I read Coming of Age in the Milky Way, by Timothy Ferris. The first two-thirds of the book is a lively survey of the history of science, but the last chapters get bogged down in recent research on string theory and other arcane subjects. I can understand why Bill Bryson praised Coming of Age in the Milky Way, but I can also understand why Bryson thought he could cover the same ground in a more interesting way (Bryson wrote about the history of science in A Short History of Nearly Everything).
The early chapters of Ferris’ book have both charming anecdotes and large ideas. Ferris says that Isaac Newton grew up in a rural area, but wasn’t cut out for farm work. “Sent to gather in livestock, he was found an hour later standing on the bridge leading to the pasture, gazing fixedly into a flowing stream. On another occasion he came home trailing a leader and bridle, not having noticed that the horse he had been leading had slipped away.”
Newton received a BA from Cambridge at age 22, then returned to the small town where he’d grown up. “In those days I was in the prime of my age for invention,” he later wrote, “and minded Mathematics and Philosophy more than at any time since.” He made some of his biggest breakthroughs at this time. I’ve often argued that big ideas are discovered at a young age.
I discovered my most original idea, my theory of history, at about age 20. This theory says that decadence is caused by a death-instinct in society, and renaissance is caused by a life-instinct. This theory says we’re in the middle of a renaissance now, a renaissance that started around 1990, and will last until around 2075. Such a renaissance won’t come around again for about 500 years.
My theory says that society’s life-instinct, a collective life-instinct, is a force in the world now, though it hasn’t been perceived. This force may manifest itself in novels or paintings, or some other type of culture, but I don’t think this force can be suppressed. True, I can’t point to any cultural works and say, “That’s an example of the renaissance,” but we know that original works often aren’t recognized immediately, so I’m still confident that my theory is true.
My theory of history rests on the theory of life- and death-instincts, which I found in Freud. Jung thought that Freud got his life- and death-instincts from Sabina Spielrein, one of Jung’s disciples. A century before Spielrein, Coleridge developed a theory that was very close to the theory of life- and death-instincts. Two millennia before Coleridge, Empedocles said there were two forces at work in the world, love and hate (or love and strife).
So it’s difficult to say where the theory of life- and death-instincts originated. If Freud had never mentioned it, I might have developed it (or found it elsewhere). Ferris says, “There is more to science than precedence. As Whitehead remarked, ‘Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.’” As Ferris points out, Galileo is often given credit for saying that heavy and light objects fall at the same speed in a vacuum, but Lucretius made the same point long before Galileo. Likewise, Galileo is often given credit for inventing the telescope, but the Dutch had already invented it.
Nowadays, Freud’s work is often dismissed, and his theory of life- and death-instincts receives little attention. My theory of history is a new confirmation of the theory of life- and death-instincts, and might draw renewed attention to the theory of life- and death-instincts. The idea of a death-instinct may help to explain the large role of negative forces in history, and in daily life.
Ferris says that the philosopher Kant made important contributions to astronomy. Kant realized that
As planets associate in the Solar System (due to gravity), and stars associate in galaxies, so galaxies associate in clusters and super-clusters. “The Milky Way,” Ferris writes, “is one of a few dozen galaxies comprising a gravitationally bound association that astronomers call the Local Group. That group in turn lies near one extremity of a lanky archipelago of galaxies called the Virgo Supercluster.”
While Kant was speculating about nebulae and galaxies, William Herschel was observing them tirelessly, and trying to build better and better telescopes. Born and raised in Germany, Herschel moved to England at 19. He made a living as a musician, while pursuing astronomy on the side. Ferris writes,
| [Herschel] continued his education by reading constantly; many years later he would tell his son John that once while reading on horseback he suddenly found himself standing on the road, book still securely in hand, the horse having tossed him in a perfect somersault though the air. |
Herschel’s horse, like Newton’s horse, probably sensed that he wasn’t paying attention, he wasn’t focusing on the horse or controlling the horse. So the horse decided to declare independence, and become autonomous; it broke free and ran off.
Herschel became famous when he discovered the planet Uranus.
