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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=459563" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Cartesian life co-odinated</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The year is 1607; the place, the lodgings <br>of the Jesuit College Royal Henri-le-Grand <br>at La Fleche; it’s evening; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">around a flickering candle <br>three boys of eleven years, <br>bright young faces against black robes, <br>bright eyes, lit in each pupil by the candle flame; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">too young yet to be tired <br>by their day of such demanding study, <br>they laugh over a game <br>designed to improve their knowledge <br>of the Latin terms that they must learn: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">the one whose father is a High Court judge <br>of course knows most; yet is most bored; <br>such is a father’s ambition for his son… </div><div style="margin:10px 0">the game, easily constructed without expense: <br>pieces of paper in a Jesuit cap <br>on each of which, a simple Latin word <br>most likely to be required for formal argument <br>in pulpit, in the courts of law: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">the game, to be the first to draw <br>words which can make a sentence <br>that can pass for logical… </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Bright, bored René draws first: <br>‘Ergo’ – ‘therefore’: they all groan; the very word <br>speaks study, formal argument.. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">the others draw their words; <br>in the second round, our René draws <br>‘Sum’ – I exist, I am’’ </div><div style="margin:10px 0">the third round: excitement intensifies: <br>can three words make a sentence fit <br>for speaking in this holy, hallowed place? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">gods hold their breath; angels <br>hover on the wing; Fate shakes the dice; <br>nature, nurture, weighty past, <br>all conspire to set the seal <br>upon four centuries of future thought… </div><div style="margin:10px 0">flushed young face and slow-moved hand <br>stretch out suspense in childish fun… <br>‘Cogito…’ reads René’s paper scrap… </div><div style="margin:10px 0">how was the eleven-year-old to know <br>that his next words—so lightly spoke, <br>so soon discarded to the vaults of memory – <br>would shape a life, a nation’s self-drawn image, <br>more volumes in more languages <br>than any could imagine then? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">alas! as every being in the heavens <br>awaited human statement of the greater truth <br>which would awaken mortal man <br>to his divine inheritance… <br>‘Sum, ergo, cogito’… they whisper to the Fates… <br>‘I am, I exist; therefore, I think…’ </div><div style="margin:10px 0">alas! Man’s hubris won the day… <br>‘Cogito, ergo sum! ’ shouts our triumphant René - <br>‘J’ai gagné! J’ai gagné! ’ <br>and even God was heard to sigh… </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The boys laugh; the game is won, discarded; <br>instant forgetfulness washes Lethe-like <br>over young minds; it will be thirty years <br>before our René dredges from his mind, <br>significance; human hubris; method; discourse… <br>sets the thinking world by egoistic ears… </div><div style="margin:10px 0">and so four centuries of self-assertive Frenchmen <br>will gaze and talk with philosophic love <br>into the eyes of mesmerised <br>nubile young girls across the coffee-cups <br>of tables on the sidewalks of the boulevards; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">proud to be born French; the nation <br>knowing that they, above all, they hold the secret <br>of philosophy, of life: we are, I am, born to think.. <br>je suis né pour penser… </div><div style="margin:10px 0">and what of being itself, <br>and what of consciousness, <br>that enfolds ‘I am’…? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">mon pauvre, mon semblable, mon frere… mon assassin… <br>hélas! hélas! …</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Michael+Shepherd">Michael Shepherd</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=459563" data-title="A Cartesian life co-odinated de Michael Shepherd" data-description="The year is 1607; the place, the lodgings 
of the Jesuit College Royal Henri-le-Grand 
at La Fleche; it’s evening; 

around a flickering candle 
three boys of eleven years, 
bright young faces against black robes, 
bright eyes, lit in each pupil..."></div>
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