Legends of Modernity: Essays and Letters from Occupied Poland, 1942-1943

Czeslaw Milosz (Author)

Madeline Levine (Translator)

Jaroslaw Anders (Introduction)

These essays, written in Warsaw in 1942-43 during the Nazi occupation, were his efforts to discover “Why …the European spirit succumb(ed) to such a devastating disaster”.

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 2005

Legends of Modernity, now available in English for the first time, brings together some of Czeslaw Milosz’s early essays and letters, composed in German-occupied Warsaw during the winter of 1942-43.

“Why did the European spirit succumb to such a devastating fiasco?” the young Milosz asks. Half a century later, when Legends of Modernity saw its first publication in Poland, Milosz said: “If everything inside you is agitation, hatred, and despair, write measured, perfectly calm sentences…” While the essays here reflect a “perfect calm,” the accompanying contemporaneous exchange of letters between Milosz and Jerzy Andrzejewski express the raw emotions of “agitation, hatred and despair” experienced by these two close friends struggling to understand the proximate causes of this debacle of western civilization, and the relevance, if any, of the teachings of the Catholic church.

Passionate, poignant, and compelling, Legends of Modernity is a deeply moving insight into the mind and emotions of one of the greatest writers of our time.

In his landmark 1953 book, The Captive Mind, Nobel-winning poet and essayist Milosz discoursed on the havoc totalitarian rule plays on the mental processes of intellectuals. Here we see Milosz’s own mind at work in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, crafting essays of ideas, pursuing a fantastically high-minded correspondence with friend and fellow writer Jerzy Andrzejewski, and developing themes inspired by the works of Defoe, Balzac, Gide, Stendhal and Nietzsche. Call it “The Captive Mind in Action.” Curiously, the tension implied by Milosz’s situation is hardly evident in the essays: where one might expect his tone to be skittish, fearful, foreboding, the most remarkable aspect is his ability to ensconce his steady authorial voice so luxuriantly in the unpressing issues of, say, the imaginative projection required today to view Giotto’s medieval saints properly. The most interesting essay demonstrating this phlegmatic tone enlists Tolstoy’s War and Peace to help Milosz understand the global conflagration of his own time. But anger, bitterness and self-recrimination rage in some of the letters, where he says he thinks of writing a “confession… that would exceed in its violence and scream of pain, [the] Romantic era’s settling of accounts of the conscience.” For those who hanker for the high seriousness of continental thinkers like Camus, this volume is a welcome beacon from the past. (Oct. 12)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“Milosz’s essays adroitly reveal the historical contingency at the heart of modern culture’s most cherished values.” — Clare Cavanagh, Bookforum

“These early reflections by Milosz. . .form a remarkable testament to an uncaptive mind consecrated to living in truth.” — Jacob Heilbrunn, The New York Times Book Review

“[This is] Milosz’s attempt to reconcile everything he knows about literature and humanity with the total destruction he was witnessing.” — Anne Applebaum, The New York Sun

The Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic

Roger Woods (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 033365014X | ISBN-13: 978-0333650141 | Publication Date: September 1997

Embracing some of Germany’s best known writers, academics, journalists and philosophers, the Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic was the intellectual vanguard of the Right.

By approaching the Conservative Revolution as an intellectual movement, this study sheds light on the evolution of its ideas on the meaning of World War I, its appropriation of the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, its enthusiasm for political activism and a strong leader, and its ambiguous relationship with National Socialism.

Product Details:

• Hardcover: 173 pages
• Publisher: MacMillan
• September 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 033365014X
• ISBN-13: 978-0333650141

The Refrigerator and the Universe:

Understanding the Laws of Energy

Martin Goldstein (Author)

Inge F. Goldstein (Author)

Readers at all levels, from high school to professional scientists, will find something intriguing in this book…It provides a very readable and informative account of a difficult topic. (Science Books and Films )

The strengths of [this book] are its scope and coverage and much excellent writing…It contains a rich mix of interesting ideas covering important historical events and applications of the laws of energy and entropy. (Harvey S. Leff American Journal of Physics )

The writing is clear, uncluttered, insightful, and makes use of many excellent analogies to explain and clarify difficult but important concepts. (Choice )

Product Description

C. P. Snow once remarked that not knowing the second law of thermodynamics is like never having read Shakespeare. Yet, while many people grasp the first law of energy, “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed,” few recognize the second, “Entropy can only increase.” What is entropy anyway, and why must it increase? Whether we want to know how a device as simple as a refrigerator works or understand the fate of the universe, we must start with the concepts of energy and entropy. In The Refrigerator and the Universe, Martin and Inge Goldstein explain the laws of thermodynamics for science buffs and neophytes alike. They begin with a lively presentation of the historical development of thermodynamics. The authors then show how the laws follow from the atomic theory of matter and give examples of their applicability to such diverse phenomena as the radiation of light from hot bodies, the formation of diamonds from graphite, how the blood carries oxygen, and the history of the earth. The laws of energy, the Goldsteins conclude, have something to say about everything, even if they do not tell us everything about anything.

In The Refrigerator and the Universe, Martin and Inge Goldstein explain the laws of thermodynamics for science buffs and neophytes alike. They begin with a lively presentation of the historical development of thermodynamics. The authors then show how the laws follow from the atomic theory of matter and give examples of their applicability to such diverse phenomena as the radiation of light from hot bodies, the formation of diamonds from graphite, how the blood carries oxygen, and the history of the earth. The laws of energy, the Goldsteins conclude, have something to say about everything, even if they do not tell us everything about anything.

Product Details:

• Hardcover: 433 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• First Edition September 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674753240
• ISBN-13: 978-0674753242

The book presents the three laws of thermodynamics: the first law (conservation of energy)in chapters 1-4, the second law (dispersal of energy) in chapters 5-9, and the third law (low temperature behavior) in chapter 14. Other chapters apply thermodynamics to light, chemistry, biology, geology, and cosmology. The authors present thermodynamics using both classical and statistical mechanical arguments. References are listed for further study of topics.

Although the book is intended for a general audience, the book will be interesting even to a reader who already has some familiarity with thermodynamics because the book probably treats at least a few applications with which he is unfamiliar. The book also makes a number of refreshing admissions about the limits of thermodynamics; for example, thermodynamics can’t be strictly applied to living organisms (p. 297), and in general relativity, energy need not be conserved (p. 370).

The book requires a knowledge of simple algebra and logarithms; however, a tutorial on these subjects is presented in an appendix.

The Refrigerator and the Universe:

Understanding the Laws of Energy

Martin Goldstein (Author)

Inge F. Goldstein (Author)

Political Economy Club

The Political Economy Club was founded by James Mill^[1] and a circle of friends in 1821 in London, for the purpose of coming to an agreement on the fundamental principles of political economy. David Ricardo, James Mill, Thomas Malthus (the only one holding an academic post at the time), and Robert Torrens were among the original luminaries.^[2]

In the early 19th century there were no academic societies or professional associations for economists. The Political Economy Club was a way to establish a scientific community, test ideas, and provide peer review for their work.^[3]

Discussions

The participants soon found substantial difficulties in formulating and reaching agreement on their fundamental propositions. Ricardo felt that none of their views was safe from criticism. Reflecting on their theoretical discussions in 1823, Ricardo privately expressed his famous opinion about the “non-existence of any measure of absolute value.”^[4]

Participants

Ricardo, Malthus, James Mill, Torrens, Thomas Tooke, John Stuart Mill, John Ramsey McCulloch, Nassau Senior, John Elliott Cairnes, Henry Fawcett, William Newmarch, Samuel Jones-Loyd, 1st Baron Overstone, William Newmarch, Jane Marcet,^[5] George Ward Norman, William Blake, and Jean-Baptiste Say.

Later: William Stanley Jevons, Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie, Walter Coulson, Robert Mushet, Henry Parnell , James Pennington, John Horsley Palmer, and Thomas Perronet Thompson. Others were drawn from outside the ranks of economists, including G. G. de Larpent, George John Shaw-Lefevre, John Abel Smith, Henry Warburton, Lord Althorp, William Whitmore, W. B. Baring, Poulett Thomson, Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton, Lord Monteagle, Charles Hay Cameron, J. D. Hume, George Grote, James Morrison, Edwin Chadwick, Sir Robert Giffen, Charles Buller, and Sir William Clay.

Significant elections after 1840 include Robert Lowe, Sir G. C. Lewis, Rowland Hill, Stafford Northcote, George J. Goschen, William Ewart Gladstone, and W. E. Forster.^[6]

Current meetings

Some current members of the society are David Willetts, Peter Jay, Charles Dumas and Tim Congdon. The Club now meets on a monthly basis in the Royal Automobile Club to hear papers presented by members of the club and a discussion over dinner.