In an earlier issue, I described Einstein as “an aggressive, strong-willed, dominating person who gradually learned to control himself, to reign in his impulses.” The mature Einstein, tamed and controlled on the surface, occasionally gave hints of the strong-willed person beneath the surface. Ferris tells an anecdote about Einstein’s strong will:
| We had finished the preparation of a paper [Einstein’s assistant related] and we were looking for a paper-clip. After opening a lot of drawers we finally found one which turned out to be too badly bent for use. So we were looking for a tool to straighten it. Opening a lot more drawers we came on a whole box of unused paper-clips. Einstein immediately started to shape one of them into a tool to straighten the bent one. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, “Once I am set on a goal, it becomes difficult to deflect me.” |
One of the most challenging chapters in Ferris’ book is the chapter on Einstein. Some key points from the chapter:
Einstein never embraced quantum physics. Ferris shrewdly points out that, when Einstein defended classical physics against quantum physics, he was defending a dismal, mechanical worldview. Einstein wanted “a theory whose objects, connected by laws, are not probabilities but considered facts.” But even if such a theory were possible, Ferris says, “it is not clear why we should wish it to be so. Strict causation, for all its classical pedigree, was ultimately a monstrous doctrine.” Then Ferris discusses the “stark formulation” of Laplace, “the depiction of men as machines, deprived of free will.”
So Ferris sees the weaknesses of the classical approach — the emotional weaknesses as well as the intellectual weaknesses. But Ferris doesn’t grasp quantum physics, he doesn’t mention Paired Particles or Connectedness, he doesn’t mention Double Slit or Groupiness.1 In short, he doesn’t grasp the behavior of particles, and how it resembles the behavior of people. He sees little in quantum physics besides chance. He thinks chance is preferable to determinism: “There are good reasons to celebrate the return of chance to the fundamental affairs of the world.”
Einstein was uncomfortable with particle telepathy and with chance. Einstein said, “It seems hard to sneak a look at God’s cards. But that He plays dice and uses ‘telepathic’ methods... is something that I cannot believe for a single moment.” Einstein also said, “Physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance.” By discussing chance and ignoring telepathy, Ferris gives us an incomplete view of quantum physics; he ignores the soul of quantum physics.
Bloom (2003) is a good movie if you’re interested in Joyce. It preserves the plot and language of Joyce’s Ulysses; one might say that Joyce wrote the screenplay. It’s not a good movie for people who aren’t interested in Joyce, and aren’t familiar with his work.
Ulysses ends with Molly Bloom’s monologue, her stream of consciousness, her memories of her husband proposing to her, her memories of her youth in Gibraltar. Click here for a 3-minute video consisting of the end of Molly’s monologue. Here’s a text version of the end of Molly’s monologue (I inserted line breaks to make it more readable):
the sun shines for you he said
the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head
in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat
the day I got him to propose to me
yes
first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth
and it was leapyear like now
yes
16 years ago
my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath
yes
he said I was a flower of the mountain
yes...
that was why I liked him
because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is
and I knew I could always get round him
and I gave him all the pleasure I could
leading him on till he asked me to say yes
and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky
I was thinking of so many things he didnt know
of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves...
and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs...
O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire
and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens
yes
and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses
and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses
and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain
yes
when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used
or shall I wear a red
yes
and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall
and I thought well as well him as another
and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again
yes
and then he asked me would I yes to say yes
my mountain flower
and first I put my arms around him
yes
and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume
yes
and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
Click here for an interview with Sylvia Beach, who knew Joyce in Paris. Beach was an American who spent most of her adult life in Paris. Beach published Joyce’s Ulysses, and has fond memories of Joyce and Hemingway. Beach ran a bookstore/publisher/library called Shakespeare and Company.
Joyce was a patron of Beach’s library, and borrowed Riders to the Sea, a play by the Irish writer Synge. In Joyce’s Ulysses, Buck Mulligan says, “Shakespeare? I seem to know the name. The chap that writes like Synge.”
In the last issue, I mentioned a James story called “The Great Good Place.” I said that there was something mystical in the story, and that the story was unique in James’ work.
In its opening pages, “The Great Good Place” stays on the solid ground of reality. Like many James stories, it depicts a writer, a successful middle-aged writer like James himself. The writer, George Dane, is buried beneath piles of books, newspapers, telegrams, and letters, and he has lots of visitors and social engagements. Dane finds success burdensome, and he complains that his kind of success is “the vulgarest kind.”
In the modern world, James says, success is more burdensome than ever: “No one in future, as things are going, will be able to face success.” James would sympathize with the famous diplomat/historian George Kennan, who wrote, “success brought down upon the head of him who achieved it so appalling a flood of publicity and commercial pressures that he had only two choices: to emigrate and live abroad or never again to write anything worthwhile at all.”
George Dane, James’ protagonist, focuses on “the inner life,” inner peace, and bemoans “the modern madness, mere maniacal extension and motion.” Modern man wants to build a taller skyscraper, climb a higher mountain, fly to a further planet, while James depicts a different quest, the quest for inner peace. Dane says, “Pressure of every sort is growing,” so Dane seeks a place without burdens and pressures, a place of peace like the Catholic monasteries of Monte Cassino and Grande Chartreuse, a place where “the great Protestant peoples” can find “our retreat and remedy.”
While George Dane is struggling with his burdens, he’s visited by a young writer, who has no burdens and no success. Dane says,
| He came to me with envy, envy extravagant — really passionate. I was, heaven save us, the great “success” for him; he himself was broken and beaten.... He, poor chap, had been for ten years serenading closed windows and had never yet caused a shutter to show that it stirred. My dim blind was the first to be raised an inch; my reading of his book, my impression of it, my note and my invitation, formed literally the only response ever dropped into his dark street. He saw in my littered room, my shattered day, my bored face and spoiled temper... the very blaze of my glory. And he saw in the blaze of my glory... what he had yearned for in vain. |
George Kennan understood this young man’s situation, too. “To have one’s name not known at all,” Kennan wrote, “is to confront a barrier that can be broken through only with much effort and luck.” Kennan and James understood that, in the modern world, both success and lack-of-success are burdensome and challenging.
George Dane and the young writer reach an agreement: the young writer will assume Dane’s burdens, and Dane will enjoy a “retreat” at a Protestant monastery, a place of peace, a place where the cares and burdens of existence can be laid aside. The young writer takes Dane’s hand, shakes Dane’s hand, and Dane finds himself in a kind of sanatorium or monastery, where much of the story takes place.
The story came alive for me when I found an essay called “The Monomyth in ‘The Great Good Place,’” by Mary Ellen Herx. In just five pages, Herx compares Dane’s visit to the sanatorium to the mythical hero’s descent to the underworld, as described by Joseph Campbell and Jung. Herx argues that Dane’s adventure follows the ancient pattern: Departure, Initiation, Return. Herx’s essay throws a flood of light on James’ story, and it can serve as a summary of Campbell’s theory.
Herx says that James uses water imagery to express the various stages of Dane’s adventure. At the outset of the story, Dane is being submerged by his tasks: “It was the old rising tide, and it rose and rose even under a minute’s watching. It had been up to his shoulders last night — it was up to his chin now.” But if water is a threat to Dane, it’s also a salvation:
| From behind the drawn curtain of his study the rain had been audible and in a manner merciful; washing the window in a steady flood, it had seemed the right thing... the thing that, if it would only last, might clear the ground by floating out to a boundless sea the innumerable objects among which his feet stumbled and strayed. |
Dane experiences, Herx says, “a meeting with the goddess mother.... a mystical marriage with the universal mother-source of all life.” Dane thinks of the sanatorium as “a general refuge — an image of embracing arms.... some happy thought of an individual breast.... Oh, the deep deep bath, the soft cool plash in the stillness! ....In tranquil walks and talks the deep spell had worked and he had got his soul again.”
Finally Dane is rested and reinvigorated, ready to face reality again, ready to take up his burdens. As the young writer was the “helper” who took Dane’s hand, and guided him across the threshold to the underworld, so Dane’s servant (Mr. Brown) is the helper who takes Dane’s hand, and guides him back to the daylight world of reality.
In an earlier issue, I discussed the debate between James and H. G. Wells. James favored novels with “selection” and structure, while Wells favored the “saturation” approach, which was rich in content, and bursting with energy.
“The Great Good Place” shows James’ mastery of symbol and structure; it shows how the “selection approach” can produce first-rate fiction. But I needed Herx’s essay to understand James’ story. After reading Herx’s essay, one appreciates the merits of James’ story, one appreciates how the story combines realism and fantasy, and how the story attains psychological truth. The need for an essay like Herx’s may be greater when you read “selection” fiction than when you read “saturation” fiction.
Long before Trump became President, it annoyed him that Western Europe was defended, at least partly, by American nuclear forces and American conventional forces; while the U.S. spent large sums on defense, Western European countries spent far less. Trump felt that the Europeans were getting a good deal at our expense. Since he became President, he’s demanded that the Europeans spend more on their militaries — at least 2% of their GDP. Trump’s support for NATO is tepid.
The Europeans feel that they can’t count on American military help. They’re planning to build their own fighter jet, and cancelling their plans to buy American fighter jets (the F-35, made by Lockheed Martin). They were planning on buying some 200 F-35s at $80 million each, so Trump’s coolness toward Europe is costing American businesses.
Likewise, Trump’s tariff threats are a problem for American businesses, and a blow to American stock markets. Trump was annoyed that the U.S. was paying more tariffs than it was collecting. We were allowing the Europeans to send some 800,000 cars to the U.S. each year, and we were charging a tariff of only 2.5% on those cars. But when we export cars to Europe, there’s a tariff of about 10%. (When we export cars to India, a tariff of about 110% is levied, though we have a trade deficit with India of $45 billion.)
Trump’s annoyance over European tariffs (and Indian tariffs), like his annoyance over European defense spending, has some justification. And while Trump’s tariff threats are disrupting trade, and costing American businesses, they’re also prompting some businesses to do more manufacturing in the U.S.
Trump’s tariffs could help the U.S. in the long run, though they could hurt Republican candidates in the next year or two. Perhaps Trump deserves credit for pursuing a policy that he thinks is good for the nation, though it’s politically dangerous. He’s not engaging in pure partisanship, and pure vote-buying, like the Democrats.
When the Democrats opened the southern border, that was pure partisanship, an attempt to change the country’s demographics in order to help the Democratic party. And when Democrats paid student loans, that was pure vote-buying. Trump’s tariffs are motivated by a conception of fairness, and a conception of the national interest — crude conceptions, perhaps, but nonetheless higher motives than pure partisanship. So it wouldn’t be surprising if the average American admired Trump (as a patriot/nationalist fighting for the national interest), and despised the Democrats (as mere vote-buyers, fighting for party interest).
Elon Musk’s DOGE team is finding lots of waste and fraud. But DOGE is proving to be politically risky; it’s politically safer to waste money than to cut waste. DOGE’s activities are almost certain to benefit the country, but they won’t help Republican candidates in the next year or two. DOGE’s activities are, broadly speaking, aligned with justice, insofar as they’re reducing fraud.
The U.S. has long regarded European countries as friends with whom we have cultural, historic, and military ties. Trump has a different attitude. Trump doesn’t feel that the U.S. and Europe are part of the same civilization. Trump has no respect for Hamlet or the Louvre or the Parthenon. He doesn’t recognize cultural or historic ties to Europe.
But here again, as so often with Trump, he’s a symptom, not a cause. American respect for Western civilization has been declining since at least the 1960s. The Left has no more respect for Western civilization than Trump has.
Trump and his family can’t resist leveraging political power for their own profit. They shouldn’t be involved with crypto, they shouldn’t engage in real-estate deals, especially with foreign countries, they shouldn’t sell access to the President, they shouldn’t spend time discussing golf leagues. They should avoid even the appearance of profiting from politics. They should view public service as a sacrifice that will, in the long run, help all Americans, including themselves.
© L. James Hammond 2025
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| Footnotes | |
| 1. | In an earlier issue, I made the same criticism of Stephen Hawking’s view of quantum physics.
I discussed groupiness in my Bergson essay. back |