The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll Part 23

You ask me if your last piece of "Meritt" printing is dark enough. I think not. I should say the rollers want fresh inking. As to the _matter_ of your specimen--[it was a poor little essay on killing animals for the purpose of scientific recreations, _e.g._, collecting b.u.t.terflies]--I think you _cannot_ spend your time better than in trying to set down clearly, in that essay-form, your ideas on any subject that chances to interest you; and _specially_ any theological subject that strikes you in the course of your reading for Holy Orders.

It will be most _excellent_ practice for you, against the time when you try to compose sermons, to try thus to realise exactly what it is you mean, and to express it clearly, and (a much harder matter) to get into proper shape the _reasons_ of your opinions, and to see whether they do, or do not, tend to prove the conclusions you come to.

You have never studied technical Logic, at all, I fancy. [I _had_, but I freely admit that the essay in question proved that I had not then learnt to apply my principles to practice.] It would have been a great help: but still it is not indispensable: after all, it is only the putting into rules of the way in which _every_ mind proceeds, when it draws valid conclusions; and, by practice in careful thinking, you may get to know "fallacies" when you meet with them, without knowing the formal _rules_.

At present, when you try to give _reasons_, you are in considerable danger of propounding fallacies. Instances occur in this little essay of yours; and I hope it won't offend your _amour propre_ very much, if an old uncle, who has studied Logic for forty years, makes a few remarks on it.

I am not going to enter _at all_ on the subject-matter itself, or to say whether I agree, or not, with your _conclusions_: but merely to examine, from a logic-lecturer's point of view, your _premisses_ as relating to them.

(1) "As the lower animals do not appear to have personality or individual existence, I cannot see that any particular one's life can be very important," &c. The word "personality" is very vague: I don't know what you mean by it. If you were to ask yourself, "What test should I use in distinguishing what _has_, from what has _not_, personality?" you might perhaps be able to express your meaning more clearly. The phrase "individual existence" is clear enough, and is in direct logical contradiction to the phrase "particular one." To say, of anything, that it has _not_ "individual existence," and yet that it _is_ a "particular one," involves the logical fallacy called a "contradiction in terms."

(2) "In both cases" (animal and plant) "death is only the conversion of matter from one form to another." The word "form" is very vague--I fancy you use it in a sort of _chemical_ sense (like saying "sugar is starch in another form," where the change in nature is generally believed to be a rearrangement of the very same atoms). If you mean to a.s.sert that the difference between a live animal and a dead animal, _i.e.,_ between animate and sensitive matter, and the same matter when it becomes inanimate and insensitive, is a mere rearrangement of the same atoms, your premiss is intelligible. (It is a bolder one than any biologists have yet advanced. The most sceptical of them admits, I believe, that "vitality" is a thing _per se. _However, that is beside my present scope.) But this premiss is advanced to prove that it is of no "consequence" to kill an animal. But, granting that the conversion of sensitive into insensitive matter (and of course _vice versa_) is a mere change of "form," and _therefore_ of no "consequence"; granting this, we cannot escape the including under this rule all similar cases. If the _power_ of feeling pain, and the _absence_ of that power, are only a difference of "form," the conclusion is inevitable that the _feeling_ pain, and the _not_ feeling it, are _also_ only a difference in form, _i.e.,_ to convert matter, which is _not_ feeling pain, into matter _feeling_ pain, is only to change its "form," and, if the process of "changing form" is of no "consequence" in the case of sensitive and insensitive matter, we must admit that it is _also_ of no "consequence" in the case of pain-feeling and _not_ pain-feeling matter. This conclusion, I imagine, you neither intended nor foresaw. The premiss, which you use, involves the fallacy called "proving too much."

The best advice that could be given to you, when you begin to compose sermons, would be what an old friend once gave to a young man who was going out to be an Indian judge (in India, it seems, the judge decides things, without a jury, like our County Court judges). "Give _your decisions_ boldly and clearly; they will probably be _right_. But do _not_ give your _reasons: they_ will probably be _wrong"_ If your lot in life is to be in a _country_ parish, it will perhaps not matter _much_ whether the reasons given in your sermons do or do not prove your conclusions. But even there you _might_ meet, and in a town congregation you would be _sure_ to meet, clever sceptics, who know well how to argue, who will detect your fallacies and point them out to those who are _not_ yet troubled with doubts, and thus undermine _all_ their confidence in your teaching.

At Eastbourne, last summer, I heard a preacher advance the astounding argument, "We believe that the Bible is true, because our holy Mother, the Church, tells us it is." I pity that unfortunate clergyman if ever he is bold enough to enter any Young Men's Debating Club where there is some clear-headed sceptic who has heard, or heard of, that sermon. I can fancy how the young man would rub his hands, in delight, and would say to himself, "Just see me get him into a corner, and convict him of arguing in a circle!"

The bad logic that occurs in many and many a well-meant sermon, is a real danger to modern Christianity. When detected, it may seriously injure many believers, and fill them with miserable doubts. So my advice to you, as a young theological student, is "Sift your reasons _well_, and, before you offer them to others, make sure that they prove your conclusions."

I hope you won't give this letter of mine (which it has cost me some time and thought to write) just a single reading and then burn it; but that you will lay it aside. Perhaps, even years hence, it may be of some use to you to read it again.

Believe me always

Your affectionate Uncle,

C. L. Dodgson.

CHAPTER VIII

(1892-1896)

Mr. Dodgson resigns the Curatorship--Bazaars--He lectures to children--A mechanical "Humpty Dumpty"--A logical controversy--Albert Chevalier--"Sylvie and Bruno Concluded"--"Pillow Problems"--Mr. Dodgson's generosity--College services--Religious difficulties--A village sermon--Plans for the future--Reverence--"Symbolic Logic."

At Christ Church, as at other Colleges, the Common Room is an important feature. Open from eight in the morning until ten at night, it takes the place of a club, where the "dons" may see the newspapers, talk, write letters, or enjoy a cup of tea. After dinner, members of High Table, with their guests if any are present, usually adjourn to the Common Room for wine and dessert, while there is a smoking-room hard by for those who do not despise the harmless but unnecessary weed, and below are cellars, with a goodly store of choice old wines.

The Curator's duties were therefore sufficiently onerous. They were doubly so in Mr. Dodgson's case, for his love of minute accuracy greatly increased the amount of work he had to do. It was his office to select and purchase wines, to keep accounts, to adjust selling price to cost price, to see that the two Common Room servants performed their duties, and generally to look after the comfort and convenience of the members.

"Having heard," he wrote near the end of the year 1892, "that Strong was willing to be elected (as Curator), and Common Room willing to elect him, I most gladly resigned. The sense of relief at being free from the burdensome office, which has cost me a large amount of time and trouble, is very delightful. I was made Curator, December 8, 1882, so that I have held the office more than nine years."

The literary results of his Curatorship were three very interesting little pamphlets, "Twelve Months in a Curatorship, by One who has tried it"; "Three years in a Curatorship, by One whom it has tried"; and "Curiosissima Curatoria, by 'Rude Donatus,'" all printed for private circulation, and couched in the same serio-comic vein. As a logician he naturally liked to see his thoughts in print, for, just as the mathematical mind craves for a black-board and a piece of chalk, so the logical mind must have its paper and printing-press wherewith to set forth its deductions effectively.

A few extracts must suffice to show the style of these pamphlets, and the opportunity offered for the display of humour.

In the arrangement of the prices at which wines were to be sold to members of Common Room, he found a fine scope for the exercise of his mathematical talents and his sense of proportion. In one of the pamphlets he takes old Port and Chablis as ill.u.s.trations.

The original cost of each is about 3s. a bottle; but the present value of the old Port is about 11s. a bottle. Let us suppose, then, that we have to sell to Common Room one bottle of old Port and three of Chablis, the original cost of the whole being 12s., and the present value 20s. These are our data. We have now two questions to answer. First, what sum shall we ask for the whole? Secondly, how shall we apportion that sum between the two kinds of wine?

The sum to be asked for the whole he decides, following precedent, is to be the present market-value of the wine; as to the second question, he goes on to say--

We have, as so often happens in the lives of distinguished premiers, three courses before us: (1) to charge the _present_ value for each kind of wine; (2) to put on a certain percentage to the _original_ value of each kind; (3) to make a compromise between these two courses.

Course 1 seems to me perfectly reasonable; but a very plausible objection has been made to it--that it puts a prohibitory price on the valuable wines, and that they would remain unconsumed. This would not, however, involve any loss to our finances; we could obviously realise the enhanced values of the old wines by selling them to outsiders, if the members of Common Room would not buy them. But I do not advocate this course.

Course 2 would lead to charging 5s. a bottle for Port and Chablis alike. The Port-drinker would be "in clover," while the Chablis-drinker would probably begin getting his wine direct from the merchant instead of from the Common Room cellar, which would be a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the tariff. Yet I have heard this course advocated, repeatedly, as an abstract principle. "You ought to consider the _original_ value only," I have been told. "You ought to regard the Port-drinker as a private individual, who has laid the wine in for himself, and who ought to have all the advantages of its enhanced value. You cannot fairly ask him for more than what you need to refill the bins with Port, _plus_ the percentage thereon needed to meet the contingent expenses." I have listened to such arguments, but have never been convinced that the course is just. It seems to me that the 8s. additional value which the bottle of Port has acquired, is the property of _Common Room_, and that Common Room has the power to give it to whom it chooses; and it does not seem to me fair to give it all to the Port-drinker. What merit is there in preferring Port to Chablis, that could justify our selling the Port-drinker his wine at less than half what he would have to give outside, and charging the Chablis-drinker five-thirds of what he would have to give outside? At all events, I, as a Port-drinker, do not wish to absorb the whole advantage, and would gladly share it with the Chablis-drinker. The course I recommend is

Course 3, which is a compromise between 1 and 2, its essential principle being to sell the new wines _above_ their value, in order to be able to sell the old _below_ their value. And it is clearly desirable, as far as possible, to make the reductions _where they will be felt,_ and the additions _where they will not be felt._ Moreover it seems to me that reduction is most felt where it _goes down to the next round sum,_ and an addition in the reverse case, _i.e.,_ when it _starts from a round sum._ Thus, if we were to take 2d. off a 5s.

8d. wine, and add it to a 4s. 4d.--thus selling them at 5s.

6d. and 4s. 6d. the reduction would be welcomed, and the addition unnoticed; and the change would be a popular one.

The next extract shows with what light-hearted frivolity he could approach this tremendous subject of wine:--

The consumption of Madeira (B) has been during the past year, zero. After careful calculation I estimate that, if this rate of consumption be steadily maintained, our present stock will last us an infinite number of years. And although there may be something monotonous and dreary in the prospect of such vast cycles spent in drinking second-cla.s.s Madeira, we may yet cheer ourselves with the thought of how economically it can be done.

To a.s.sist the Curator in the discharge of his duties, there was a Wine Committee, and for its guidance a series of rules was drawn up. The first runs as follows: "There shall be a Wine Committee, consisting of five persons, including the Curator, whose duty it shall be to a.s.sist the Curator in the management of the cellar." "Hence," wrote Mr.

Dodgson, "logically it is the bounden duty of the Curator 'to a.s.sist himself.' I decline to say whether this clause has ever brightened existence for me--or whether, in the shades of evening, I may ever have been observed leaving the Common Room cellars with a small but suspicious-looking bundle, and murmuring, 'a.s.sist thyself, a.s.sist thyself!'"

Every Christmas at Christ Church the children of the College servants have a party in the Hall. This year he was asked to entertain them, and gladly consented to do so. He hired a magic lantern and a large number of slides, and with their help told the children the three following stories: (1) "The Epiphany"; (2) "The Children Lost in the Bush"; (3) "Bruno's Picnic."

I have already referred to the services held in Christ Church for the College servants, at which Mr. Dodgson used frequently to preach. The way in which he regarded this work is very characteristic of the man.

"Once more," he writes, "I have to thank my Heavenly Father for the great blessing and privilege of being allowed to speak for Him! May He bless my words to help some soul on its heavenward way." After one of these addresses he received a note from a member of the congregation, thanking him for what he had said. "It is very sweet," he said, "to get such words now and then; but there is danger in them if more such come, I must beg for silence."

During the year Mr. Dodgson wrote the following letter to the Rev.

C.A. Goodhart, Rector of Lambourne, Ess.e.x:--

Dear Sir,--Your kind, sympathising and most encouraging letter about "Sylvie and Bruno" has deserved a better treatment from me than to have been thus kept waiting more than two years for an answer. But life is short; and one has many other things to do; and I have been for years almost hopelessly in arrears in correspondence. I keep a register, so that letters which I intend to answer do somehow come to the front at last.

In "Sylvie and Bruno" I took courage to introduce what I had entirely avoided in the two "Alice" books--some reference to subjects which are, after all, the _only_ subjects of real interest in life, subjects which are so intimately bound up with every topic of human interest that it needs more effort to avoid them than to touch on them; and I felt that such a book was more suitable to a clerical writer than one of mere fun.

I hope I have not offended many (evidently I have not offended _you_) by putting scenes of mere fun, and talk about G.o.d, into the same book.

Only one of all my correspondents ever guessed there was more to come of the book. She was a child, personally unknown to me, who wrote to "Lewis Carroll" a sweet letter about the book, in which she said, "I'm so glad it hasn't got a regular wind-up, as it shows there is more to come!"

There is indeed "more to come." When I came to piece together the ma.s.s of acc.u.mulated material I found it was quite _double_ what could be put into one volume. So I divided it in the middle; and I hope to bring out "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded" next Christmas--if, that is, my Heavenly Master gives me the time and the strength for the task; but I am nearly 60, and have no right to count on years to come.

In signing my real name, let me beg you not to let the information go further--I have an _intense_ dislike to personal publicity; and, the more people there are who know nothing of "Lewis Carroll" save his books, the happier I am.

Believe me, sincerely yours,

Charles L. Dodgson.

I have made no attempt to chronicle all the games and puzzles which Lewis Carroll invented. A list of such as have been published will be found in the Bibliographical chapter. He intended to bring out a book of "Original Games and Puzzles," with ill.u.s.trations by Miss E.