References

1. http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/jamesmill.htm James Mill, 1773-1836

2. Elie Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, tr. Mary Morris. Boston, Beacon Press, 1955, p. 343.

3. http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7829.html D. P. O’Brien, The Classical Economists Revisited. Princeton University Press, 2004.

4. Ricardo to Malthus, August 15, 1823. Quoted by Halevy, Ibid., p. 352.

5. http://www2.hmc.edu/~evans/rpas.htm Gary R. Evans, Humanities 2 “Classics of Economic Thought”

6. http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7829.html D. P. O’Brien, The Classical Economists Revisited. Princeton University Press, 2004.

Archives

• Political Economy Club papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.

Publications

• J. R. McCulloch, Early English Tracts on Commerce. London: Political Economy Club (1856); Cambridge University Press, 1954.
• Political Economy Club, Revised Report of the Proceedings at the Dinner of 31 May 1876, Held in Celebration of the Hundredth Year of the Publication of the “Wealth of Nations” (London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer (1876).
• Political Economy Club : founded in London, 1821 : minutes of proceedings, 1899–1920, roll of members and questions discussed, 1821-1920 with documents bearing on the history of the club. Macmillan and Co., (1921)

Rome and Jerusalem The Last National Question (1862)

by Moses Hess

Rome and Jerusalem The Last National Question (1862), a book published in 1862 in Leipzig. It gave impetus to the Labor Zionism movement. In his magnum opus, Hess argued for the Jews to return to the Land of Israel, and proposed a socialist country in which the Jews would become agrarianised through a process of “redemption of the soil”.

Contents

First Letter

Second Letter

Third Letter

Fourth Letter

Fifth Letter

Sixth Letter

Seventh Letter

Eighth Letter

Ninth Letter

Tenth Letter

Eleventh Letter

Twelfth Letter

Epilogue

Rome and Jerusalem

Rome and Jerusalem. The Last National Question (German: Rom und Jerusalem, die Letzte Nationalitätsfrage) is a book published by Moses Hess in 1862 in Leipzig. It gave impetus to the Labor Zionism movement. In his magnum opus, Hess argued for the Jews to return to the Land of Israel, and proposed a socialist country in which the Jews would become agrarianised through a process of “redemption of the soil”.

Importance

The book was the first Zionist writing to put the question of Jewish nationalism in the context of European nationalism.

Hess blended secular as well as religious philosophy, Hegelian dialectics, Spinoza‘s pantheism and Marxism.^[1]

It was written against the background of German Jewish assimilationism, German antisemitism and German antipathy to nationalism arising in other countries. Hess used terminology of the day, such as the term “race”, but he was an egalitarian who believed in the principles of the French revolution, and wanted to apply the progressive concepts of his day to the Jewish people.^[1]

Major themes

Written in the form of twelve letters addressed to a woman in her grief at the loss of a relative. In his work, Hess put forward the following ideas:^[2]2. The Jewish type is indestructible, and Jewish national feeling can not be uprooted, although the German Jews, for the sake of a wider and more general emancipation, persuade themselves and others to the contrary.

1. The Jews will always remain strangers among the European peoples, who may emancipate them for reasons of humanity and justice, but will never respect them so long as the Jews place their own great national memories in the background and hold to the principle, “Ubi bene, ibi patria.” (Latin language: “where [it is] well, there [is] the fatherland”)

2. The Jewish type is indestructible, and Jewish national feeling can not be uprooted, although the German Jews, for the sake of a wider and more general emancipation, persuade themselves and others to the contrary.

3. If the emancipation of the Jews is irreconcilable with Jewish nationality, the Jews must sacrifice emancipation to nationality. Hess considers that the only solution of the Jewish question lies in the returning to the Land of Israel.

Reactions and legacy

At the time the book was met with a cold reception, and only in retrospect it became one of the basic works of Zionism.

References

1. ^{a b} Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem. 1862, Introduction by Ami Isserov
2. “Rom und Jerusalem.” by Isidore Singer, Max Schloessinger in the Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906 Ed.

Further reading

• Shlomo Avineri, Moses Hess; Prophet of Communism and Zionism (New York, 1984).

H.G. Wells Discussed by Boleslaw Prus:

“Visions of the Future” (“Wizje przyszłości,” 1909—a discussion of H.G. Wells‘ 1901 futurological book, Anticipations, which predicted, among other things, the defeat of German imperialism, the ascendancy of the English language, and the existence, by the year 2000, of a “European Union” that would include the Slavic peoples of Central Europe)

Boleslaw Prus

Following is a chronological list of notable works by Bolesław Prus. Translated titles are given, followed by original titles and dates of publication.

Born August 20, 1847
Hrubieszów, Russian Empire

Died May 19, 1912 (aged 64)
Warsaw, Russian Empire

Pen name Bolesław Prus

Occupation Novelist, journalist, short-story writer

Nationality Polish

Period 1872–1912

Genres

Realist novel
Historical novel
Short story
Micro-story
Prose poetry

Literary movement Positivism

Spouse(s) Oktawia Głowacka, née Trembińska

Children An adopted son, Emil Trembiński

Bolesław Prus (pronounced: [bɔ'lεswaf 'prus]; Hrubieszów, 20 August 1847 – 19 May 1912, Warsaw), born Aleksander Głowacki, was the leading figure in Polish literature of the late 19th century^[1] and a distinctive voice in world literature.

As a 15-year-old, he had joined the Polish 1863 Uprising against Imperial Russia; shortly after his sixteenth birthday, in a battle against Russian forces, he suffered severe injuries. Five months later, he was imprisoned for his part in the Uprising. These early experiences may have precipitated the panic disorder and agoraphobia that would dog him through life, and shaped his opposition to attempts to regain Polish independence by force of arms.

In 1872 at age 25, in Warsaw, he settled into a 40-year journalistic career that highlighted science, technology, education, and economic and cultural development. These societal enterprises were essential to the endurance of a people that had in the 18th century been partitioned out of political existence by Russia, Prussia and Austria. Głowacki took his pen name Prus from the appellation of his family’s coat-of-arms.

As a sideline he wrote short stories. Achieving success with these, he went on to employ a larger canvas. Over the decade between 1884 and 1895, he completed four major novels: The Outpost, The Doll, The New Woman and Pharaoh.

The Doll depicts the romantic infatuation of a man of action who is frustrated by his country’s backwardness. Pharaoh, Prus’ only historical novel, is a study of political power and of the fates of nations, set in ancient Egypt at the fall of the 20th Dynasty and New Kingdom.

Bolesław Prus (pronounced: [bɔ'lεswaf 'prus]; Hrubieszów, 20 August 1847 – 19 May 1912, Warsaw), born Aleksander Głowacki, was the leading figure in Polish literature of the late 19th century^[1] and a distinctive voice in world literature.

As a 15-year-old, he had joined the Polish 1863 Uprising against Imperial Russia; shortly after his sixteenth birthday, in a battle against Russian forces, he suffered severe injuries. Five months later, he was imprisoned for his part in the Uprising. These early experiences may have precipitated the panic disorder and agoraphobia that would dog him through life, and shaped his opposition to attempts to regain Polish independence by force of arms.

In 1872 at age 25, in Warsaw, he settled into a 40-year journalistic career that highlighted science, technology, education, and economic and cultural development. These societal enterprises were essential to the endurance of a people that had in the 18th century been partitioned out of political existence by Russia, Prussia and Austria. Głowacki took his pen name Prus from the appellation of his family’s coat-of-arms.

As a sideline he wrote short stories. Achieving success with these, he went on to employ a larger canvas. Over the decade between 1884 and 1895, he completed four major novels: The Outpost, The Doll, The New Woman and Pharaoh.

The Doll depicts the romantic infatuation of a man of action who is frustrated by his country’s backwardness. Pharaoh, Prus’ only historical novel, is a study of political power and of the fates of nations, set in ancient Egypt at the fall of the 20th Dynasty and New Kingdom.

1. “Undoubtedly the most important novelist of the period was Bolesław Prus…” Czesław Miłosz, The History of Polish Literature, 2nd ed., Berkeley, University of California Press, 1983, ISBN 0-520-04477-0, p. 291.

Novels

• Souls in Bondage (Dusze w niewoli, written 1876, serialized 1877)
• Fame (Sława, begun 1885, never finished)
• The Outpost (Placówka, 1885–86)
• The Doll (Lalka, 1887–89)
• The New Woman (Emancypantki, 1890–93)
• Pharaoh (Faraon, written 1894–95; serialized 1895–96)
• Children (Dzieci, 1908; approximately the first nine chapters had originally appeared, in a somewhat different form, in 1907 as Dawn [Świt])
• Changes (Przemiany, begun 1911–12; unfinished)

Stories

• “The Old Lady’s Troubles” (“Kłopoty babuni,” 1874)
• “The Palace and the Hovel” (“Pałac i rudera,” 1875)
• “The Ball Gown” (“Sukienka balowa,” 1876)
• “An Orphan’s Lot” (“Sieroca dola,” 1876)
• “Eddy’s Adventures” (“Przygody Edzia,” 1876)
• “Damned Luck” (“Przeklęte szczęście,” 1876)
• “The Old Lady’s Casket” (“Szkatułka babki,” 1878)
• “Stan’s Adventure” (“Przygoda Stasia,” 1879)
• “New Year” (“Nowy rok,” 1880)
• “The Returning Wave” (“Powracająca fala,” 1880)
• “Michałko” (1880)
• “Antek” (1880)
• “The Convert” (“Nawrócony,” 1880)
• “The Barrel Organ” (“Katarynka,” 1880)
• “One of Many” (“Jeden z wielu,” 1882)
• “The Waistcoat” (“Kamizelka,” 1882)
• “Him” (“On,” 1882)
• “Fading Voices” (“Milknące głosy,” 1883)
• “Sins of Childhood” (“Grzechy dzieciństwa,” 1883)
• “Mold of the Earth” (“Pleśń świata,” 1884—a striking micro-story that portrays human history as an unending series of conflicts among mindless, blind colonies of molds)
• “The Living Telegraph” (“Żywy telegraf,” 1884)
• “Orestes and Pylades” (“Orestes i Pylades,” 1884)
• “Loves—Loves Not?…” (“Kocha—nie kocha?…” 1884)
• “The Mirror” (“Zwierciadło,” 1884)
• “On Vacation” (“Na wakacjach,” 1884)
• “An Old Tale” (“Stara bajka,” 1884)
• “In the Light of the Moon” (“Przy księżycu,” 1884)
• “The Mistake” (“Omyłka,” 1884)
• “Mr. Dutkowski and His Farm” (“Pan Dutkowski i jego folwark,” 1884)
• “Musical Echoes” (“Echa muzyczne,” 1884)
• “In the Mountains” (“W górach,” 1885)
• “Shades” (“Ciene,” 1885—an evocative meditation on existential themes)
• “Anielka” (1885)
• “A Strange Story” (“Dziwna historia,” 1887)
• “A Legend of Old Egypt” (“Z legend dawnego Egiptu,” 1888—Prus’ first piece of historical fiction; a stunning debut, and a preliminary sketch for his only historical novel, Pharaoh, which would be written in 1894–95)
• “The Dream” (“Sen,” 1890)
• “Lives of Saints” (“Z żywotów świętych,” 1891–92)
• “Reconciled” (“Pojednani,” 1892)
• “A Composition by Little Frank: About Mercy” (“Z wypracowań małego Frania. O miłosierdziu,” 1898)
• “The Doctor’s Story” (“Opowiadanie lekarza,” 1902)
• “Memoirs of a Cyclist” (“Ze wspomnień cyklisty,” 1903)
• “Revenge” (“Zemsta,” 1908)
• “Phantoms” (“Widziadła,” 1911, first published 1936)

Nonfiction

• “Travel Notes (Wieliczka)” ["Kartki z podróży (Wieliczka)," 1878—Prus' impressions of the Wieliczka Salt Mine; these would help inform the conception of the Egyptian Labyrinth in Prus's 1895 novel, Pharaoh]
• “A Word to the Public” (“Słówko do publiczności,” June 11, 1882—Prus’ inaugural address to readers as the new editor-in-chief of the daily, Nowiny [News], famously proposing to make it “an observatory of societal facts, just as there are observatories that study the movements of heavenly bodies, or—climatic changes.”)
• “Sketch for a Program under the Conditions of the Present Development of Society” (“Szkic programu w warunkach obecnego rozwoju społeczeństwa,” March 23–30, 1883—swan song of Prus’ editorship of Nowiny)
• “With Sword and Fire—Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Novel of Olden Times” (“Ogniem i mieczem—powieść z dawnych lat Henryka Sienkiewicza,” 1884—Prus’ review of Sienkiewicz‘s historical novel, and essay on historical novels)
• “The Paris Tower” (“Wieża paryska,” 1887—whimsical divagations involving the Eiffel Tower, the world’s tallest structure, then yet to be constructed for the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle)
• “Travels on Earth and in Heaven” (“Wędrówka po ziemi i niebie,” 1887—Prus’ impressions of a solar eclipse that he observed at Mława; these would help inspire the solar-eclipse scenes in his 1895 novel, Pharaoh)
• “A Word about Positive Criticism” (“Słówko o krytyce pozytywnej,” 1890—Prus’ part of a polemic with Positivist guru Aleksander Świętochowski)
• “Eusapia Palladino” (1893—newspaper column about mediumistic séances held in Warsaw by the Italian Spiritualist, Eusapia Palladino; these would help inspire similar scenes in Prus’ 1895 novel, Pharaoh)
• “From Nałęczów” (“Z Nałęczowa,” 1894—Prus’ paean to the salubrious waters and natural and social environment of his favorite vacation spot, Nałęczów)
• The Most General Life Ideals (Najogólniejsze ideały życiowe, 1905—Prus’s system of pragmatic ethics)
• “Ode to Youth” (“Oda do młodości,” 1905—Prus’ admission that, before the Russian Empire‘s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, he had held too cautious a view of the chances for an improvement in Poland’s political situation)
• “Visions of the Future” (“Wizje przyszłości,” 1909—a discussion of H.G. Wells‘ 1901 futurological book, Anticipations, which predicted, among other things, the defeat of German imperialism, the ascendancy of the English language, and the existence, by the year 2000, of a “European Union” that would include the Slavic peoples of Central Europe)
• “The Poet, Educator of the Nation” (“Poeta wychowawca narodu,” 1910—a discussion of the cultural and political principles imparted by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz)
• “What We… Never Learned from the History of Napoleon” (“Czego nas… nie nauczyły dzieje Napoleona”—Prus’s contribution to the December 16, 1911, issue of the Warsaw Illustrated Weekly, devoted entirely to Napoleon)

Translations

Prus‘ writings have been translated into many languages — his historical novel Pharaoh, into twenty; his contemporary novel The Doll

, into at least sixteen. Works by Prus have been rendered into Croatian by a member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Stjepan Musulin.

Film versions

• 1966: Faraon (Pharaoh), adapted from the novel Pharaoh, directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz
• 1968: Lalka (The Doll), adapted from the novel The Doll, directed by Wojciech Has
• 1978: Lalka (The Doll), adapted from the novel The Doll, directed by Ryszard Ber
• 1979: Placówka (The Outpost), adapted from the novel The Outpost, directed by Zygmunt Skonieczny
• 1982: Pensja Pani Latter (Mrs. Latter’s Boarding School), adapted from the novel The New Woman

Slutsky

“The Summation of Random Causes as a Source of Cyclic Processes”

Slutsky, Eugen. 1927. “The Summation of Random Causes as a Source of Cyclic Processes.” Problems of Economic Conditions 3 (1). Moscow: Conjuncture Institute.

Ten years later, Econometrica translated the original Russian article into English; the 1937 version was revised by Slutsky and incorporated several new results (see note 5).

Slutsky, Eugen. 1937. “The Summation of Random Causes as a Source of Cyclic Processes.” Econometrica 5 (April), p. 110.

The Meaning of Slutsky

The insight of an obscure Soviet statistician–that random processes can form cyclical patterns–has profoundly shaped our understanding of economic booms and recessions.

Business cycles, and their rhythms, have long fascinated and perplexed economists. Why do economic booms alternate with recessions, decade after decade? And why do graphs of long-term data on gross domestic product, employment and other economic indicators form undulating patterns similar to physical phenomena such as ocean waves or sound waves? Over the past 150 years, all sorts of explanations have been put forth for recurrent peaks and valleys in economic activity—economists have hypothesized forces as seemingly far-fetched as sunspot activity and rainfall patterns as the cause of these cyclical patterns in national and world economies.

By the early 20th century, some researchers believed that chance occurrences like wars, crop failures and technological innovations played a role in business cycles. But no one fully appreciated how crucial random (or “stochastic”) processes are to the workings of the economy until Eugen Slutsky, a Soviet statistician and econometrician, did the math. A middle-aged professor working at a Moscow think tank, Slutsky was virtually unknown to economists in Europe and the United States when he published his landmark paper on cyclical phenomena in 1927.¹

In a bold statistical experiment, Slutsky demonstrated that random numbers subjected to statistical calculations similar to those used to reveal trends in economic time-series formed wavelike patterns indistinguishable from business cycles. The implication was that a similar stochastic process—“the summation of random causes,” as Slutsky described it—might be at work in the actual economy, causing prosperity to ebb and flow without the agency of sunspots, meteorological patterns or other cyclical forces.

“That was a hell of an idea,” said Robert Lucas, a University of Chicago economist who pioneered modern business cycle theory, in an interview. “It was just a huge jump from what anyone had done.”

Today, Slutsky is more familiar among economists for his earlier work in consumer theory. Every economics undergraduate learns the Slutsky equation, which analyzes shifts in demand for goods by looking at two components, the income and substitution effects of price changes (see The Mechanics of Demand). But Slutsky’s 1927 paper made an enormous contribution to business cycle theory that forever changed the way economists view economic fluctuations.

Following a peak during the Great Depression, interest in divining the causes of booms and recessions waned after World War II. But with further economic turmoil in the 1970s and 1980s, researchers again became fascinated with business cycles—and with the role of shocks (both random and nonrandom) in propagating them. Slutsky’s enduring insight, combined with advances in economic growth theory, gave rise to modern macroeconomic models that simulate the impact of shocks such as new technologies, energy price hikes, changes in consumer preferences and tax increases or cuts.

Much of the work over the past 25 years on “real business cycles”—the idea that economic oscillations stem from “real” shocks such as innovations or changes in regulations rather than “nonreal” factors such as price trends, interest rates and monetary policy—has been done by investigators associated with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. For example, Edward Prescott, a monetary adviser to the Fed, has proposed random shocks to productivity as a key driver of fluctuations from the constant growth trend in U.S. GDP.

However, economists continue to grapple with basic questions about random shocks and their impact on the economy. What are these shocks, exactly, and how do they interact with labor productivity, capital investment, fiscal policy and other factors to cause economic expansions and contractions?

If Slutsky’s energies had remained focused on economics, he might have investigated those questions himself. Instead, he chose to work in statistics and mathematics for the rest of his career—a switch possibly motivated by fears for his life. Joseph Stalin took a dim view of theories that didn’t fit his framework for a centrally planned economy.

When Slutsky died in 1948, he probably had no inkling of the lasting impact his experiment with random numbers would have on macroeconomics. His work sparked a crucial intuition about market economies: Stuff happens. The economy is a dynamic entity that reacts unpredictably to random events (at least in the short term) and resists efforts to smooth out bumps in the road.

Making sense of cycles

Knut Wicksell, in the early 1900s, was perhaps the first economist to suggest that random shocks are complicit in the boom-bust cycles characteristic of market economies. Theorizing that erratic, unforeseen events such as innovations provide much of the impetus behind business cycles, he drew a simple analogy: “If you hit a wooden rocking-horse with a club, the movement of the horse will be very different to that of the club.”² That is, irregular blows to the rocking-horse will make it swing in a more or less regular arc.

In the 1920s, fellow Swede Johan Åkerman elaborated on this idea, comparing random economic shocks to pebbles on a streambed; such irregularities generate regular waves on the stream’s surface.

These images of regularity arising from randomness were at odds with prevailing theories that ascribed business cycles to some underlying, often hidden force. U.S. economist Henry Moore postulated an eight-year meteorological cycle that drove fluctuations in harvests and the production of raw materials. Another American economist, Wesley Mitchell, broke down business cycles into periods of prosperity, crisis, depression and revival in which each phase created the conditions for the next. This metronomic view of the economy was taught at many U.S. universities in the 1920s and 1930s.

Though Wicksell and Åkerman raised the possibility that stochastic processes were involved in business cycles, nobody had demonstrated the mechanism by which random events could cause recurrent, fairly regular oscillations in economic activity. That task fell to Slutsky, a researcher at the Moscow Conjuncture Institute, a government-run organization devoted to the study of business conditions in the young Soviet Union.

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=4348

The method is similar to that used to track stock prices and currency exchange rates, where computers calculate moving averages (rather than sums) to smooth the jagged profile of hourly or daily observations, letting analysts discern broad trends over time.

