Troubled Water

De l’idée, plus ou moins juste, que nous nous formerons des corps vivants en général, dépendront la solidité plus ou moins grande, de nos connaissances sur le phénomène de la vie, et celle aussi, plus ou moins grande, de nos théories physiologiques, soit végétales, soit animales. Nous devons donc apporter la plus grande circonspection dans les conséquences que nous tirerons des faits mêmes pour cet objet ; et nous rappeler que c’est surtout ici qu’il faut éviter notre écueil ordinaire, celui de conclure du particulier au général. Sans doute, il est très dangereux de rechercher directement, à l’aide de notre imagination, ce que sont les corps vivants , ce qu’est la vie elle-même qu’ils possèdent et qui les distingue des corps qui ne sauraient en jouir ! mais j’ai depuis longtemps remarqué et fait connaître une voie plus assurée pour atteindre le même but sans s’exposer autant à l’erreur ; c’est celle de fixer, d’après l’observation, les conditions essentielles à l’existence des corps v...

[...] O leitor perdoará ainda menos que em nenhuma página se diga claramente por que razão alguém se deixa levar até à Pérsia, um país distante e exótico, apenas para aí sofrer investidas sem nome. Fala‑‑se antes e sobretudo de desvios, de escapatórias, de falsos caminhos. E quem hoje vive num país europeu sabe como muitos não resistem à tensão atroz — uma tensão que se estende do conflito pessoal entre a necessidade de repouso e a capacidade de decisão, que se estende da necessidade material mais simples e inadiável às questões mais gerais e no entanto prementes da política, do futuro económico, social e cultural — uma tensão a que ninguém escapa ileso. E se, não obstante, a juventude tenta escapar ilesa, por conscienciosa que seja no modo como interpreta a sua fuga, ainda assim traz na testa a marca de Caim, a marca de quem traiu o irmão.  É um pouco esse o caso da rapariga que escreveu estas notas. Quando tinha já o manuscrito acabado na mão, percebi que teria de construir uma h...

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot - Louise Harduin (1831) Clark Art Institute , Williamstown, Massachusetts  As duas principais obras políticas aqui referidas, o Discurso e o Contrato Social , denunciam o poder dos fortes e a subserviência dos fracos. No entanto, o título não engana: Rousseau pronuncia-se sobre os homens e não sobre a humanidade. De facto, a desigualdade social e política das mulheres não é por ele considerada no mesmo plano. Embora tenha comentado o tema - elogiou o papel das mulheres em Esparta e Roma (tanto no Discurso quanto no Emílio ) -, reproduziu uma visão patriarcal de família e das mulheres como sujeitos passivos.  Rousseau usou o subterfúgio de sugerir que as mulheres, dominando os lares familiares, então dominam a sociedade, dado que o amor é «celebrado pelas mulheres com muita habilidade e zelo para estabelecerem a sua autoridade, e tornar dominante o sexo que deveria obedecer». Argumentou-o com uma mescla de valorização pouco subtil e de preconceito...

Andrew Wyeth -  Wind from the Sea ( 1947) «In 1851 Foucault carried out his famous experiment in which he observed a slow rotation of the vertical plane of the pendulum’s oscillation. This effect is due to the terms I (a southward force) and III (an eastward force); to a first approximation, the frequency of the plane’s rotation is given by Ωsin(Φ) . Soon after, many such experiments were carried out at different places by other experimentalists. They not only confirmed the original experiment but also testified to the great appeal a direct mechanical proof of the Earth’s rotation had to many, even if few would by then have doubted its reality.  There is an ironical twist here, for in fact the experiment had already been inadvertently done at a time when the Earth’s rotation itself was still under debate. In notes from the 1660s, members of the Accademia del Cimento mention their experiments on pendulums and report a clockwise rotation of the vertical plane. They ...

