ~ ~ i I r p a r t a K e o f -the - ~ m e super

A:nCl s o ~ s p o n t a n e o u s l i - p i . i r e I Y D y - o e i n g - i 1 l e kind ofagent that is at one with this kind of scene, the child is "divine." Thecontents of a divine container will synecdochically share in its divinity.

Swift's satire on philosophers and mathematicians, the Laputans inthe third book of Gulliver's Travels, offers a good instance of the wayin which the scene-agent ratio can be used for the depiction of character. To suggest that the Laputans are, we might say, "up in the air,"

C O N T A I N E R A N D THING C O N T A I N E D 9he portrays them as living on an i s l a n ~ that fl.oats in s ~ a c e . .H:re the

t re of the inhabitants is translated lOto terms of thelt habItatlOn.na U I' thVariants of the scene-agent ratio abound in t y p I ~ a nmeteen,-century thought, so strongly given to the study of motIves by the dIalectic pairing of people and things (man and nature, agent and ~ c e n e ) . The ratio figures characteristically in the idealist's. c ~ n c e r n WIthEinklang zwischen lnnen- und Aussenwelt, The palOtmgs of the porntillist Seurat carry the sense of consistency between sc:ne and ,agen: toch lengths. that his human figures seem on the pomt of dIssolvmgru d . Iinto their background. However, we here move beyon strIct! scene-agent matters into the area better covered by our term, agenc.y, slOce theextreme impression of consistencybetween scene a . ~ ~ a ~ : ~ ~ ~ , h ~ ! e C9_n .~ e y e d by stressing the distmctive t e r ~ ~ ! ~ : _ 1 1 l e ~ ~ o r m e d I U ~ t is, agency), which servesasa.n:e1ement common to both scene and

logic of the scene-agent ratio has often served as , ~ . n e : n ~ a r r a s s -ment to the naturalistic novelist, He may choose to lDdIct somescene (such as bad working conditions under capitalism) b,y s ~ o w i n g that it has a "brutalizing" effect upon the people who are lDdIgenous

/

to this scene. But the scene-agent ratio, if strictly observed here, would J.require that the "brutalizing" situation contai? "b.rutalized': c ~ a r a c t e r s l ( ~ ' t L \ ~ i .as its dialectical counterpart: And thereby, 10 hIS h u . m a n ~ t a r I a ~ zeal J ~ " ' . c l ' ~ to save mankind, the novehst portrays characters whIch, m belDg r v c ~ \ 1 ; V ' brutal as their scene, are not worth sav,ing, W c o u l ~ phrase thlS ~ , j , t t ~ dilemma in another way: our novelist pomts up hIS thesls by too nar-row a conception of scene as the motive-force behind his c ~ a r a c t e r s . ; ~ n d this restricting of the scene ~ a l 1 s in turn for a correspondlDg r e s t r I c t l ~ u ~ p ~ ; ; n a l i t y , or r81:.:, - --

Further Instances of These RatiosThe principles of consistency binding scene, ac:, a ~ d agent also lead

to reverse applications. That is, the scene-act ratIo eIther calls ,fo: actsin keeping with scenes or scenes in keeping with acts-and ,SImilarlywith the scene-agent ratio, When Lavinia instructs Seth to nad fast theshutters and throw out the flowers, by her command (an act) she bringsit about that the scene corresponds to her state of mind. But as soon as

- - - - - - - ~ - . ~ -

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10 WAYS O F PLACEMENTthese scenic changes have taken place, they in turn become the motivating principle of her subsequent conduct. For the complete embodiment of her purposes functions as a "command" to her; and she obeysit as a response to a stimulus, like a pure automaton moved by the sheerdisposition of material factors." ~ e h a v i o r i s t i c metaphysics (behaviorists would call it No Meta-

physics ) Y O u r a d l C a l I Y t r u i i c ~ t e ~ e p o s s l b l I i J i e s - Q r ~ r a r i 1 i ~ y e I i m i n a t i n g r ~ ~ ~ : I ~ g ~ t i ~ ~ - t ~ she=r m ( ) ~ ~ n . The close of the O'Neill play/

follows thIS same development from action to motion, a kind of inverted transcendence. Because of this change, Lavinia's last momentsI must be relegated to stage directions alone. She does not act, she isj automatically moved. The trilogy did not end a moment too soon'

!..-for its close represented not only the end of Lavinia, but the end of t h ~ motivating principle of drama itself. The playwright had here obviously come to the end of a line. In his next plays he would have to"turn back." For he could have "gone on" only by abandoning dramafor some more "scientific" form. (He might have transcended dramascientifically, for instance, by a collating of sociological observationsdesigned to classify different types of motorist and to correlate themwith different types of response to traffic signals.)

We noted how, in Ibsen's drama, the hero's state of mind after hisc o n ~ i c t with the. townspeople was objectified in such scenic propertiesas hIS torn clothIng, and the broken windows and general disorder ofhis study. It is obvious that one might have carried this consistencyfurther in either direction (for instance, spreading it more environmentally, as were we to enlist turbulent weather as an aspect of thescene, or more personally, as were we to enlist facial expressions andp ~ s t u r e s of the body, which of course the actor does, in interpreting hisrole, regardless of the playwright's omissions). If you took the hero'sstate. of ~ ~ n d a ~ 3 . ~ ~ r p o i n t ()f. d ~ ~ r ~ e __h e r ~ l l l L m u l ~ a y t l l a t 1 h e \ \ , h ~ ~ ~ ~ l 1 < : _ ~ ~ ? ~ ~ s _ a ~ e r e aspect of the r&le, or person ("agent")-that the E ~ Y S ! ~ ~ L ~ o a y o r i l i e ~ a g < : n f i j ~ s e r f O u r " S c e n i c , w t " O l ) e l i s t e d a f ! 1 ( ) ~ ~ E < : : . s . l : ) n ' s " p r o p e r t i e s , " a ~ w i t h ~ ! ! d ~ e i I i n ~ I i a i ~ a n hi(to r d e r e . 9 . . . p ~ i n E ! i f ~ ~ o n ~ _ < l I 1 c e with his own.private s p e c i f i ~ ~ t i ~ ~ ~ , ora s ~ ~ o l o ~ ~ ~ " t h e ( r w e I I i l l g ~ p l a c e -of"SouI."-- -W-eobservethe s a ~ e ra,tio ~ n Swift's account of his Laputam-wh-en, to suggest thatIn theIr thInkIng they could be transcendental, or introvert, or extreme! y biased, but never well balanced, he writes: ' 'Their heads were

?CONTAINER AN D THING CO N TA IN ED 11I! all inclined, either to the right or to the left; one of their eyes turned

inward and the other directly up to the zenith." But lest our speculations s:em too arbitrary, let us cite one more anecdote, this time from atiny drama enacted in real life, and here reported to illustrate how,when a state of mind is pronounced in quality, the agent may be observed arranging a corresponding pattern in the very properties of thescene. .

The occasion: a committee meeting. The setting: a group of com-mittee members bunched about a desk in an office, after hours. Notfar from the desk was a railing; but despite the crowding, all the members were bunched about the chairman at the desk, inside the railing.However, they had piled their hats and coats on chairs and tables o ~ t side the pale. General engrossment in the discussion. But as the d ~ s cussion continued, one member quietly arose, and opened the gate Inthe railing. As unnoticeably as possible, she stepped outside and closedthe gate. She picked up her coat, laid it across her an?, and ~ t o o d waiting. A few moments later, when there waS.a pause In the ?lSCUSsion she asked for the floor. Mter being recogmzed by the charrman,she ~ e r y haltingly, in embarrassment, announced with regret that shewould have to resign from the committee.

Consider with what fidelity she had set the scene for this pattern ofseverance as she stepped beyond the railing to make her announcement.Design: chairman and fellow members within the pale, sitting, withouthats and overcoats-she outside the pale, standing, with coat over herarm preparatory to departure. She had strategically modified the arran ement of the scene in such a way that it implicitly (ambiguously)contained the quality a er act.

Ubiquity of the RatiosIf we but look about us, we find examples of the two ratios every

where; for they are at the very centre of m o t i v a t i o ~ a l assumptions.But to discern them in their ubiquity, we must remaIn aware of themany guises which the five terms may a s s u ~ e in the v a r i o u ~ casu,istries.In the introduction to his Discourses, for Instance, Machlavellt complains that people read history without applying its lessons, "as thoughheaven, the sun, the elements, and men had changed the order of theirmotions and power, and were different from what they were in ancient

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12 WA Y S OF PLACEMENTtimes." For our purposes, the quotation could be translated, "asthough human agents and both the supernatural and the natural sceneshad changed, with a corresponding change in the nature of motives."

