DR. JOHN ABERCROMBIE

October 12, Thursday: John Abercrombie was born as a son of the Reverend George Abercrombie of Aberdeen. He would be educated at the Grammar School and then at Marischal College of the University of Aberdeen.

1780

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John Abercrombie was graduated at the University of Edinburgh as a medical doctor, offering as his thesis “De fatuitate alpina” (Edinburgi, Adamus Neill et socii); after six months in London the newly minted physician would begin a practice in Edinburgh.

Dr. John Abercrombie began to serve as surgeon to the Royal Public Dispensary.

Dr. John Abercrombie’s “Cynancke laryngea,” in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal.

Dr. John Abercrombie published various papers in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal which would form the basis for his monographs PATHOLOGICAL AND PRACTICAL RESEARCHES ON DISEASES OF THE BRAIN AND SPINAL CORD, regarded as the 1st textbook in neuropathology, and RESEARCHES ON THE DISEASES OF THE INTESTINAL CANAL, LIVER AND OTHER VISCERA OF THE ABDOMEN, both to appear in 1828.

During this year and the following one, Dr. John Abercrombie had a series of articles in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal that would be collected in 1821 into book form in German translation with appendix by Christian Friedrich Nasse (Bonn: E. Weber).

Dr. John Abercrombie’s RESEARCHES ON THE PATHOLOGY OF THE INTESTINAL CANAL.

1803

1805

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1820

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Dr. John Abercrombie became a member of the Royal College of Physicians/Surgeons.

Dr. John Abercrombie’s PATHOLOGICAL AND PRACTICAL RESEARCHES ON DISEASE OF THE STOMACH, THE INTESTINAL CANAL, THE LIVER, AND OTHER VISCERA OF THE ABDOMEN (Edinburgh, Waugh & Innes).

Dr. John Abercrombie’s monographs PATHOLOGICAL AND PRACTICAL RESEARCHES ON DISEASES OF THE BRAIN AND SPINAL CORD, regarded as the 1st textbook in neuropathology, and RESEARCHES ON THE DISEASES OF THE INTESTINAL CANAL, LIVER AND OTHER VISCERA OF THE ABDOMEN (Edinburgh, Waugh and Innes).

Augustus Addison Gould received the degree of MD at the Harvard Medical School. He would eventually become a doctor and have a successful practice in Boston, but first he needed to make some money (for the grand sum of $50 he would, for instance, catalog some 50,000 pamphlets at the Boston Athenæum into four large folio volumes). Meanwhile he was making the most careful study of natural history, and for two years would teach botany and zoology at Harvard College. He would become a well known specialist in conchology.

Dr. John Abercrombie’s INQUIRIES CONCERNING THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF MAN AND THE INVESTIGATION OF TRUTH (London). This treatise would eventually be found to have contained nothing of any novelty, and would have no lasting place in the literature of philosophy. It would, however, have a place in Henry Thoreau’s formal education at Harvard, and would guide him toward his negative inference “There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers”:

1821

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WALDEN: There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but notphilosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was onceadmirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to havesubtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdomas to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity,independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of theproblems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. Thesuccess of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to livemerely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and arein no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why domen degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is thenature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are wesure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopheris in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. Heis not fed, sheltered clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries.How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat bybetter methods than other men?

HARVARD CATALOG

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Dr. John Abercrombie’s THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MORAL FEELINGS. This philosophical treatise like the author’s previous one would eventually be found to have contained nothing of any originality.

1833

DR. JOHN ABERCROMBIE

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Dr. John Abercrombie became a doctor of honour of medicine at the University of Oxford, and vice president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Dr. John Abercrombie became Lord Rector of the Marishal College and the University of Aberdeen. An inaugural address would be published under the title CULTURE AND DISCIPLINE OF THE MIND.

October 6, Saturday: In the course of a letter to his sister Helen Louisa Thoreau in Taunton, we learn as much as we need to know about the sort of philosophical materials Harvard College was inflicting upon its young scholars in this period, and we learn also as much as we need to know, of the extent to which scholar Henry had been able to distance himself from such “academic” philosophastering. This letter reminds us of the context in which Henry Thoreau could write “There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers”:

To: Helen Thoreau

1834

1835

1838

WALDEN: There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but notphilosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was onceadmirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to havesubtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdomas to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity,independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of theproblems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. Thesuccess of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to livemerely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and arein no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why domen degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is thenature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are wesure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopheris in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. Heis not fed, sheltered clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries.How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat bybetter methods than other men?

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From: HDT Date: 6 October 1838

Concord Oct. 6th –38.Dear Helen,I dropped Sophia’s letter into the box immediately on taking yours out, else the tone of the former had been changed.I have no acquaintance with “Cleavelands First Lessons,” though I have peeped into his abridged Grammar, which I should think very well calculated for beginners, at least, for such as would be likely to wear out one book, before they would be prepared for the abstruser parts of Grammar. Ahem! As no one can tell what was the Roman pronunciation, each nation makes the Latin conform, for the most part, to the rules of its own language; so that with us, of the vowels, only a has a peculiar sound.In the end of a word of more than one syllable, it is sounded like ah–as pennah, Lydiah Hannah, &c. without regard to case.– but da is never sounded dah because it is a monosyllable.All terminations in es and plural cases in os, as you know, are pro-nounced long – as homines (homin;amese) dominos (domin;amose) or in English Johnny Voss. For information see Adam’s Latin Gram-mar – before the Rudiments– This is all law and gospel in the eyes of the world – but remember I am speaking as it were, in the third person, and should sing quite a different tune, if it were I that made the quire. However one must occasionally hang his harp on the wil-lows, and play on the Jew’s harp, in such a strange country as this.One of your young ladies wishes to study Mental Philosophy–hey?–well tell her that she has the very best text book that I know of al-ready in her possession. If she do not believe it, then she should have bespoken a better in another world, and not have expected to find one at “Little and Wilkins’.” But if she wishes to know how poor an apology for a Mental Philosophy men have tacked together, synthet-ically or analytically, in these latter days – how they have squeezed the infinite mind into a compass that would not nonpluss a surveyor of Eastern Lands – making Imagination and Memory to lie still in their respective apartments, like ink-stand and wafers in a l{MS torn} escritoire–why let her read Locke–or Stewart, or Brown. The fact is, Mental Philosophy is very like poverty–which, you know, begins at home; and, indeed, when it goes abroad, it is poverty itself.Chorus. I should think an abridgment of one of the above authors, or of Abercrombie, would answer her purpose. It may set her a-thinking.Probably there are many systems in the market of which I am igno-rant. As for themes –say first “Miscellaneous Thoughts”– set one up to a window to note what passes in the street, and make her com-

JOHN LOCKE

DUG. STEWART

THOS. BROWN

ABERCROMBIE

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ments thereon; or let her gaze in the fire, or into a corner where there is a spider’s web, and philosophize –moralize –theorize, or what not.What their hands find to putter about, or their Minds to think about,– that let them write about.– To say nothing of Advantages or disad-vantages – of this, that, or the other. Let them set down their ideas at any given Season – preserving the chain o f thought as complete as may be.This is the style pedagogical. I am much obliged to you for your peice of information. Knowing your dislike to a sentimental letter I remainYr affectionate brother.H D T

Dr. John Abercrombie became partially paralyzed, but would be able to return to the practice of medicine.

1841

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November 14, Thursday: John Abercrombie was found face down on the floor of his room in Edinburgh. He had been starting out to visit patients and a coronary artery had burst.

March: Edgeley Woodman Todd’s “Philosophical Ideas at Harvard College, 1817-1837” (The New England Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 63-90).

1844

1943

EDGELY WOODMAN TODDJOHN LOCKE

DUG. STEWART

THOS. BROWN

ABERCROMBIE

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March: Joseph J. Kwiat’s “Thoreau’s Philosophical Apprenticeship” (The New England Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 51-69).

Professor Ernest Erwin Leisy’s “Thoreau and Ossian” (The New England Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1 (March 1945), pp. 96-98), points out that rather than using James Macpherson’s version of the Ossianic poems, Thoreau relied instead on Patrick MacGregor’s 1841 blank verse retranslation of the material, THE GENUINE REMAINS OF OSSIAN. Professor Leisy comments gratuitously, however, that “Thoreau in his quotations from Ossian exercised his well-known perversity for selections which suited his particular needs.”1

Henry Thoreau did not ever make use of Macpherson’s fraudulent materials. The quote in WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS, that expresses the kinship of the wild to his nature, is traceable to MacGregor’s version of Croma, 193. The quote that appears in Thoreau’s “Night and Moonlight” is traceable to Ossian’s address to the sun from page 519 of MacGregor’s version of Trathal, beginning “Where has darkness its dwelling,” to illustrate how the light of day reflects “an inward dawn.” The quotes in “Friday” of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS also are traceable to the Macgregor version:

• Ca-Lodin, I, 125: “Thou glidest away”• Ca-Lodin, II, 132: “With murmurs loud”• Ca-Lodin, II, 134: “His soul departed”• Ca-Lodin, II, 137: “Whence have sprung”• Ca-Lodin, III, 138: “The wrathful kings”• Carric, 167: “Strangers build a tower”• Garon, 176: “A thousand orators inclined”• Garon, 176: “How beauteous...”• Oinamoru, I, 182: “I straightway seize”• Croma, 195: “My eyes have failed”• Fingal, III, 252: “— dragging his spear”• Fingal, V, 280: “The weak will find”• Fingal, VI, 292: “Thy mother shall find”• Timora, III, 343: “He strode away”• Timora, VI, 391: “Mounds will appear”

1945

1. Uh, selecting quotations that suit your particular needs is perverse? Well, yes, “cherry-picking” the quotations that support your point while disregarding quotations that would refute your point, that would be properly describable as tendentious — but I don’t consider that Thoreau in quoting from Ossian had any particular agenda to prove any particular point. His use of these materials was merely evocative.

However, this 3-page article was published in 1945, back in the day when it was considered seemly for academics to mention Thoreau with a subtle sneer — so we may be able to put down this remark about Thoreau’s “well-known perversity” as merely Professor Leisy’s obeisance to the popular trend.

JOSEPH J. KWIATJOHN LOCKE

DUG. STEWART

THOS. BROWN

ABERCROMBIE

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2013. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 20 Miles Avenue, Providence RI 02906. Pleasecontact the project at <Kouroo@brown.edu>.

Prepared: August 2, 2013

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, upon someone’s request wehave pulled it out of the hat of a pirate that has grown out ofthe shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (depicted above). Whatthese chronological lists are: they are research reportscompiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of data moduleswhich we term the Kouroo Contexture. This is data mining.To respond to such a request for information, we merely push abutton.

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Commonly, the first output of the program has obviousdeficiencies and so we need to go back into the data modulesstored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, andthen we need to punch that button again and do a recompile ofthe chronology — but there is nothing here that remotelyresembles the ordinary “writerly” process which you know andlove. As the contents of this originating contexture improve,and as the programming improves, and as funding becomesavailable (to date no funding whatever has been needed in thecreation of this facility, the entire operation being run outof pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweakingand recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation ofa generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward andupward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place your requests with <Kouroo@brown.edu>.Arrgh.