If we are to understand our present predicament, we will have to take into account just how fragile liberal democratic regimes are and the preconditions for their survival. In this regard, as Montesquieu insisted, size matters. As he noticed, the first republics known to man relied on civic virtue; and, to sustain themselves, they had to be small enough for shame to be a formidable force. In antiquity, as he also pointed out, all of the polities situated on an extended territory were despotisms—where fear was brought in as a substitute for shame as a source of political and social discipline. In a large republic, Montesquieu observed, “interests become particular; a man senses then that he can be happy, great, glorious without his fatherland; & soon that he can be great solely on the ruins of his fatherland.” One consequence of such a republic’s size is that “the common good is sacrificed to a thousand considerations; it is subordinated to the exceptions; it depends on accidents.” ...

The more I wonder,  the longer I live,  how so much water  can stay in a sieve. AN OBSERVATION  There are just enough people  who know what is what ,  for me not to bother with those  who do not.  SELECTIVE  In the night  wisdom came to me  and the next day  I committed the folly  which I no longer  had any desire  to commit.  PARADOX  If a hole  were just a hole  without a thing around it,  who would know  it was a hole  and how  would they  have found it?  IF A HOLE  Do not look  at yourself  always  in the same  mirror.  IN THE MIRROR     God helps me a lot ,  God bless Him,  so  when it’s not urgent  I don’t like to press Him. PATER NOSTER  My room has two doors  and one window .  One door is red and the other is gray.  I cannot open the red door;  the gray door does not...

Kent Monkman - Study for Wild Women of the Woods (Acrylic on canvas 32” x 50”) 2024 It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages.  The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual states, and to the Indians themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it promises to the government are the least of its recommendations. It puts an end to all possible danger of collision between the authorities of the general and state governments on account of the Indians. It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now oc...

  Anselm Kiefer - The Fertile Crescent (2009)   Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of the body and mind, as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. For, as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself.    And, as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words and especially that skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules called science, which very few have and but in few things, as being not a native faculty born with us, nor attained, as prudence, while we look after somewhat else, I find yet a greater equality amongst...

Domenico di Bartolo - Governo degli Infermi (1440) The doctor's aim is to do good, even to our enemies, so much more to our friends, and my profession forbids us to do harm to our kindred, as it is instituted for the benefit and welfare of the human race, and God imposed on physicians the oath not to compose mortiferous remedies. Al-Razi (c. 865-925) in   Islamic Science, the Scholar and Ethics on FSTC « C'est la raison pour laquelle il n’existe pas de médecin habile, de nos jours : l'art de la médecine est long à apprendre et il est nécessaire que ses praticiens, avant de l'exercer, soient formés à la science de l'anatomie / dissection (Urne al-tashrih ), comme Galien l’a décrit, de façon à pouvoir pleinement se familiariser avec les fonctions, les formes et la constitution des organes ; ainsi que la façon dont ils sont liés et de quelle manière ils sont indépendants ; qu'il devrait également connaître parfaitement les os, les nerfs et les muscles, leur nom...

"Ou dá fogo ou meto-lhe um tiro na cabeça" - Alfredo Cunha (fotografia) e Adelino Gomes (texto) no Público 25 Março 2014 Olhando em redor, Jesus disse aos seus discípulos: «Como será difícil aos que têm riquezas entrar no reino de Deus!». Os discípulos ficaram extremamente perplexos com as suas palavras. Mas Jesus, em resposta, disse-lhes de novo: «Filhos, como é difícil entrar no reino de Deus! É mais fácil passar um camelo pelo buraco de uma agulha do que um rico entrar no reino de Deus». Eles estavam extremamente perplexos, dizendo uns aos outros: «Quem pode, então, ser salvo?». Fixando neles o olhar, Jesus disse: «Aos homens é impossível, mas não a Deus, pois tudo é possível a Deus». Pedro começou a dizer-lhe: «Eis que nós deixámos tudo e seguimos-te!». Afirmou Jesus: «Amen vos digo: não há ninguém que tenha deixado casa, ou irmãos, ou irmãs, ou mãe, ou pai, ou filhos, ou campos por causa de mim e por causa do evangelho, que não receba, já neste tempo, cem vezes mais c...