Besides general synonyms for scene that are obviously of a back.ground character, such as "society," or "environment," we often encounter quite specific localizations, words for particular places, situations, or eras. "I t is 12:20 P.M." is a "scenic" statement. Milton'sL'Allegro and II Penseroso are formed about a scenic contrast betweenmorning and night, with a corresponding contrast of actions. Termsfor historical epochs, cultural movements, social institutions (such as"Elizabethan period," "romanticism," "capitalism") are scenic, thoughoften with an admixture of properties overlapping upon the areas covered by the term, agent. If we recall that "ideas" are a property ofagents, we can detect this strategic overlap in Locke's expression, "thescene of ideas," the form of which Carl Becker exactly reproduces whenreferring to "climates of opinion," in The Heavenly City of theEighteenth-Century Philosophers.

The word "ground," much used in both formal philosophy andeveryday speech when discussing motives, is likewise scenic, thoughreadily encroaching upon the areas more directly covered by "agent"and "purpose." We can discern the scenic reference if the question,"On what grounds did he do this?" is translated: "What kind of scenedid he say it was, that called for such an act?" Hegelian idealismexploits the double usage (ground as "background" and ground as"reason") by positing "Reason" as the ultimate ground, the Grundprinzip, of all history. Thus, whereas historicism regularly treats historical scenes as the background, or motive, of individual developments,Hegel would treat Reason as the background, or motive, of historicalsequence in general. Let us not worry, at this point, what it may"mean" to say that "Reason" is at once the mover of history and thesubstance of which history is made. It is sufficient here to note thatsuch terministic resources were utilized, and to detect the logic of thepentad behind them.

The maxim, "terrain determines tactics," is a strict localization ofthe scene-act ratio, with "terrain" as the casuistic equivalent for "scene"in a military calculus of motives, and "tactics" as the corresponding"act."

Political commentators now generally use the word "situation" as

CO N TA IN ER A N D THING CONTAINED 13their synonym for scene, though often without any clear concept of. itsfunction as a statement about motives. Many social psychologists

nsciously use the term for its motivational bearing (it has a rangeCOt nding from the broadest concepts of historical setting down to theexe . I ., lified controlled conditions which the anIma experImentersvnp , h . ef "thimposes upon his rats in, maze ! e MarXist r ere?ce to eobjective situation" is explICitly motivational, and the the?rISts who ~ s e this formula discuss "policies" as political acts enacted m conformitywith the nature of scenes, However , the scene-act ratio can be appliedin two ways. It can be applIed determmlst!caUy in statements that dcertain policy had to be adopted ill am s ~ ~ _ : ~ , -applie

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14 WAYS OF PLACEMENTof the attempt to establish socialism under the given conditions. Thatis, you can't get a fully socialist act unless you have a fully socialistscene, and for the dialectical materialist such a scene requires a highstage of industrial development.

And there is a variant of the usage in Coleridge (in his early libertarian and "necessitarian" period, when he was exalted with thoughtsof "aspheterism"): C o n ~ e r n i n g "Pantisocracy" (the plan of Coleridge,Southey, and theIr aSSOCIates to found a communistic colony on thebanks of the Susquehanna), he wrote that it would "make virtue inevitable." That is, the colonists were to arrange a social situation of sucha sort that virtuous acts would be the logical and spontaneous resultof conditions. .

As for " a c ~ , " any verb, no matter how specific or how general, thathas connotatIons of consciousness or purpose falls under this category.I f one happened to stumble over an obstruction, that would be not anact, but a mere motion. However, one could convert even this sheeraccident i n ~ o s o ~ e t h i n g of an act if, in the course of falling, onesuddenl y wIlled hIs fall (as a rebuke, for instance, to the negligence ofthe person who had left the obstruction in the way). "Dramatisti~ a l l y , " t ~ e basic unit of action would be defined as "the human bodyIn consclOUS or purposive motion." Hence we are admonished thatpeople often speak of action in a purely figurative sense when they haveonly motion in mind, as with reference to the action of a motor or thei n t e ~ a c t i o n of f?rces. Terms like "adjustment" and " a d a p t a t i ~ n " ar iambIguously sUlted to cover both action and sheer motion so that it iusually difficut to decide in just which sense a thinker is 'using them J..when. he applies t h e ~ to social motives. This ambiguity may p u ~ ~ I " > '.Ithem m good favor WIth those who would deal with the human realmin a calculus patterned after the vocabularies of the physical sciences,1and yet would not wholly abandon vestiges of "animism." Professionvocation, policy, strategy, tactics are all concepts of action, as are an ;: o r d s , ! ~ r s?ecific v o c a t i ~ n s . Our words "position," "occupation," andoffice mdicate the scelllC overtones in action. Our words for particu

lar "jobs" under capitalist industrialism refer to acts, but often the ele-ment of action is reduced to a minimum and the element of sheer mo-tion raised to. a maximum. (We here have in mind not only certainnear-automatic tasks performed to the timing of the conveyor belt, butalso many of the purely clerical operations, filing, bookkeeping, record-

