Ralph Waldo Trine: Inspirational stuff, but no cure for illness

Infrared Echoes of a Black Hole Eating a Star (Illustration). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

In Tune with the Infinite: Ralph Waldo Trine's Motivational Classic - Complete Original Text by Ralph Waldo Trine

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book reads like a series of sermons and draws on the "law of attraction".  Apparently, it inspired Napoleon Hill's book Think and Grow Rich. In its modern form, it might be compared to The Secret, but Trine was an academic and his practical influence inspired the likes of Henry Ford to greatness. 

This work is of the New Thought Movement which apparently developed from Christian Science. Members of the Christian Science church believe that illness can be cured by prayer alone and works best when not combined with medicine. Yet members of the congregation have been in trouble with the law for refusing to give their children medicine. 

None of this is covered by Trine, but he too suggests that the ailments of the body are a result of poor living and can be cured through right living. When taken to the extreme, it seems that Trine's work is less helpful in a practical sense. However, Trine's work draws on the teachings of Jesus and his scholarly background is obvious. Trine states (p. 108):

It has been my aim to base nothing on the teachings of others, though they may be the teachings of those inspired.

Yet it is obvious that he was familiar with Stoicism and the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Trine's work is inspiring and I took copious notes. He suggests that all religions are based on a single truth and that it does not matter what religion one follows. He covers a lot of ground, including pedagogy (p. 67):

The true teacher is one whose endeavour is to bring the one they teach to a true knowledge of himself and hence of his or her own interior powers, that they may become their own interpreter.

He discusses the creation of art, literature, and music and suggests that great works emanate from one who knows both God and oneself, echoing the ideas of the ancient Greek philosophers. Further, his work echoes Nietzsche's concept of amor fati (p. 52):

You must recognise, you must realise yourself as one with Infinite Spirit. God's will is then your will, your will is God's will, and with God all things are possible.

While I will not be taking Trine's medical advice any time soon, there is much to be gained from a reading of this work. Originally published in 1897, it is one of the earliest self-help books I have read. Although he was at one time a salesman, Trine was no charlatan - he was a philosopher and a teacher and lived to the age of 92, realising in many ways what he argues in this book. 

This work amounts to a series of sermons based on some of the greatest philosophical ideas about the inner life. Although it is not referenced (although he occasionally refers to authors and prominent individuals), this is as good an overview of the inner life as I have read. 

The big lesson I take away from this book is to have faith and to be cautious of the thought-word-action cycle so as to avoid self-fulfilling prophecies. But make sure you go to the doctor if you get sick.

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Hesiod's Misogyny (err... Theogony) and his Unhelpful Contribution to Internet Bulletin Boards (Works and Days)

Dance of the Muses on Mount Helicon, 1807 by Bertel Thorvaldsen  (1770–1844) [CC0 1.0]

Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days are interesting in the context of other classic works and provide an interesting understanding of the genealogy of the ancient Greek gods and the agrarian life of the time. This is a work of poetry translated into prose and there are some issues.

The first thing that struck me was the misogyny of Theogony. Women (pp. 20-21) were sent down by Zeus as a curse to men:

No fit partners for accursed Poverty, but only for Plenty... a bane for mortal men has high-thundering Zeus created women, conspirators in causing difficulty.

The misogyny doesn't stop there. In Works and Days, the mythological Pandora (echoing Eve in Genesis), releases evil upon the world (p. 39). Not by opening a "box" as Erasmus mistakenly conveyed, but by opening a clay storage jar (p. xiv).

La Rochefoucauld's maxims often talk about love as an illness that is difficult to cure, no doubt echoing Hesiod (p. 21):

...the man who gets a good wife who is sound and sensible, spends his life with bad competing constantly against good; while the man who gets the awful kind lives with unrelenting pain in heart and spirit, and it is an ill without cure.

In Works and Days, Hesiod provides advice to living the agrarian life. Virgil seems to echo Hesiod in his Eclogues and Georgics. But Virgil is reflecting back on the simple life, whereas Hesiod reminds me of people offering advice on an internet bulletin board (p. 56):

I will show you the measure of the resounding sea - quite without instruction as I am either in seafaring or in ships; for as to ships, I have never yet sailed the broad sea...

Of course, in true bulletin board style, Hesiod goes on to instruct others in how and when to sail.

This is an important historical work and well worth reading. But while there are instances of timeless proverbs (which have tended to reappear through history), I don't think I will be taking on too much of Hesiod's advice any time soon.

Clausewitz: Lessons in Social Scientific Inductive Theory from On War

Prussian Army during battle of Mollwitz 1741, anonymous plate circa 19th century [Public Domain] via Wikimedia.

On War by Carl von Clausewitz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My first full reading of Clausewitz (accepting that the Penguin volume does not include several books on early nineteenth-century military operations) impressed upon me the essence of philosophy and theory as it applies to the social sciences. 

This Penguin volume is interesting in that it includes an introduction from the editor of the 1908 version used by the US military (Colonel F.N. Maude) and a later introduction from the time of the Cold War (1966 and the early stages of the Vietnam War) by Professor Anatol Rapoport. I have long viewed On War much the same as one might Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations: the quote “war is the continuation of policy by other means” proving to be as similarly unhelpful “as if by an invisible hand” in comprehending the extent of the philosophical grounding in store for the avid reader of classic literature. 

Reading Clausewitz is like reading John Stuart Mill: almost every lesson is so ingrained in the education of political scientists (or in this case, from my training as an army officer) that it seems like nothing new. From morale being one third of combat power (p. 424) to the implied role of the infantry (which I memorised years ago and can still recite), to the essence of war and the changes heralded by the Napoleonic period to the future of absolute or total war that would arrive in 1914, these things I mostly knew. 

But the references to philosophy (the Stoic’s negative visualisation gets a run), to how to develop a theory, to the social scientific view of the world that is largely inductive (and unfalsifiable if one is a fan of Karl Popper) astounded me. That I could learn so much unexpectedly was a blessing. Some ideas are worth noting. First, in the introduction, Rapoport writes of Clausewitz (p. 72):

Those without specialized mathematical knowledge (e.g. political scientists, administrators, military men) tend to conceive of their expertise as that of the artist rather than of a scientist.

Rapoport explains (p. 431):

In the exact sciences, theory is used precisely in the sense rejected by Clausewitz, namely, in the sense of a collection of theorems deduced rigorously from postulates formulated in ‘if so… then so” terms, i.e. as formulas. Clausewitz here uses ‘theory’ in the sense often used in the social sciences, namely, as a synthesis of concepts which illuminate the subject matter without necessarily enabling us to make specific predictions or to control specific situations.

This was illuminating, given that only today I was rummaging through the inductive nature of my own theories developed from research and then reading of Popper’s critique of historicism (another discussion that is new to me). 

An interesting reference from the notes is one of what was probably the most outdated books of the twentieth century even before it was published: Cavalry in Future Wars written in 1908. Rapoport argues that by then, cavalry in its traditional form had no future (Henry Chauvel aside). Finally, Clausewitz subordinates the military to the political without diminishing what he considered to be its noble qualities:

In one word, the Art of War in its highest point of view is policy, but, no doubt, a policy which fights battles instead of writing notes.

Clausewitz frequently argues that the Art of War can only be learnt through practice. While policy-makers might best be suited to determining the aim of war (as policy) from book-learning, military commanders could never attain the artistic qualities necessary for successful military campaigning without direct experience of the fog of war. 

As I have recently moved into research that involves practitioners, Clausewitz gives me some hope for my theoretical aspirations and the use of induction in my work. This was a wonderful surprise, a circumstance that often repeats itself when I embark on a cover to cover reading of books that I thought I knew. 

I must admit that this is the second volume of this work I have purchased. When the first arrived and I discovered it was an abridged version, I donated it to my local library. When this book arrived (Penguin classics are ‘unabridged’ – this version is unabridged from the 1908 abridged version), I was disappointed but pushed on out of frustration. 

I must say it was worth it and I will be recommending this as a reading project for others in my field who, like me, might also think they know Clausewitz.

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