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E VA P I CAR D I ON LA NGU A GE ,
AN A L Y SI S AN D HISTORY
Edited by Annalisa Coliva, Paolo Leonardi
and Sebastiano Moruzzi
Eva Picardi on Language, Analysis and History
Annalisa Coliva · Paolo Leonardi
Sebastiano Moruzzi
Editors

Eva Picardi on
Language, Analysis
and History
Editors
Annalisa Coliva Sebastiano Moruzzi
University of California Irvine Department of Philosophy and
Irvine, CA, USA Communication Studies
University of Bologna
Paolo Leonardi Bologna, Italy
Department of Philosophy and
Communication Studies
University of Bologna
Bologna, Italy

ISBN 978-3-319-95776-0 ISBN 978-3-319-95777-7 (eBook)


https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95777-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018948815

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018


This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
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Cover credit: © A_Pobedimskiy. Getty Images

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Contents

Introduction 1
Annalisa Coliva, Paolo Leonardi
and Sebastiano Moruzzi

Part I Themes from Frege

Early Analytic Philosophy’s Austrian Dimensions 7


Kevin Mulligan

Truth, Ascriptions of Truth, and Grounds


of Truth Ascriptions 31
Wolfgang Künne

The Names of the True 67


Paolo Leonardi

Was Frege a Logicist for Arithmetic? 87


Marco Panza

Logic as Science 113


Robert May

v
vi    Contents

Thin Reference, Metaontological Minimalism


and Abstraction Principles: The Prospects
for Tolerant Reductionism 161
Andrea Sereni

A Context Principle for the Twenty-First Century 183


Fabrizio Cariani

Slurs and Tone 205


Ernie Lepore and Matthew Stone

Refusing to Endorse: A Must Explanation for Pejoratives 219


Carlo Penco

Fregean Presentationalism 241


Elisabetta Sacchi

Part II Themes from Davidson

Agency Without Rationality 265


Lisa Bortolotti

Reasons and Causes in Psychiatry: Ideas from Donald


Davidson’s Work 281
Elisabetta Lalumera

The Doxastic Zoo 297


Pascal Engel

Part III Language, Contextualism and Naturalism

Naturalizing Picardi 319


Diego Marconi

Practical Knowledge and Linguistic Competence 337


Annalisa Coliva
Contents    vii

A Plague on All Your Houses: Some Reflections on the


Variable Behaviour of “Knows” 357
Crispin Wright

Truth Relativism and Evans’ Challenge 385


Sebastiano Moruzzi

Knowing the Facts: A Contrastivist Account of the


Referential Opacity of Knowledge Attributions* 401
Giorgio Volpe

Index 421
Contributors

Lisa Bortolotti Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham,


Birmingham, UK
Fabrizio Cariani Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
Annalisa Coliva University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
Pascal Engel EHESS-Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales,
Centre de recherche sur les arts et le langage (CRAL), Paris, France
Wolfgang Künne University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Elisabetta Lalumera University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
Paolo Leonardi University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Ernie Lepore Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
Diego Marconi Department of Philosophy and Education Studies,
University of Turin, Turin, Italy
Robert May University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Sebastiano Moruzzi Department of Philosophy and Communication
Studies, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Kevin Mulligan Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland
Marco Panza CNRS, IHPST (CNRS and University of Paris 1, Panthéon-
Sorbonne), Paris, France; Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA

ix
x    Contributors

Carlo Penco University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy


Elisabetta Sacchi Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy
Andrea Sereni Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS Pavia, Pavia, Italy
Matthew Stone Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
Giorgio Volpe University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Crispin Wright New York University, New York, NY, USA
Introduction

Annalisa Coliva, Paolo Leonardi and Sebastiano Moruzzi

© The Author(s) 2018 1


A. Coliva et al. (eds.), Eva Picardi on Language, Analysis and History,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95777-7_1
2 A. COLIVA ET AL.

Eva Picardi was born in Reggio Calabria, Italy, January 16, 1948. Early
after, her family moved to Bologna. At Bologna, shortly after 1970, she
graduated in Philosophy. In 1984 she received a D.Phil in Philosophy,
presenting a dissertation on Asserting, written under Sir Michael
Dummett’s supervison. Asserting was also the topic of her first book,
Assertibility and Truth / A Study of Fregean Themes (1981). Eva taught
Philosophy of language at the University of Bologna from 1976 until
2016. She died in Bologna, April 23, 2017.
Eva Picardi was one of the promoters of the European Society for
Analytic Philosophy; she was on the Editorial Board of the European
Journal of Philosophy and of the Journal for the History of Analytic Philosophy.
She was also a member of the Advisory Board of the Palgrave Macmillan
series on the History of Analytic Philosophy, edited by Michael Beaney, and
a member of the advisory board of the group coordinated by Crispin Wright
for the translation of Frege’s Grundgesetze der Arithmetik into English.
Her research was on themes and authors of analytic philosophy
of language. She was an internationally renowned expert on Gottlob
Frege, whose work she related to, and confronted with that of Giuseppe
Peano, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Frank Ramsey, Rudolf
Carnap and Donald Davidson. Some of her essays on these topics
were collected in the volume La chimica dei concetti. Linguaggio, log-
ica, psicologia 1879–1927 [The Chemistry of Concepts—Language, Logic,
Psychology 1879–1927] (1994). After 1990 she began intense research
on American neo-pragmatists—W.V.O. Quine, Donald Davidson,
Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty e Robert Brandom—often comparing
their work with Michael Dummett’s anti-realist program. More recently
she got interested in the contextualist debate, tracing its origin back to

A. Coliva (*)
University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
e-mail: a.coliva@uci.edu
P. Leonardi
Department of Philosophy and Communication Studies,
University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
e-mail: paolo.leonardi@unibo.it
S. Moruzzi
Department of Philosophy and Communication Studies,
University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
e-mail: sebastiano.moruzzi@unibo.it
INTRODUCTION 3

Frege’s distinction between sense and tone, his context principle, later
radicalized by Wittgenstein and by Quine’s and Davidson’s holism—of
which Dummett proposed a milder, molecularist variant.
Eva Picardi was also very active in translating analytic philosophers—
Frege, Wittgenstein, Davidson, Putnam, Dummett—into Italian.
Together with Carlo Penco, she worked on a new Italian edition of
Frege’s works until her very last days. Her contribution to the develop-
ment of Italian analytic philosophy is much greater, though. She was the
editor of the philosophical section of Lingua e stile, from 1992 until 2000,
a journal that soon became the most important one for Italian philoso-
phers of language. Besides, she was one of the ten founders of the Italian
Society for Analytic Philosophy, and its President from 2000 until 2002.
Together with Annalisa Coliva, she organized in 2001 the conference
Wittgenstein together, which assembled in Bologna the best scholars on
Wittgenstein. From the meeting an anthology by the same title originated.
A great teacher, Eva Picardi motivated and directed her students,
dedicating a lot of time and energy to them. Many of her students have
become researchers and professors in Italy, in other European countries
(United Kingdom, Finland, Portugal, Germany), in the United States and
New Zealand. Her engagement with teaching made her write one of the
most complete introductions to philosophy of language Linguaggio e ana-
lisi filosofica. Elementi di filosofia del linguaggio (1992) and later a more
agile one, Teorie del significato (1999), translated into Spanish in 2001.
Her stand on meaning was moderately literalist. She was aware of the role
of pragmatic aspects and context in understanding, but she kept to a norma-
tive view of meaning. Normativism made her critical of naturalist programs,
such as Chomsky’s and Fodor’s, which she carefully examined. A Fregean,
she never became a supporter of direct reference, her admiration for Saul
Kripke, Hilary Putnam and Tyler Burge notwithstanding. Philosophy of lan-
guage was, according to her, first philosophy—that is, the way for investi-
gating the main if not all philosophical topics. At that, she largely endorsed
Dummett’s view as presented in his Origins of Analytic Philosophy (a series of
lectures Dummett delivered in Bologna at Eva Picardi’s invitation).
Eva Picardi had style—philosophical and personal. She mastered her
field and had knowledge beyond it. She was no sceptic, and had firm
philosophical convictions and, in discussion, she was precise and insight-
ful. At the same time, she would often not argue the last steps: references
and quotations insinuated a different ground and the unfinished argu-
ment left the conclusion open. It was lightness and respect, and more.
4 A. COLIVA ET AL.

She was convinced that matters can be seen in more than one way, and
that this is what rewards us in a vast knowledge of the literature. A per-
spicuous picture, which is what we constantly aim at, is one that looks at
its object from any of the surrounding points of view, for an indefinite
span of time, i.e., an impossible picture. That brings no regret—world
and life are richer than any picture of them.
This volume is meant to honour Eva Picardi—her philosophical views
and interests, as well as her teaching. It collects eighteen essays, some by
former students of hers, some by colleagues with whom she discussed
and interacted. The volume has three sections: one of Frege’s work—in
philosophy of language and logic—, taking into account also its histori-
cal dimension; one on Davidson’s work; and one on the contextualism-
literalism dispute about meaning and on naturalist research programmes
such as Chomsky’s. The volume reproduces also a picture by Salvatore
Nocera, an Italian painter whose work has been shown in an exhibition
Eva Picardi prepared during the last couple of years of her life, but did not
manage to see. Some of Nocera’s paintings adorned her house which she
furnished following Adolf Loos’ dictates in Ornament and Crime (1908).
During her long illness, she neither hid her condition nor turned it
into a problem to participate, going on as if there were no deadlines,
undertaking various new projects, among which plans for the Summer
2017. Elegant and beautiful, intelligent and cultivated, fearless as she
was.1

Note
1. If you would like to have a glimpse of Eva Picardi’s serious irony, you may
watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiWVa4lIyU4If,
you would like to listen to a lecture by her, you may watch this other
video: http://www.cattedrarosmini.org/site/view/view.php?cmd=view&i
d=213&menu1=m2&menu2=m37&menu3=m410&videoid=935.
PART I

Themes from Frege


Early Analytic Philosophy’s Austrian
Dimensions

Kevin Mulligan

1  Introduction
Allusions are often made to the more or less intimate relations between
early analytic philosophy—Frege, Russell, Moore—and Austrian phi-
losophy—Brentano and his students, Meinong, Husserl, Ehrenfels,
Twardowski, Marty, Kerry and Stumpf. But my impression is that in spite
of the pioneering efforts of Eva Picardi,1 Roderick Chisholm, Michael
Dummett, Peter Simons, Barry Smith and others, these relations are still
unfamiliar and ill-understood. The relevant relations are of two kinds.
First, the conceptual relations between the philosophies of the Austrians
and the philosophies of the founders of analytic philosophy. Second, rela-
tions of influence and epistemic relations—the knowledge some of these
philosophers had of the philosophies of the others, in particular what
they learned from each other. Claims about relations of the second kind
often presuppose some grasp of relations of the first kind particularly
when they go beyond claims about who read, praised, criticised what.

K. Mulligan (*)
Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland
e-mail: Kevin.Mulligan@unige.ch

© The Author(s) 2018 7


A. Coliva et al. (eds.), Eva Picardi on Language, Analysis and History,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95777-7_2
8 K. MULLIGAN

In what follows I set out a series of sketches of some aspects of the


relations between early analytic and Austrian philosophy.

2  Stout Opens Cambridge’s Doors to the Austrians


Stout, a teacher of Russell and Moore, seems to have introduced the phi-
losophies of Brentano and his pupils to Cambridge.2 Russell and Moore
then quickly turn their attention to the ideas mentioned by Stout and
to other publications in the Brentanian tradition. And other Cambridge
philosophers, Broad, McTaggart and Laird and, for example, Findlay,
were to keep this interest in Austrian philosophy alive.3
Stout refers in his 1896 Analytic Psychology (I, II) to Brentano’s
Psychologie (1874), Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (1889) and to
his article „Das Genie“ (1882). He also refers to the work of three of
Brentano’s students—Ehrenfels’ 1890 article “Über Gestaltqualitäten”
(Stout 1896, I 65), Meinong’s 1891 article “Zur Psychologie der
Komplexionen und Relationen” and to work by Stumpf (Stout 1896,
I 56–59, 70–71, 250). Stout discusses in detail Brentano’s account of
mental modes (Stout 1896, I 38–43), Brentano’s arguments in favour
of the distinction between presentings, on the one hand, and believing
or judging, on the other hand (Stout 1896, I 99–111) and “Brentano’s
analysis” of the distinction between feeling and conation (Stout 1896,
I 116–121). He briefly outlines Brentano’s views about intellectual and
non-intellectual correctness or rightness, the correctness of judgings and
of emotings, in the course of expounding Brentano’s distinction between
presentings, on the one hand, and judgings, emotings and conatings, on
the other hand:

Brentano points out that mere ideas cannot strictly speaking be right or
wrong. They do not possess any virtue or vice, if we may be allowed the
expression, by reason of which they can be approved or disapproved of.
Within the sphere of desire,—of love and hate,—it is otherwise. Here we
find a distinction between the morally good and the morally bad. Similarly,
in the case of belief there is a corresponding distinction between truth and
error. (Stout 1896, I 111)

As a summary of Brentano’s view, this is both incorrect and idiosyn-


cratic but it does present Brentano’s main claim, a revival of a view to
be found in Plato and Aristotle, that judgings as well as emotings and
EARLY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY’S AUSTRIAN DIMENSIONS 9

desiring—which Brentano calls phenomena of love and hate—are correct


or incorrect.4 Stout correctly notes that “Brentano seems to play with
the word Lieben (liking), much as Mill does with the word ‘pleasure’”
(Stout 1896, I 120).
Stout concurs with (what he calls) Brentano’s view that affirmation
and denial can vary in intensity and goes on to distinguish the degrees of
firmness or fixity of assurance and conviction from degrees of intensity of
belief. Like some later philosophers, he accepts the former and rejects the
latter (Stout 1896, I 110).
Chapter III of Stout’s (1896) Analytic Psychology is entitled “The
Apprehension of Form” and deals with mereology and its epistemology.
It begins as follows:

Every whole involves (i) component parts, and (2) the form of combina-
tion in which these parts are united. The nature of the components varies
in different cases, and so does their mode of grouping. We have now to
consider the following questions : How far is the apprehension of a certain
form of combination distinct from and independent of the apprehension of
its constituent parts? and, conversely: How far is the apprehension of the
components of a certain kind of whole distinct from and independent of
the apprehension of its form of synthesis? (Stout 1896, I 65)

These distinctions and questions are at the centre of the work of


Brentano and his pupils. And Stout appends an interesting note to the
introductory passage just quoted, referring to the already mentioned
1890 article in which Ehrenfels launched Gestalt Psychology:

Chr. Ehrenfels…has discussed certain aspects of this question …What


I designate as form or plan of combination he calls a ‘shape-quality’. This
use of words sounds strange in German, and it would certainly appear very
uncouth in English. I have preferred to say ‘form’ instead of ‘shape’. It is
advisable however to point out that my application of the word coincides
rather with ordinary usage than with the technical usage of Kant. Form in
the text does not stand for the universal and necessary as opposed to the
particular and contingent. Forms of combination may be as concrete and
particular as the elements combined.

In other words, the forms of combination of particular sounds are as


concrete and particular as the sounds themselves, they are all what Stout
will later call “abstract particulars” and what Husserl had already called
10 K. MULLIGAN

“Momente”. Stout’s concrete, particular forms of combination are


Husserl’s “moments of unity”, of which “figural moments” are a species.
Stout distinguishes sharply between mereology and its epistemology:

It should be noted that we do not propose to investigate the relation of


combination to elements combined in the actual constitution of an objec-
tive whole; our problem concerns only the relation of apprehension of
form to apprehension of matter. Even if an objective whole is nothing
more than the sum of its parts taken collectively, it does not follow that
our cognisance of this whole is to be identified with our cognisance of
all its parts. In the next place it must be understood that we are not here
concerned with mental combination. If the apprehension of form is in any
sense distinct and independent of the apprehension of matter, it is itself
not a form of mental combination, but a material constituent of conscious-
ness, comparable in this respect with the perception of red or blue. In the
sequel we shall have to inquire how, in mental process, the apprehension
of the form of a whole conditions and is conditioned by that of its con-
stituent parts. This will be in a strict sense an inquiry into mental form of
combination. (Stout 1896, I 65–66)

He then asks: “Can the form of combination remain the same or rela-
tively the same, while the constituents vary?” His affirmative answer is
a variation on Ehrenfels’ account of the transposability of Gestalt quali-
ties, although Ehrenfels is no longer mentioned. But Stout does refer to
the discussion of an alternative answer given by Meinong (Stout 1896, I
70). Stout also asks: “Is it possible to apprehend all the components of
a whole without apprehending their mode of connection?” and gives an
affirmative answer to this question, too, quoting Stumpf’s view that

we may be aware of two notes differing in pitch, and we may be aware that
they do so differ, without observing which is higher than the other. (Stout
1896, I 70–71)

Stout agrees with James’s rejection of Stumpf’s view of psychological


analysis, though not with James’s arguments and alternative:

Like us, though on different, and, I think, partly fallacious grounds, he


denies that when, by an effort of attention, we transform an indistinct into
a distinct presentation, the features distinguished by consciousness in the
latter were precontained as real, though undiscerned, components in the
EARLY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY’S AUSTRIAN DIMENSIONS 11

former. Thus, according to James, it is inaccurate to say, with Stumpf, that


by mental analysis we can “clearly perceive that the content of our sensa-
tion of oil of pepper mint is partly a sensation of taste and partly one of
temperature”. He rightly refuses to admit that an original indistinct con-
tent of sensation can be legitimately identified with a subsequent distinct
one. The explanation which he proposes is that “we perceive the objective
fact, known to us as the peppermint taste, to contain those other objec-
tive facts known as aromatic or sapid quality, and coldness, respectively”.
In like manner he would resolve all so-called analysis of presentations into
analysis of the objective facts, which are known by means of them. This
view is advanced by Professor James with dogmatic emphasis. But he does
not support it on positive grounds. He seems to consider that it is ade-
quately established by a refutation of the common doctrine, which I agree
with him in rejecting. It apparently does not occur to him that there may
be another alternative. It is at this point that we cease to be able to follow
him. His doctrine, if pushed to its logical consequences, would involve the
impossibility, not merely of the “analysis of presentation” but of all analysis
properly so called.5

The view of psychological analysis rejected by James and Stout—for


different reasons—is the view which will also be rejected by Stumpf’s
pupils, the Berlin Gestalt Psychologists—Köhler and Koffka—in their
criticisms of Stumpf, Ehrenfels and the Graz school (Meinong, Benussi,
Witasek) of Gestalt Psychology.6
In his 1899 Manual Stout sets out a view of quantities and measure-
ment which is based to a large extent on Meinong’s (1896) monograph
Über die Bedeutung des Weberschen Gesetzes. Beiträge zur Psychologie
des Vergleichens und Messens. As Stout says: “The treatment of Weber’s
law in this chapter [ch. 7] follows Meinong, Ueber die Bedeutung des
Weberschen Gesetzes, etc.” (Stout 1899, 209).
Each of the Austrian ideas discussed by Stout was to be discussed by
Cambridge philosophers. In 1899 Russell publishes his own detailed
review of Meinong’s work on quantities and relations and in his 1903
Principles of Mathematics (Chapters XIX–XX, XXII) draws on Meinong’s
philosophy of quantities and relations. Of Meinong’s monograph he says
that he has “learnt so much” from it and that he “largely agrees with”
it (Russell 1979, 168). In 1903, Moore discusses at length Brentano’s
account of correct or right emoting and preferring and his account
of goodness. Indeed Russell was to go on to review many works by
Meinong and his pupils (Russell 1904, 1905a, b, 1906, 1907). And the
12 K. MULLIGAN

distinction drawn by Ehrenfels and Stout between the parts of a whole


and their forms of combination was to become of great importance in
Cambridge philosophy, in particular, as the distinction between the
parts of a whole and the relations between the parts, in the writings of
Wittgenstein. The relations between the parts of a whole, Husserl and
then Wittgenstein argue, are not parts of the whole. The epistemology
of wholes, their parts and forms of combination, the nature of percep-
tion and knowledge of these, was also to become a preoccupation of
Cambridge philosophers. But in early Austrian philosophy, as we have
seen, the analysis of wholes meant in the first place the analysis of per-
ceived wholes and the analysis of mental acts and states. Examples of
these kinds quickly become less important in Cambridge philosophy than
the analysis of the wholes called propositions. In Austrian philosophy, it
is first of all in the writings of Husserl that the analysis of propositions
and meanings takes centre stage. And both Husserl and Meinong pro-
pose philosophies of the wholes they call states of affairs, Sachverhalte
(Husserl), and objectives (Meinong) and which Russell sometimes calls
propositions and sometimes objectives.
This brief and selective account of the way in which certain questions
and answers thereto seem to have arrived in Cambridge would be incom-
plete without an account of the way in which Cambridge philosophers
reacted to the way in which Austrian philosophers did philosophy and
the relation between this model and what was to become the most dis-
tinctive trait of early, Cambridge analytic philosophy—the obsession with
and search for clarity.

3   Clarity and Cognitive Virtue—How to Do Austrian,


Analytic Philosophy
There is a definite and distinctive continuity between the tone and type
of Stout’s praise for the way the Austrians do philosophy, on the one
hand, and the praise Russell and Moore were to lavish on Meinong and
Brentano in particular.
Thus in 1896 Stout says that the question of how to distinguish
between presentings and judgings is “treated with admirable care and
acuteness” by Brentano (Stout 1896, I 99). Ehrenfels, he says, “has dis-
cussed” certain aspects of the relation between the apprehension of the
form of a whole and apprehension of its parts “with great fullness and
EARLY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY’S AUSTRIAN DIMENSIONS 13

precision” (Stout 1896, I 65). Of an argument by Stumpf in favour of


the thesis “that sensation can actually exist without cognitive function”
(Stout 1899, 120), he says that its “merit” “lies in the exact and cogent
form into which it is thrown” (Stout 1899, 121).
When Russell and then Moore turn their attention to the writings of
Brentano and Meinong described by Stout, they praise what Stout had
praised but more insistently. In Russell’s 1899 review of Meinong’s mon-
ograph on quantity and measurement, which Stout summarises and dis-
cusses in the same year, he says:

The present work consists essentially of a single thesis proved by a single


argument. The thesis is at once simple and ingenious, the argument at
once lucid and subtle. The author avoids almost all the mistakes and con-
fusions which beset writers on psychical measurement, and makes several
important distinctions which are rarely, if ever, to be met with elsewhere.
(Russell 1899)

In 1903 Russell says of the belief that all order depends on distance that,
“though entertained by so excellent a writer as Meinong”, it is false
(Russell 1903, 419). In 1907 Russell writes of a monograph published
in the same year by Meinong that “the style is remarkably clear”, that
Meinong’s “contentions are in all cases clear” and that

the polemical arguments appear to the present reviewer to be generally


cogent, except (needless to add) when they are directed against himself.
(Russell 1907)

Moore’s discussions of the 1902 English translation of Brentano’s 1889


Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis and in particular of just the ideas
summarised by Stout in 1896, are published in 1903: a review and a
page in Moore’s Preface to Principia Ethica. The latter tells the reader:

When this book had already been completed, I found, in Brentano’s


‘Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong’, opinions far more closely
resembling my own than those of any other ethical writer with whom I am
acquainted. (Moore 1966, x–xi)

The review is a tribute from one master-clarifier to another. Moore


refers to “Brentano’s extraordinary clearness with regard to the precise
14 K. MULLIGAN

relevance of all he says” and says that “Brentano is both clearer and more
profound” than Sidgwick. Brentano’s “is a far better discussion of the
most fundamental principles of ethics than any others with which I am
acquainted”.
Moore’s longest Auseinandersetzung with the Brentanian ­ tradition
is his 1910 review of a primer of Husserl’s philosophy of mind and
language by the German philosopher and psychologist August
Messer (1908), although he occasionally refers later to both Meinong
and Stumpf. Moore says of Messer’s book that it is “extraordinarily
good” and “written beautifully simply and clearly”; the author is “won-
derfully successful in making plain, by means of examples, exactly what it
is that he is talking about” (Moore 1910).
The praise which Russell and Moore bestow on Meinong was also
given by younger Cambridge philosophers. Thus Broad concludes his
1913 review of the second edition of Meinong’s Über Annahmen with
words which echo Russell’s review of the first edition: “The book as a
whole can safely be described as a model of acute and profound investi-
gation into the hardest and most fundamental questions of philosophy”.
But perhaps the most striking example of the effect of exposure to
Austrian methodology in Cambridge is to be gleaned from a compar-
ison of Russell’s 1911 account of the true method, in philosophy and
science, analytic realism and logical atomism, with his 1904 account of
Meinong’s way of doing philosophy. In 1911 Russell writes:

There have been far too many heroic solutions in philosophy; detailed
work has too often been neglected; there has been too little patience. As
was once the case in physics, a hypothesis is invented, and on top of this
hypothesis a bizarre world is constructed, there is no effort to compare
this world with the real world. The true method, in philosophy as in sci-
ence, will be inductive, meticulous, and will not believe that it is the duty
of every philosopher to solve every problem by himself. This is the method
that inspires analytic realism and it is the only method, if I am not mis-
taken, by which philosophy will succeed in obtaining results which are as
solid as those of science. (Russell 1911, 61)

In 1904, in a review of Meinong’s monographs On Assumptions and On


Higher-Order Objects, he had written:

Although empiricism as a philosophy does not appear to be tenable, there


is an empirical method of investigating, which should be applied in every
EARLY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY’S AUSTRIAN DIMENSIONS 15

subject-matter. This is possessed in very perfect form by the works we are


considering. A frank recognition of the data, as inspection reveals them,
precedes all theorising; when a theory is propounded, the greatest skill is
shown in the selection of facts favourable or unfavourable, and in eliciting
all consequences of the facts adduced. There is thus a rare combination
of acute inference with capacity for observation. The method of philoso-
phy is not fundamentally unlike that of other sciences: the differences seem
to be only in degree…Whatever may ultimately prove to be the value of
Meinong’s particular contentions, the value of his method is undoubtedly
very great; and on this account if on no other, he deserves careful study.
(Russell 1973, 22–23)

Wittingly or unwittingly, Russell here echoes the thesis which Meinong’s


teacher, Brentano, had defended during his Habilitation in 1866:
“the true method of philosophy is none other than that of the natural
sciences.”
The different features of the Austrian way of doing philosophy which
Stout, Russell and Moore single out for praise are simply some of the
different components or aspects of cognitive virtue, with a definite pref-
erence for the striving for clarity which Bolzano and then Brentano had
introduced into Austrian philosophy.
The philosophical questions mentioned so far, as they were posed and
answered by Brentano and his heirs and then taken up by Cambridge
philosophers have come in for some discussion.7 In what follows, I con-
sider two less well-known Austro-Cambridge ideas.

4  The Present Emperor of France vs. the Present King


of France

Russell’s 1905 account of definite descriptions appeared four years after


Husserl’s inconclusive reflexions on the same subject. But the relations
between the views of Husserl and Russell on reference and denota-
tion are of some interest and not just to the historian of early analytic
and Austrian philosophy. Although Husserl’s early views about definite
descriptions are not worked out very clearly, he has a sophisticated and
plausible account of proper names and what he calls “occasional”, that
is to say, demonstrative and indexical expressions, singular and plural.
Unlike Russell and Carnap he knew that these two categories are very
different. Roughly, his view is that (singular) proper names have a sense
16 K. MULLIGAN

or meaning which, in the most basic cases, is simple and so non-descriptive


and that the object of such a name, if it has one, is not its meaning or
sense. The reference of a proper name is fixed by non-conceptual per-
ception or by something which plays the same role. But someone who
does not understand the proper meaning of a proper name, for exam-
ple “Madrid”, may still use it correctly provided he has learnt that, as
Husserl puts it, “the capital of Spain is called (has the proper name)
Madrid” (Husserl 1984b, VI §5, 556). In such a case, we may say, the
reference of the proper name has been fixed by a definite description.
Proper names, Husserl says, may refer or name directly or indirectly.
Similarly, demonstratives also have a simple sense but a simple sense
which, unlike the sense of a proper name, is incomplete and can only be
completed by a perceptual content or something which plays the same
role as this. Definite descriptions, which Husserl often calls “attributive
names”, have a meaning or sense which is not simple and they name
or refer “indirectly”.8 Husserl would almost certainly not have called
attributive names descriptions because he thought, very plausibly, that
to describe was to predicate on the basis of perception or of something
which plays a similar role. He distinguishes between attributive names
for real or temporal, what he also calls “individual” objects and for ideal
objects. His examples of the former include

the victor of Jena


the loser of Waterloo
the present Emperor of Germany
the greatest German statesman
the lamp. (Husserl 1984a, I §12)

and in a manuscript from 1899 Husserl gives the example of “the


Emperor of France” (Husserl 2009, 139). His examples of the latter
include

the equilateral triangle


the equiangular triangle
the second even number in the number series. (Husserl 1984a, I §12, §33)

One important difference between the two types of attributive names,


he argues, is that definite descriptions for real, temporal entities are also
occasional (demonstrative, indexical) expressions:
EARLY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY’S AUSTRIAN DIMENSIONS 17

The essentially occasional character naturally spreads to all expressions


which include these and similar presentations as parts…[A]ll combinations
involving the definite article, in which the latter relates to something indi-
vidual [temporal] which is only related to by means of class-concepts or
property-concepts belong here. When we Germans speak of the Kaiser we
of course mean the present German Kaiser. When we ask for the lamp in
the evening, each man means his own. (Husserl 1984a, I §26)

Since “present” and “own” are occasional expressions, Husserl is right to


say that, at least in his two examples, definite descriptions for real objects
are also occasional.
The definite article common to both types of definite descriptions is,
Husserl says, a “formal word”, as are “one”, “some”, “and”, “or” and
“which” (Husserl 1984b, VI §40). But, as far as I can see, he nowhere
gives an account of the relation between definite descriptions, identity
and quantification. Two aspects of his views are of interest, in the light
of the subsequent discussion of Russell’s views. One has to do with
Husserl’s account of what a speaker (judger) does when he combines an
attributive name with a predicate in the context of an assertion (judg-
ment). His interest in this topic is already evident from his claims in the
last passage quoted about what a speaker means when he employs a cer-
tain sort of expression. This topic is central in the reactions of Strawson
and Searle to Russell’s account of definite descriptions. The second
aspect of Husserl’s views concerns not pragmatics or psychology but the
relation between propositions containing the meaning of an attributive
name and existential propositions.
What is it to mean someone or something with the help of an attribu-
tive name? Husserl says in 1899:

If I say ‘the Emperor’, I state nothing, i.e. I predicate nothing (in the
expression taken by itself). But it ‘lies therein’ that a real person is
involved….Predication is what we consider to be the basic act in logic…If
someone says ‘The Emperor of France’, we object: ‘You believe that there
is an Emperor of France’. (Husserl 2009, 139)

Unlike Frege and many later friends of the distinction between modes
or force and content, Husserl thinks that the distinction applies not just
to propositional contents but also to non-propositional parts of such
contents. In particular, he thinks that in judging that Sam is sad or in
18 K. MULLIGAN

judging that the lamp is beautiful the act of “meaning” Sam or a lamp
involves a non-propositional mode of positing. Sam and the lamp are
meant in a positing but non-judgmental way, just as the act of mean-
ing that Sam is sad is qualified in a positing, judgmental way. Similarly,
in supposing that Sherlock Holmes prefers whiskey to cocaine the act of
meaning that Sherlock Holmes prefers whiskey to cocaine is coloured by
the non-positing mode of supposing but the act of meaning Sherlock is
itself coloured by a non-positing mode.
Moore was familiar with this view, in Messer’s presentation of it. And
he is again it:

Dr. Messer supposes that ‘propositional’ Acts are not the only kind of
Acts which can differ from one another in this way [the way in which
­judging and supposing differ]: he supposes that ‘nominal’ Acts also can be
‘positing’ …In this, however, I cannot help thinking he is wrong. So far as
I can see, it is not possible to believe anything but a proposition. Dr. Messer
only gives as an instance of the cases where, according to him, a ‘ ­positing’
nominal Act occurs, what happens when we believe such a proposition as
“The Emperor Charles conquered the Saxons”. When we “posit” this
proposition, we also, he thinks, “posit” its subject, the Emperor Charles.
But surely there is a confusion here. When we believe such a proposition
as this, it is, I think, generally true that we believe also in the existence of
the subject; and similarly in propositions about what Dr. Messer calls ‘ideal’
objects, we generally believe in the ‘being’ of their subjects, though not in
their ‘existence’. But surely these beliefs in the existence or the being of a
subject are ‘propositional’ Acts; and I can see no reason ‘to think that any
further ‘positing’ Act is involved - a ‘positing’ Act, for instance, of which
the Emperor Charles himself, and not merely his existence, is the object.
I am inclined to think, therefore, that Dr. Messer only thinks that ­nominal
‘Acts’ can be ‘positing,’ because he mistakes for a nominal Act, in these
instances, what is, in reality, a ‘propositional’ Act. (Moore 1910)

Messer and Husserl might respond as follows. It is indeed possi-


ble to believe things other than propositions, as when Russell believes
Wittgenstein. Similarly, if belief in is a type of belief, there is belief in
things other than propositions—there is a (non-axiological) belief in
atoms as well as the (axiological) belief in capitalism. And belief that
p is not belief in the proposition that p. Indeed, the category of belief
in is one way of glossing the idea of a non-propositional, positing
mode.9 What Moore calls beliefs in the existence of a subject are either
EARLY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY’S AUSTRIAN DIMENSIONS 19

dispositional beliefs or so called occurrent beliefs. The specification of a


dispositional belief does not belong to an account of the make-up of a
mental episode. If the belief in the existence of a subject is an occur-
rent belief, then one who judges that the Emperor Charles conquered
the Saxons judges two things rather than one thing. Whether or not
one who sincerely asserts that the Emperor Charles conquered the
Saxons presupposes and believes that he exists, the category of posit-
ing, non-propositional acts is in any case required to deal with sincere
assertion of negative existentials.10 And also with a case Moore does not
discuss (in his review): what Husserl calls simple seeing, as opposed to
seeing that, seeing Bismarck as opposed to seeing that he is over there.
Husserl’s main claim in 1901 about the relation between non-­existential
propositions containing positing names—proper names or attributive
names—and existential propositions goes as follows:

That a proposition with some positing names holds and that the existen-
tial judgments (Seinsurteile) corresponding to these names do not hold is
an apriori incompatibility. It belongs to the group of ‘analytic ideal laws’,
which are grounded in ‘the mere form of thinking’, in the categories…
which belong to the possible forms of ‘genuine’ thinking. (Husserl 1984a,
V §35)

In the discussion which precedes this formulation, Husserl indicates that


the laws he has in mind belong to his account of semantic modification.
According to this account, some meanings are modifications of other
meanings and expressions, too, stand in an analogous relation to each
other. In particular, a proposition containing a nominalisation of another
proposition is a modification of it. Thus Husserl says of examples like

1. Snow is white
2. The proposition that snow is white is true

that (1) and (2) are not merely equivalent but that (2) is a modification
of (1) because its nominal component is a nominalisation of (1). He also
says that the equivalence between (1) and (2) and the relation of modi-
fication between them are grounded in the nature of meanings. His for-
mulations sometimes suggest a claim like that endorsed by Bolzano in his
account of grounding (Abfolge):
20 K. MULLIGAN

3. If (2), then (2) because (1),

although, as far as I can see, Husserl never clearly says this.


Husserl applies his account of modification to the relation between
attributive names and propositions containing attibutive names, on the
one hand, and propositions which do not contain such names, on the
other hand:

Without any doubt, many names, including all attributive names, have
‘arisen’ directly or indirectly out of judgments, and accordingly refer back
to judgments. But such talk of ‘arising’ and ‘referring back’ implies that
names and judgments are different. The difference is so sharp, that it
should not be played down for the sake of theoretical prejudice or hoped-
for simplifications in the theory of presenting and judging. The prior judg-
ing is not as yet the nominal meaning that grows out of it. What in the
name is given as a residue of judgment is not a judgment but a modifi-
cation sharply differing from it. The carrying out of the modified act no
longer contains the unmodified one. (Husserl 1984b, V §35)

Husserl’s examples of the relation of modification between attributive


names (or propositions containing such names) and propositions which
do not contain such names fall into two groups. His first type of example
includes the relation between the meaning of “The town Halle is on the
Saale” and the meaning of “the town Halle on the Saale” (die Saalestadt
Halle); the latter, he says, is a modification of the former. Similarly, the
meaning of “the transcendent number π” is a modification of the mean-
ing of “π is a transcendent number”. If we take seriously the analogy
with (3) above, we might say that

4. If the transcendent number π is interesting, then the transcendent


number π is interesting in part because π is a transcendent number.

Husserl’s second type of example is the important one for present pur-
poses. It concerns the relation between propositions containing attrib-
utive names and the corresponding existential propositions. Husserl’s
formulations are elliptic and sparse. Unfortunately his clearest formula-
tion of the point he wants to make is in the language of what one can
reasonably say:
EARLY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY’S AUSTRIAN DIMENSIONS 21

one cannot reasonably start with the words “this S” without ‘potentially’
conceding that there are S’s. (Husserl 1984b, §35)

The continuation of this passage is the claim, already quoted, that there
is an apriori incompatibility between the holding of a proposition con-
taining positing names and the non-holding of an existential judgment
corresponding to these names. It is striking that Husserl here at no point
wonders, as Russell will, what relation between existential propositions,
uniqueness and identity is required to understand propositions contain-
ing attributive names.11 But it would perhaps be in the spirit of Husserl’s
approach to say of

5. The F is G
6. There is exactly one F and it is G

that

7. If (5), then (5) because (6).

In a passage written before he adopts the point of view set out in his
Investigations, Husserl formulates a version of the sort of view Russell
will endorse:

The definite article indicates…that the extension of the concept contains


only one object, that the concept is therefore a singular concept. It thus
expresses an independent judgment to this effect and to which, if the judg-
ment is correct, there corresponds objectively a truth. (Husserl 2001, 78)

In a letter to Husserl (19. 4. 1920), Russell says politely that he has


“of course, followed” Husserl’s “work with interest and sympathy for
many years” and that he had the second edition of Husserl’s Logische
Untersuchungen with him in prison. Whether or not Russell had in fact
read any part of Husserl’s oeuvre, there is little doubt that many of the
questions which preoccupied early Russell had also preoccupied and
continued to preoccupy Husserl. Some of these questions were rela-
tive newcomers to philosophy, such as the relation between identity and
substitutability salva veritate and (what has been called) Hume’s prin-
ciple, as set out by Frege, whose account is criticized by Husserl in his
1891 Philosophie der Arithmetik long before Russell had heard of Frege.
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prayers once more, and went to bed. I was restless the first
of the night, but toward morning I fell asleep and had a
most sweet dream. Methought I stood at the gate of a most
lovely and well-ordered garden, full of flowers, surpassing
all I had ever seen for beauty and sweetness, and bathed in
a light such as I never saw in this world of ours. Therein I
could see many spirits, walking, talking and singing, clothed
all in white, some of them with crowns of radiant stars. I
looked eagerly for some one I knew, and saw Sister Bridget
among the brightest, and then Amice; but they did not see
me nor could I attract their notice. At last my mother came
toward me, dressed and crowned like the rest, with her
hands filled with roses. Her face was like herself, but more
full of peace than I had ever seen it in this life, when it ever
wore a shade of care.

"Dear mother," said I, "will you tell me what I shall do?"

"Honor thy father and thy mother!" said she, in her old
voice of gentle command.

"But, mother, you did give me to the cloister!" I said,


trembling, I knew not why.

"I gave you to God!" said she, and smiled upon me.

"And is not this the same?" I asked.

Her answer was, "They have made the word of God of none
effect, through their tradition."

"Can I not come in to you, dearest mother?" I asked,


feeling an inexpressible longing to enter that fair Paradise.

"Not yet. Thy place is prepared, but thou hast yet much
work to do. See here are roses for thy bridal crown. Go
home to thy house and wait thy Lord's time."
She held out the flowers to me, as she spoke; a most
wonderful sweetness filled the air, and seemed to steal into
my very soul, bringing I know not what of calm and
quietness. Then I awoke, and behold, it was but a dream;
yet was it wonderful clear and real to me, and I seem as if I
had indeed seen my mother.

I had gone to sleep all tossed and undecided; but lying


awake in the clear early dawn, all seemed to be made plain
to me. How could I return to the convent, where half our
duties consisted in prayers offered to the saints and our
Lady—in dressing up images and the like? What should I do
there? Either I must live a life wholly false and hypocritical,
or I must expose myself to I know not what, of persecution,
and perhaps a fearful death. And here came to my mind the
niches I had seen, bricked up in the chapel vault, and the
nameless neglected graves in that corner, I can't think it is
our Lord's will that we should seek the crown of martyrdom,
though many I know have done so; for He expressly bade
his disciples, when they were persecuted in one city, to flee
to another. No, I can never go back! My mind is made up,
and I have told my father, who received my decision with
joy. I am no more Rosamond the postulant, but plain
Rosamond Corbet. My only trouble is for dear Mother
Superior, who I know will grieve over me as a lost soul. Oh,
that she also might come to see the light!

I have announced my decision to my father and mother,


and I see they are both pleased. In recounting my motives,
I was led to tell them what had happened in respect to
Amice, and how that I had been secluded so long. I saw
them exchange glances.

"So that was the beginning of your fever!" said my father,


striking his hand on the table. "Had I known you were so
mewed up, I would have had their crows' nest down about
their ears."

I assured him earnestly, that I had not been ill-treated, but


quite the contrary; adding that I did not think Mother
Superior had any choice in the matter.

"There is the mischief!" said my father. "Nobody is


personally responsible. Every one is a puppet whose strings
are pulled by some other puppet, and his again by some
one else. 'Tis an utter and miserable slavery from the
beginning to the end, and the superiors are perhaps as
much to be pitied as any one."

"I cannot but feel that our Rosamond hath had a great
escape," said Madam.

"Do you think that there is any truth in what we have


heard, of nuns that have been built up alive in their tombs?"
I asked, remembering those grisly niches I had seen in the
chapel vault.

"I cannot say for certain, but I have little doubt of it; and
indeed 'tis only very lately that the thing has ever been
denied," answered my father. "I know that in the Low
Countries it has been a common punishment for heresy. Old
Will Lee saw a woman buried alive, and said she sung
joyfully till the earth stopped her breath; and I know that in
Spain and Italy, far worse things have been done by the
Inquisition. 'Tis not easy to get at the truth about what goes
on in convent walls. A nun has no refuge and no help. She
is away from her own family, who can only see her now and
then. By-and-by they are told that she is dead, but who
knows how and where she died? They might have told us
when we came to see you, that you had died weeks before,
of the sickness, and we should have taken their word for it,
and all the time you might have been shut up in some
prison."

"I can't think any such thing ever happened at our house," I
said. "Dear Mother Superior is too kind and generous. Alas I
fear her heart will be sorely wounded."

"I fear so," answered my mother, sighing, "and also many


another. 'Tis a part of the cross that these days of shaking
and separation lay upon us, that we must ofttimes seem to
desert those who are nearest and dearest to us. It is a
woeful necessity."

And here the conversation ended. My father is to send


letters to Mother Superior, to acquaint her with the matter,
and I have also written. My heart is sore grieved, but what
can I do?

CHAPTER XXX.
June 30.

MASTER HAWKINS, Harry's captain, hath been to see us.


He's a rough sea dog, as my father says, but yet kind and
good, as it seems to me, and with a clear, honest face that I
felt disposed to trust. Harry took to him greatly, and is more
than ever confirmed in his resolution of sailing. Master
Hawkins says Harry is like a young bear, with all his troubles
to come; but he adds very sensibly that troubles come
everywhere, and reminded my mother of her young cousin
whose father would not let him go to sea because he was
the only son, and who was drowned in a pond in his father's
orchard. The ships do not sail till the last of August, so we
shall have Harry for two good months yet.

Something happened this morning which has vexed me


more than I believe it is worth. I was down at Freshwater,
to carry some baby clothes and a bottle of sack to Meg Yeo,
who is not getting up well from her lying-in. I noticed that
two or three people stared at me curiously, and methought
there was something odd in Meg's own manner, which,
however, melted away under the influence of the baby linen.
While I was there, Dame Lee, Meg's mother, came in.

"So, Mistress Rosamond, you are looking fine and stout


again," said she, and then to her daughter: "Did I not tell
you, Meg, they were but idle tales yonder woman told?
Does our young lady look like one haunted by spectres, or
hunted by a cruel step-dame?"

Her words were spoken aside, but not so low as that I did
not hear them.
"What do you mean, dame?" said I. "Why should I look
otherwise than well, or like one haunted by spectres?"

"For no reason that I know, Mistress," answered the old


woman: "only fools will tell tales and other fools believe
them. Nay, Meg, thou need not be making signs to me. 'Tis
right Mistress Rosamond should know."

"Know what?" I asked. "You are all as mysterious as a


miracle play this morning."

"There is no great mystery in the case," said Dame Lee.


"The whole matter is this. The woman Patience Hollins,
whom Madam Corbet sent away, has been telling
everywhere that your step-dame obliged you to leave off
your convent dress, and break your vows, that she might
wed you to a needy kinsman of her own, and also that the
very night the change was made your honored mother's
spirit appeared to you, all surrounded with flames and
burning sulphur, and reproached you with your
disobedience, and declared that it had taken away her last
hope of salvation. Patience says she saw herself the boards
where the spirit had stood, and they were all burned black—
and that she saw the ghost also at a distance, and smelled
the sulphur."

"She saw the ghost as near as any one," said and with that
I told them the tale as it was.

"Lo, did I not tell you as much!" said the dame, turning to
her daughter. "The wicked wretch! She deserves to be
hung! But is it true, Mistress Rosamond, that you are not
going to be a nun, after all?"

"'Tis quite true," said I. "You know my brother is going to


sea, and my father and mother naturally want me at home,
and there are other reasons. But there was neither force
nor persuasion in the case. It was left to myself to decide,
and I have, as I believe, decided rightly."

"And I am glad on't with all my heart!" said Dame Lee,


heartily. "I am no believer in shutting up young maids in
convent walls. They may do for those who have no other
home. But what can Patience mean by telling such tales?"

"She means to hide her own disgrace and dismissal, no


doubt," said I. "She is a wicked woman, and I dare say will
work me all the harm she can. I suppose the whole village
is ringing with this absurd tale."

"I shall tell the truth about it wherever I go, you may be
sure," said Dame Lee. "Mrs. Patience is not now my Lady's
bower-woman, that I should dread her anger. She used to
abuse my late Lady's ear with many a false tale, as she did
about Meg here, because, forsooth, Meg would not wed her
nephew. But I shall let people know what her legends are
worth."

"Do so," said I.

And I doubt not she will; for besides that, the Lees have
always been attached to our family from the earliest times,
the good gammer dearly loves a gossip, and nuts to her to
be able at once to contradict Patience and to have the story
at first hand. Yet, such is the love of all people for the
marvellous, that I should not wonder if the ghost story
should continue to be believed, and that for many
generations. *

* She was right. It has been one of the family ghost


stories ever since. There are enough of them to make a
chronicle by themselves.—D. C.
CHAPTER XXXI.

June 30.

A GREAT event has happened, so unexpected that I don't


believe it even yet.

Three days ago, as we were all sitting at supper, comes in


Thomas and says, "Here is a gentleman from Cornwall to
see you, Sir Stephen."

"Have him in, man!" says my father. "Would you keep him
waiting?"
"Nay, but he is so bespattered with his journey," says
Thomas, "and wearied as well. He says his name is
Penrose."

"Penrose—Penrose—the name hath a familiar ring;" said my


father, musingly, and then: "Bid him never mind his
spatters, but bring him in. He must needs be sore wearied
and wet too, riding in this storm."

The gentleman presently entered—an elderly man and thin


—his riding dress plain, almost to shabbiness. My father
rose courteously to receive him.

"You do not know me, Stephen," says the stranger: "yet we


have been playmates many a day at Tremador Court—"

"Joslyn Penrose!" exclaimed my father, and then ensued a


cordial greeting enow.

"And how is my good aunt?" asked my father presently.


"She is an old lady by this time."

"She is gone where are neither old nor young," answered


the stranger, sadly. "My good old friend and patroness was
buried more than ten days ago. You should have been
bidden to the funeral, but the weather was warm, and we
had to hasten matters."

"'Tis just as well!" said my father. "I don't believe she would
have asked me if she had had her way, for I was never in
her good graces since the day I was so maladroit as to kill
her cat with my cross-bow. 'Twas a mere piece of ill-luck,
for I would not have hurt a hair of poor puss if I had only
seen her. Well, she is gone, and peace to her soul! I hope
she has made thee her heir, after all these years, Joslyn!"
"Nay, that she has not!" answered Master Penrose. "'Tis
even that which has brought me here."

"The old cat!" exclaimed my father.

"Wait till you hear, before you condemn!" answered our


guest.

But here my mother interposed. The gentleman was surely


too weary and hungry to be kept discoursing of business.
He should be shown to his chamber, and then come to
supper with us, before he said another word.

"And so she has kept Jos Penrose waiting on her like a slave
all these years, managing for her, and serving her more like
a servant than a kinsman, only to bilk him at last," said my
father.

"I would not have been kept waiting!" said Harry. "I would
have struck out something for myself."

"You would not if you had been Joslyn," answered my


father. "He was not one to do so. He could manage well
enough for others, but never could keep two groats
together for himself. Besides that his life was spoiled by a
woman, as many another man's life has been, and will be.
Take care, Harry, my son, that you pay him all due kindness
and deference."

By this time our guest had come back, and was soon seated
at the table, each of us being presented to him in turn.
When my turn came, Master Penrose looked earnestly at
me, as if he had some special interest in me.

"So this is the young lady," said he, smiling somewhat


sadly. "In truth, though favor may be deceitful and beauty
vain, as the wise man said, Mistress Rosamond hath that in
her face that makes me rejoice in her good fortune."

"Rosamond is a good maiden, as maidens go," said my


father: "but what mean you, Joslyn? What good fortune
hath befallen her? Has my aunt left her guardian of her
popinjay, or given her the reversion of that black damask
gown, I remember so well?"

"More than that!" answered Master Penrose. "Mistress


Rosamond is sole heir to Tremador, and all its
appurtenances. 'Tis a fine estate, for our part of the world—
not less than an hundred and fifty a year, though saddled
with a life annuity of twenty pounds a year to myself. Also, I
am to have my nest for life in the old tower where I have
lived so long, and a seat at table and in hall, unless Mistress
Rosamond objects."

"Mistress Rosamond is no child of her father's if she does!"


said Sir Stephen. "But are you sure? 'Tis passing strange! I
thought she would make you her heir, or else leave all to
the convent yonder. Rosamond was her namesake, 'tis true,
but she has never taken any more notice of the child than
to send her some old-fashioned gewgaws once on a time.
'Tis not right nor fair, Joslyn! You should have been the heir,
and not my daughter."

"Nay, I am well content!" answered Master Penrose. "My


wants are few, and if Mistress Rosamond will let me live
where I have lived so long, I shall not trouble her many
years."

My mother looked at me, and made me a sign to speak;


and though I was so covered with confusion that I could
hardly find words, I did manage to say that, so far as I had
any voice in the matter, I hoped Master Penrose would
always make my aunt's house his home. Then Master
Penrose kissed my hand and made me a pretty old-
fashioned compliment; and I was so confused and stunned
with it all, that I think, like a fool, I should have burst out
crying, only that my mother, seeing my trouble, came to my
aid and rose from the table.

"We will leave you to talk over matters by yourselves," said


she, courteously. "Rosamond is somewhat overcome, and
no wonder."

When I was alone with my Lady, I soon recovered myself.


She does not like to have me weep, and I am learning self-
control. We talked the matter over, and I said what I felt;
that I could not think my aunt had done right—that she
should have made Master Penrose her heir, and not a
stranger, whom she had never even seen.

"People, even very good people, often make very strange


and unjust wills," said my Lady; and with that she sighed
somewhat sadly. "But we will not conclude that your aunt's
will is of this kind, till we know something more of the
circumstances. She may have had good reasons for the
arrangement. You heard what your father said about Master
Penrose, that though a good manager for others, he could
never keep too groats together for himself. Some notion of
this kind may have governed my old Lady Tremador in
leaving him only an annuity."

"I am sorry about this, for one reason," said I, presently.


"People will say I chose a secular life, because I had this
fortune left me."

My mother smiled. "Shall I tell you a motto I saw once in


Scotland?" said she. "'Twas graven over a door, and ran
thus—'They haf said—What said they? Let them say!' 'Twas
an odd motto for such a place, was it not? But it may serve
well enough for us. Many things will be said about your
choice, without doubt, but what matter? Let them say."

"Yet one cannot be indifferent to what folks say of one,"


quoth I: "and I hardly know if it is right to be so."

"It is not right to be so indifferent as to provoke comment


needlessly," answered my Lady; "but when we know that
we have done right, we must be content to leave the rest."

My Lady then saying that I looked weary, sent me to bed,


and I saw our guest no more that night.

I feel well acquainted and at ease with him now, however,


and shall, I hope, be more so. 'Tis settled that next week
we are all—that is my father, mother, Harry and myself—to
go to Tremador to take possession, and see what is to be
done in the way of repairs and the like. Master Penrose
journeys with us. My father would gladly have taken Master
Ellenwood, on whose judgment he relies greatly in business
matters, but Master Ellenwood expects his brother from
Amsterdam to make him a visit. Master Jasper is said to be
a wonderful scholar, a friend of Erasmus, and very deep in
the new learning, both Greek and Latin.

My mother, who has been in Amsterdam with her first


husband, says she fears our housekeeping will seem very
rough and sluttish to Master Jasper's Dutch notions. She
tells me that in Holland they strew no rushes on the floors
even of their dining-halls, but that the floors are made of
fine inlaid woods or stones, and the same are washed or
rubbed with fine sand every day, and then waxed till they
shine like glass. Madam herself is counted over particular by
our men and maids because she will have all the rushes
renewed and the rooms thoroughly swept every week
instead of every month, as used to be the way. Also, we will
have no rushes in her chamber or mine, saying that they
breed fleas and other vermin, and hide the dust. Certainly
the air in our house is far sweeter than I remember it
formerly. But it seems a great deal of trouble to wash floors
every day, and I should think would be damp and
unwholesome. Probably in Holland a little water more or
less does not matter.

My Lady has told me much of the comfort and splendor in


which the Dutch merchants live, of their beautiful pictures,
presenting flowers and other objects in all the hues of life,
of their noble collections of books, and the quantities of fine
house linen, garments, and other things which their wives
lay up and provide against the marriage of their daughters.
I remember Mother Monica telling Amice and me that in her
day the merchants of London lived in far more comfort than
the nobles and courtiers.

This journey into Cornwall, which seems like a perilous


adventure to me, my Lady makes nothing of, save as she
seems to enjoy the thoughts of it. My father is going to stop
on the way at the house of Sir John Carey, who hath long
owed him a sum of money. He is a kinsman of our
neighbors at Clovelly, but they know little of him, save that
he last year lost his only son in some very sad way, that I
did not clearly understand. Sir John is now old and feeble,
and hath more than once sent asking my father to come
and see him, but it hath not been convenient hitherto.
CHAPTER XXXII.

July 20, Tremador, in Cornwall.

HERE we are, at this grim, sad old house, which yet hath a
wonderful charm to me, maybe because it is my house. It
seems such a surprising thing to call a house mine. We have
been here three or four days, and I am not yet weary of
exploring the old rooms, and asking questions of Mistress
Grace, my aunt's old bower-woman. The good soul took to
me at once, and answers all my queries with the most
indulgent patience. Albeit I am sometimes sore put to
understand her. Mistress Grace, it is true, speaks English,
though with a strong Cornish accent; but some of the
servants and almost all the cottagers speak the Cornish
tongue, which is as unknown as Greek to me. Master
Penrose, or Cousin Joslyn, as he likes best to have me call
him, who is very learned, says the language is related to
the Welsh.
Mistress Grace has also been very much interested in
dressing up poor Joyce. She has made the child a nice suit
out of an old one of her Lady's, combed and arranged her
tangled hair, and so forth, and 'tis wonderful how different
Joyce looks. She is really very lovely. She seems to like me
well, but clings most to my Lady, whom she would fain
follow like a little dog, I think. I wish she would get over
that way of shrinking and looking so scared when any one
speaks to her; but I dare say that will come in time, poor
thing. My mother says 'tis a wonder she hath any sense left.
But what a way is this of writing a chronicle! I must begin,
and orderly set down the events of our journey as they
happened.

It took some days to make our preparations, for my mother


would have me in suitable mourning before setting out. She
said it was no more than due respect to our aunt's memory,
seeing what she had done for me. 'Twas like putting on my
old convent weeds again; and strange to say, seemed as
new to me as if I had not worn black all my life long. Dick
(who has been away on some business of my Lord's,)
coming in upon me in the twilight, started as if he had seen
a ghost.

"I thought we had seen the last of that!" said he.


"Rosamond, I thought you had done with the convent
forever!"

"And so I have!" I answered; and told him how it was.


Methought he did not seem so well pleased as I should have
been, had such a piece of good luck befallen him.

"They will be more loth than ever to give you up!" said he.
"The estate of Tremador would be a fine windfall for them!
Rosamond, you have need to be on your guard! They will
not let you go without a struggle. Pray be careful and do not
wander away by yourself, especially while you are on the
journey, or in Cornwall."

"Why, what do you fear for me?" I asked. "You are not used
to be so timid." I wished the words unsaid in a moment, for
I saw that they hurt him.

"'Tis not for myself, if I am timid!" he answered me, with a


look of reproach; "but I suppose plain Dick Stanton, the son
of a younger son, must not be too free with the heiress of
Tremador!"

A year ago, I suppose, we should have had our quarrel out


and made it up again in our old childish fashion; but I did
not feel like that now.

"Richard," says I, "did you learn that fashion of speech out


of the book you would not lend me that day in the maze?
For I too have been studying it, and I have found no such
thing, but on the contrary a good deal about thinking no
evil," says I.

He had turned to go, but was back at my side in a moment.


"Forgive me, Rosamond!" he whispered; "I am very wrong!"

"That indeed you are!" said I. "Why should my aunt's will


make any difference between us, who have been playmates
from the time we were little children?"

"But we are not little children now!" he answered me, with a


strange break in his voice. "We are not children now, and
never can be again: and oh, Rosamond, I have been
cherishing such sweet hopes ever since I heard that you
had given up being a nun!"

I don't know what more he might have said, but my father


came in just then, and would have all the news of Dick's
journey; and we were not alone again.

"Richard and my Lord rode one stage with us beyond


Biddeford. My Lord and my father were deep in converse
(the roads being good for the first stage, we were able to
ride two abreast), and Richard rode by my side, Harry as
usual being close to my mother. But there was little chance
for any private converse, and I think we were both very
silent. My Lord would send one of his own men with us as
an additional guard, though methinks our own three, with
my father and Harry, should be enough.

"I would loan you Dick here, but that he is my right-hand


man—I cannot spare him," said my Lord, as we parted.
"Take care of your heart, my fair cousin, and do not lose it
to any of the Cornish knights. Remember, 'Better a poor
neighbor than a rich stranger.'"

"Aye, my Lord, but there is another proverb—'Better kind


strangers than strange kin,'" I answered.

"What, have you and Dick quarrelled? Nay, I shall not have
that!" whispered my Lord in mine ear, as he gave my cheek
a parting salute. "Be kind to him, my Rose of May! He was
faithful to you when he had many a temptation to be
otherwise."

Richard kissed my cheek, as usual, at parting, but there


was that in his look and the pressure of his hand—

[I don't know why I should have drawn my pen through


this, as it seems I did. I suppose I could not yet feel that
'twas no sin to think of my cousin. I knew then that Dick
loved me, and from my Lord's whisper, I could guess well
enough that he was no ways averse to the match, and yet I
felt, I know not how, as if I had committed a mortal sin for
which yet I could not repent. The truth was, I could not yet
quite come to feel that I was a free woman, at least under
no law but my father's will. I know I rode in a kind of dream
all the rest of that day.]

We reached the end of our stage about four of the clock,


tired and wearied enough, yet with no adventures more
than those which I believe befall all travellers, of tired
beasts and men, plentiful splashes of mud, and once or
twice a horse stuck fast in the mire and hardly got out
again. Cousin Joslyn being with us, we were in no danger of
missing the road, as we should otherwise have been, and
our numbers were great enough to keep in awe any bands
of robbers that we were likely to meet in these parts.

We stayed the first night at a farm-house, where the good


yeoman and his wife made us heartily welcome to the best
they had of fowls, bacon, clotted cream, and I know not
what country dainties, and we in return for their hospitality
told them the last news from London and the Court. They
had heard something even in this odd corner of the world of
the good Queen's disgrace, and the women were eager for
particulars.

"'Tis all the fault of the new doctrines—those pestilent


heresies that crawl over the land like palmer worms," said a
begging friar, a guest like ourselves, but methought scarce
so welcome. "'Tis they have put these maggots in the King's
head."

"Nay, I think you are wrong there," answered my father.


"'Tis true, Mistress Anne is reported for a Lutheran, and
maybe some of the same sort may build hopes on her
advancement; but Luther himself has lifted his voice
manfully against the divorce, and Tyndale—he who has set
forth this new translation of the Gospels—"
"The curses of Mother Church and all the saints upon him!"
interrupted the friar, spitting in token of his abhorrence. "He
is the arch fiend of them all—worse than Luther himself,
even!"

"Be that as it may, he hath written a letter against the


divorce, and that of the sharpest!" answered my mother.
"'Tis said his Majesty's wrath was aroused far more by the
letter than it was even by the translation of the Gospels."

"Aye, have they got the Gospels in English again?" said a


very old man, who had been sitting in a great chair,
apparently unmindful of all that was going on. (I had seen
with pleasure how neat and clean he was, and how careful
the good woman was to prepare his mess of food, serving
him with the best on the board.) "Well, well, the world goes
on, but methinks it goes back as well—"

"How so, good father?" asked my mother.

"Oh, 'tis but an old man's tale now, my lady; but when I
was very young—younger than your son yonder—there was
great stir about one Wickliffe, who, 'twas said, made an
English Bible. Our parish priest had one, and read it out to
us in the church many a Sunday, marvellous good words,
sure—marvellous good words. But they stopped him at last
and hied him away to some of their convent prisons. 'Twas
said that he would not recant, and they made way with him.
They said 'twas rank heresy and blasphemy—but they were
marvellous good words—I mind some of them now—'Come
unto me, and I will refresh you, ye weary and laden.' It ran
like that, as I remember: 'God loved the world so that he
gave his Son—that he who believed should have—should
have'—what was that again?"

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