CONT AINER AND TH ING CONTAINED 15ing, accounting, and the like, necessary to the present state of technol-o ~ h e n Christ said, "I am the way" (hodos), we could translate, "I amthe act," or more fully, "I represent a system, or synthesis, of the rightacts." Tao and yoga are similar words for act. And we see how readily act in this sense can overlap. upon agency when we c o n s i ~ e r ourordinary attitude towards scientific method (met-hodos) , whIch wethink of pragmatically, not as a way of life, or act of being, but as ameans of doing.

The Greek word for justice (dike) was in its beginnings as thoroughly an "act" word as tao, yoga, and hodos. Originally it meantcustom, usage, manner, fashion. It also meant right. The connectionbetween these two orders of meaning is revealed in our expression,"That sort of thing just isn't done," and in the fact that our word"morality" comes from a Latin word for "custom." Liddell and Scott'slexicon notes that in the Odyssey the word is used of mortals, gods,kings, and suitors, referring to their custom, way of acting, law of being.After the homogeneous tribal pattern of Greek life (with its one "way"or "justice" shared by all) had dissolved into a political state, with itstypical conflicts of property interests, dike became a word of the lawcourts. Hence, in post-Homeric usage, it refers to legal justice, theright which is presumed to be the object of law. In this form, it couldrepresent a Platonic ideal, that might prevail over and above the realways of the different social classes. This is the kind of justice that Marxwas refuting by a sophisticated reversion to a more "Homeric" usage.

Range of All the RatiosThough we have inspected two ratios, the five terms would allowfor ten (scene-act, scene-agent, scene-agency~ ~ e n _ e - p u r p o s e , a c ~ p ~ r p o s e , act-agent, act-agency, a g e n t - p u r p o s e ~ g e n t - a g e n ' 1 ~ and _ ~ g e l ! . 9 T - : . e ~ ! p ~ . The rat OS are principles oCdetermination. Elsewhere in theGrammar we shall examine two of these (scene-purpose and agencypurpose) in other connections; and the rest will figure in passing. Butthe consideration of words for "ways" calls for special attention to theact-agent ratio.

Both act and agent require scenes that "contain" them. Hence the

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16 WA YS OF PLACEMENT~ , c e n ~ ~ ~ c t scene-agent r ~ t i o s are in the fullest sense positive (orposltlOnal). But t h ~ ~ l a t l O n between act and a g e n L i ~ not quite thes ~ ~ . The agent does not "contain" the act, though i t s ~ e s u l t ~ mightbe sai

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18 WAYS OF PLA CEMEN Tthe "situation" itself is no longer a "democratic" one, even an "essentially democratic" people will abandon democratic ways.

A picturesque effect can be got in imaginative writings by the conflicting use of the scene-act and act-agent ratios. One may place "fools"in "wise situations," so that in their acts they are "wiser than theyknow." Children are often "wise" in this sense. It is a principle ofincongruity that Chaplin has built upon. Empson would call it anaspect of "pastoral."Here is an interesting shift of ratios in a citation from an address byFrancis Biddle when he was Attorney General:

The change of the world in terms of time and space in the pasthundred years -rai lroad, telegraph, telephone, automobile, movie, airplane, radio-has hardly found an echo in our political growth, exceptin the necessary patches and arrangements which have made it soextraordinarily complex without making it more responsive to ourneeds.

Note first that all the changes listed here refer to agencies of communication (the pragmatist emphasis). Then, having in their accumulationbecome scenic, they are said to have had a motivating effect upon ourpolitical acts ("growth"). But though the complexity of the scene hascalled forth "the necessary patches and arrangements" (another expression for "acts"), we are told that there are still unsatisfied "needs."~ ~ t ' y ~ _ ~ g ! l ? ~ ~ j _ ~ e n ~ - , ! j e s i g n ~ ~ to producea sItuatIOn "more responsive to our needs" would have its mostarrectlocus of motivation . ~ n d e i ] i e l ! ~ ~ ~ i ~ g - o f ~ g e n t , - part1culiily-ll-iliesew e r e s a r a t o o e " p r l m i l L l ! e ~ d s ' ~ _ g t J 1 ~ r .than "new needs/'slnce "newneeds" might b e ~ t b ~ t r e a t e 9 ~ . s . ~ ' a f u ! l . c t i ~ ~ o E the siiliatiOri."--Tborrowt h e e x p r e s s l ~ f r ~ m a prominent e d u c ; i : ~ r : ' Eduard C.-Lindeman, whoshortly after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor complained of a tendency "to believe that morale will now become a function of the situationand that hence it is less important to plan for education."!he ratios may often be interpreted as principles of selectivity rather

than as thoroughly causafreratiOiiSIilpS: That IS, m a n y ~ t 1 c a l s ~ e _ p ' ~ ~ o f i s o f manfSOfts;-wiulll: ~ ~ ~ n d i f l g v a r i e t y in th(: k i . 1 l 9 c S _ o ( ~ ~ ! ~ _ ~ a t \ V o u l d bC._IDost representativ(:-ofthem. J1lUS,a given political situation may be said not to c h a n g q ~ ~ o p l e intheir es-se!iUalchata:cter, but rather to favor, or br ing to the fore ( to ' ~ ; ~ t e for"),

CONTAINER A N D THING CONTAINED 19certain kinds of agents (with their ~ p ~ ~ ~ p r i a ~ e _ a c ~ ~ : : ~ ) _ ather than~ s 1 i i f t s in political exigenCies do not Of a suo. 11 " .-"fundamentally" daring, or all men "fundamenta y cautiOUS,_n . . II. keeping with the nature of the scene; but rather, one s ~ t u a t 1 o n ca s

cautious men as its appropriate "voice," another for darmg men, onelor A d h . . t tfor traditionalists, another for innovators. _ n t e m a p p r o p n ~ _ ~ _ ~ ~ . ~ and te.!!!P9"aments simply do not "count for" so m l l c ~ - t h e ~ - ~ l d i.iiSlttiations for which they are ~ b e t t e r . . 1 i t - 9n e set of scemc c o n d I t 1 ~ n ~ will"im lement" and "amplify" g i v e l ! ~ : ! : Y . ~ i aI1:d t e m . ~ ~ m e n . t ~ _ ~ ~ ~ c h , mothe!situations would remain mere p o t e m i a . l i t i ~ ~ J . m p l a l ! ! ! ! d u ~ ~ ~ d s , " m ~ inglorious Miltons." Indeed, there are times w h e ~ , o u t - a n ~ . o u t materialistic philosophies, which are usually thought of as t o u g ~ , c ~ n be of great solace to us precisely because they encourage us to beheve mthe ratios as a selective principle. For we may tell ourselves that thevery nature of the materials with which men deal w i l ~ not p e r ~ i t me.nto fall below a certain level of sloth, error, greed, and dIshonesty m theIrrelations with one another, as the cooperative necessities of the situationimplement and amplify only those traits of character and action thatserve the ends of progress.

There is, of course, a circular possibility in the terms. .If an agentacts in kee in with his nature as an agent (act-agent!atlO), he mayc ange the nature of the scene accordingly (scene-act ratio), and therebyeSta5hsh a state of umty between himself and hiS world (scene-agentratio). Or the scene may call for a certain kind of act, which makes fora-corresponding kind of agent, thereby likening agent to scene. .Orour act may change us and our scene, producing a mutual conformity.Such would be the Edenic paradigm, applicable if we were capable oftotal acts that produce total transformations. I . . ~ reality, we are c a p a b l e ( ; , . ~ of but partial acts, acts that but partially represent us and that produce ."\ve ~ l ~ \ [ \ ' ~ but partial transformations. Indeed, if all the ratios were ~ d J u s t e d to ,}o n ~ another With perfect Nenic symmetry, they would be unmutablein one unending "moment."

Theological notions of creation and re-creation bring us nearest tothe concept of total acts. Among the controversies that centeredaround Lutheranism, for instance, there was a doctrine, put forward bythe theologian Striegel, who held that Christ's work. on the Cross hadthe effect of changing God's attitude towards mankmd, and that menborn after the historical Christ can take advantage of this change.

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20 WAYS OF PLA CEMEN THere we have something like the conversion of God himself, broughtabout by Christ's sacrifice (a total action, a total passion). From thegodlike nature came a godlike act that acted upon God himself. Andas regards mankind, it amounts to a radical change in the very structureof the Universe, since it changed God's attitude towards men, and inGod's attitude towards men resides the ultimate ground of humanaction.

