bits

On the way back - a guy cycling down Trinity Lane drinking a half-pint of milk.

in consequence

In my borrowed copy of Albert O. Hirschman's The Passions and the Interests - which I've only read a third of but recommend unreservedly - a previous reader has pencilled helpful comments in the margin.

This is the bit on Montesquieu, and Hirschman quotes Montesquieu as saying that "the natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace."

The marginalia writer's gloss: natural but unintended

Hirschman: But Montesquieu's praise for commerce is not entirely without reservations - Montesquieu worries about the monetisation of human relations and the loss of hospitality and other moral virtues.

Gloss: the unintended consequence of the CONSEQUENCE

Heh.

On rule

There is rule of the sort which is exercised by a master; and by this we mean the sort of rule connected with the necessary functions of life. Here it is not necessary for the ruler to know how to do the task himself, but only to know how to use those who do: indeed the former kind of knowledge (by which we mean an ability to do menial services personally) has a servile character.

- Aristotle, Politics, III.4

on the English

Nor was the Sun King aware of any other reason why the English should deserve attention or respect. He is said once to have asked an English ambassador whether, in his country, there had ever been any writers of note. Of Shakespeare and Milton he had apparently never even heard, and he was by no means peculiar in this regard. When Corneille was sent an English translation of Le Cid, he is said to have shelved it in his cabinet between the work's translations into such barbaric languages as Slavonic and Turkish.

- Paul Rahe, Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty

Ah, education

My notes say that I've read Rousseau's Second Discourse before, but I couldn't have gotten very much out of it.

Page 30: =)

Page 43: that's cos sick animals DIE

Page 53: yarrite

Page 54: =} (with eye roll)

Page 56: lurve...

Page 74: ?

Page 81: hungry

Better than a commencement address

Go forward, then, in virtue, beloved young men, the hope of this generation and the glory, I trust, of the generation to come. Take nature and God as your guide, apply your minds to liberal studies, and lay down a varied store of useful knowledge which you may bring forth one day in all honorable, temperate, modest, and courageous service to our country and the human race. And even at this time, with hope and courage, take to yourselves the joyous sense of a mind conscious of its own integrity, the true dignity of life, the esteem [of others], the most honorable kind of fame, and the highest pleasures of life.

- Francis Hutcheson, "On the Natural Sociability of Mankind", Inaugural Oration, 1730

like a gift

There were fireworks! Unexpectedly. Flashes through the leaves of the very large tree outside my window - pigeons always almost fly in - and crackles from afar.

M&P

To encourage more marriages and births in Rome, Caesar "forbade women under forty-five and who had neither husbands nor children to wear precious stones or to use litters, an excellent method of attacking celibacy through vanity."

- Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws