Saturday, December 11, 2004
Rerum Cognoscere Causas
The other thing I'm doing in preparation for the presentation ceremony (read: I'm finding excuses not to get out of bed) is looking for a good image online of the ceremonial LSE whisky decanter I'm ordering. I have given up for now, having only found
an image of the LSE crest and logo, but must post these links lest the last hour be tallied a complete waste:- This Introduction to LSE ought to be easier to find, though there are shorter pages about LSE.
- From the LSE history webpages, a nice sentence: "The true spirit of the School can be found in its motto - rerum cognoscere causas - to get to know, to understand, the cause of things."
- Even better, the motto is one of the three things this alumnus remembers from his time at LSE.
- It was also favoured by Elias Ashmole, Masonic Icon.
- The 1993 presidential address to the British Society for the Philosophy of Science ends with the motto, but with a different translation:
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas
Happy he who understands the explanations of things - A translation from Virgil, the source of the motto, indicates there are ways to be happy other than in finding the causes of things:
Vergil, Georgics 2.490 (ref. to Lucretius?)
Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
atque metus omnis et inexorabile fatum
subiecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis avari.
Fortunatus et ille, deos qui novit agrestis,
Panaque Silvanumque senem Nymphasque sorores
Blessed is he whose mind had power to probe
The causes of things and trample underfoot
All terrors and inexorable fate
And the clamour of devouring Acheron;
But happy too is he who knows the gods of the countryside, knows Pan and old Silvanus
And the sister Nymphs.
tr. L. P. Wilkinson - And a critique of the beaver as school mascot.