A similar pattern is implicated in the close of Aeschylus's trilogy, theOresteia, where the sufferings of Orestes terminate in the changedidentity of the Furies, signalized by their change of name from Erinyesto Eumenides. Under the influence of the "new gods," their nature asmotives takes on a totally different accent; for whereas it was theirprevious concern to avenge evil, it will henceforth be their concern toreward the good. An inner goad has thus been cast forth, externalized;whereby, as Athena says, men may be at peace within, their "dread passion for renown" thereafter being motivated solely by "war from without."

Only the scene-act and scene-agent ratios fit with complete comfortin this chapter on the relation between container and contained. Theact-agent ratio tugs at its edges; and we shall close noting concerns tha tmove us still farther afield. In the last example, we referred to God'sattitude. Where would attitude fall within our pattern? Often it is[ i h ~ preparation for an ac4 whkh would make it a kind of symbolicact, or incipient act. But in its character as a state of mind that may

or may not lead to an act, it is quite clearly to be classed under the headof agent. We also spoke of Christ's sacrifice as "a total action, a totpassion." This suggests other "grammatical" possibilities that involvea dialectic pairing of "active" and "passive." And in the reference to astate of mind, we casually invite a dialectic pairing of "actus" and"status."

This group of concerns will be examined in due course. Meanwhile,we should be reminded that the term agent embraces not only all wordsgeneral or specific for person, actor, character, individual, hero, villain,father, doctor, engineer, but also any words, moral or functional, forpatient, and words for the motivational properties or agents, such as"drives," "instincts," "states of mind." We may also have collectivewords for agent, such as nation, group, the Freudian "super-ego," Rousseau's "volonte genbale," the Fichtean "generalized I.U

Paradox of SubstanceT . h t e might call the StanceHERE is a set of words compnsmg wt af wplace or placement. In11 d' from a concep 0 ,family, for they a enve th t for this family is sta, to standthe Indo-Germanic l a n g u a g f e ~ the rohoas developed this essential family,. h -) And out 0 It ere(Sanscnt, st a . . t onstancy constitution, contrast,. . ch members as: conSlS , c ,compnsmg su h ' bstacle stage state, status,. xistence ypostatlze, 0 " bdestmy, ecstasy, e , I G man an important mem erstatute, stead, subsist, and system'l n er t tha't figures in Vorstell ung,'I . t II to p ace a rooof the Stance fami y IS S e h e ~ , " 'rd for representation, conception,a philosopher's and psyc 0 OglSt s woidea, image. ld b 'ld a whole philosophic universe by t r a c k i n ~ Surely, one cou Ut f tho t It would be "implementedth . i f ns 0 IS one roo . ,downf : ramI l ~ a ~ ~ v e stables staffs, staves, stalls, stamens, sta.In1na,too, or It wou '1 d studs It would be a qUlte restanchions, stanzas, steeds, sstoo sh' an A g r a r i ~ n s might take their stand.. 1 ld ' which our out ern f thogtona wor ,m , t philosophic member 0 ISUnquestionably, the most P l r o m l ~ e n d to be before John Locke. ." b "O r at east It use , . . IfamIly IS su stance. th ny thinkers today exphclt y. 'd't prestige so at rna .greatly tmpalre 1 s .' b I ' But there is cause to belIeveb

. h th from thetr voca u anes, 1ants e term f b ' hing its functions one mere yth . b . hing the term far rom antsat, m ants f;om the dramatistic point of ~ e w , we areconceals them. Hence, th d .dering its embarrassments. h d d ell upon e wor , conSIadmonts e f . - t h ~ a - t e may detect its covert- ~ - . I' . f trans ormation, so --ana ~ - - ' - ' ~ l 3 b S e l i t . Itu:.clation to ourIiilfuence e v e l l J ! L ~ ~ ~ e s _ w h e r ~ It I ~ ~ Y.~ ~ l l b np ,;lnnarent as we proceed! .five ter.ms w l ~ __ ~ c o ~ - ~ ~ - - : ~ - - l - ' lly a pun lurkmg be-.-----:h ld t that there IS etymo ogtca ,Frrst we s ou no e d . ' f t used to designate what somehind the Latin ,roo:s. . The ~ o r l ; r O t h : ~ e meanings in Webster's: "th ething or agent mtrmSlca:ly zs, as . th characteristic and essentialmost important element m any eXIstenCe, e