Adam And Aristotle

Mirkheim.

Determined though we are to note every quote from the Bible, we might miss some because they have become so embedded in our language that we no longer think of them as specifically Biblical. Thus, "Adam" has come to mean just "the first man."

Van Rijn sees his newborn great-grandson:

"'Hallo, hallo, harroo!' the old man boomed. 'Congratugoddamnulations! Is that the pup? Ah, a whopper. He has the family looks, I see - never mind which family, Adam's maybe, they are all crumpled red worms at this age. How is you?'" (XVIII, pp. 247-248)

Absolutely anyone can refer to Adam but van Rijn later displays erudition by mentioning Aristotle after waging war:

"'Halloo, harroo,' he chortled, 'how I feel youthed! We had what Aristotle called a cathartic, ja, and gives me an abysmal appetite.'" (XX, p. 267)

I have just read about Aristotle elsewhere and the content was highly relevant to this blog and to van Rijn's multifarious machinations:

"Aristotle thought that property served to make men more virtuous, giving them a responsibility to the earth that made them serious citizens. Plato, that proto-communist, thought that property corrupted men, and in The Republic sketched a vision where nothing was owned, and each man received a daily salary for his work. Two hundred years later, Virgil wrote of a halcyon age where:

"No fences parted fields, nor marks nor bounds

"Distinguished acres of litigious grounds

"But all was common."

-Nick Hayes, The Book Of Trespass (London, 2020), p. 28.

With that much disagreement between the first two written Greek philosophies, maybe we can be excused for remaining confused down to the present day?