The key to Slutsky’s model is that the moving summation process forges connections among the numbers derived from the original series of completely random lottery numbers. In statistical terms, they become serially correlated; the value of each sum is associated with, but not identical to, the values of previous sums because they share nine out of 10 elements. This means that the effect of a single random number persists in the chain of moving summations. If that digit comes up several times in close succession—as can occur in any random drawing—it can skew the moving sums either high or low. Over time, this process causes the values of the sums to oscillate—the statistical equivalent of a seesaw.

When Slutsky and assistants finished their tedious calculations, the result was breathtaking—to a statistician at least. Their series of sums of random numbers created a nonrandom pattern. When graphed, it described a wave-like curve similar to cycles in time-series of aggregate output, employment and other economic variables. One section of Slutsky’s moving-summation plot closely matched an index of British business cycles from 1855 to 1877 (see In Sum: Slutsky’s Experiment above, bottom panel), “an initial graphic demonstration of the possible effects of the summation of unconnected causes,” he wrote.⁵

Other models in the paper that use more complex moving summations generated similar cyclical patterns—all derived from numbers pulled purely at random. (Slutsky would have seen similar patterns if he had summed dice rolls; charts of such series bear an uncanny resemblance to fluctuations in stock prices.)

Slutsky’s discovery—that the moving summation or average of a random series may generate oscillations when no such movements exist in the original data—is called the Slutsky-Yule effect. (Yule, in a 1927 paper, arrived independently at the same finding.) Slutsky later proved that when the number of summations approaches infinity, the randomly generated undulations form sine waves—smooth arcs like ocean swells, or the pulse of alternating electric current.
Slutsky had shown in dramatic fashion that stochastic processes could create patterns virtually identical to the putative effects of weather patterns, self-perpetuating boom-bust phases and other factors on the economy. The obvious question was whether—as Slutsky’s paper seemed to imply—series of random events actually contributed to business cycles in the real world.

In 1927, Slutsky was a 47-year-old math and statistics whiz who had traveled a long road to attain his position among the country’s intellectual elite. In his youth, he had taken part in student protests against Czarist policies; expelled twice from the University of Kiev and barred from attending university anywhere within the Russian Empire, he was forced to leave the country to continue his education. Studying engineering in Germany, Slutsky developed instead a keen interest in economics that blossomed when he was allowed to re-enroll at the University of Kiev in 1905. “I already had plans for working on the application of mathematics to economics,” he wrote decades later in an autobiographical sketch.³

As he studied political economy, he became enthralled with the new statistical techniques of British mathematician Karl Pearson and wrote a well-received book on mathematical statistics. The book was published in 1912, a year after Slutsky finally got his bachelor’s degree at the ripe age of 31. Slutsky’s famous paper on consumer demand followed in 1915, after he had secured a teaching post at the Kiev Commercial Institute.

By the mid-1920s, Slutsky was working on probability theory and a variety of economic topics steeped in mathematics and statistics. Slutsky hints in his autobiography that his decision to focus on the technical side of economics was motivated at least in part by political events in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution—the fall of capitalism and its replacement by a state-controlled economy.

In 1926, Slutsky landed a plum post at the Conjuncture Institute in Moscow, headed by renowned Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratiev. There he threw himself into an intense study of apparent cycles in economic time-series. He was familiar with the theories of Moore, Mitchell and his boss Kondratiev, who posited “long-wave” business cycles of 50 to 60 years in market economies.

But he saw another potential driver of business cycles, one hinted at by British mathematician George Udny Yule’s recent work on “nonsense correlations” in economic data. Could the laws of probability account for the recurrent spikes and dips seen in time-series? To find out, Slutsky performed statistical experiments on random numbers from a government lottery.

He wrote excitedly to his wife Yulia in Kiev that he was “lucky to arrive at a rather considerable finding, to discover the secret of … those wavy movements that are observed in social phenomena.”⁴

Luck of the draw

Slutsky’s method was unorthodox at the time—indeed, it was revolutionary. Instead of coming up with a business cycle theory and then using it to try to explain observed historical data, he manipulated an artificial set of data to see what patterns emerged. His approach was inductive and agnostic, noted Lucas. It didn’t start from an initial belief or hypothesis, but rather arrived at a theory after examining mathematical facts. “There’s no particular view of business cycles advanced in the paper,” said Lucas. “What he shows is that if you construct a simulated time-series … you can generate patterns that look just like the patterns we see in economic time-series.”

The statistical model that Slutsky created was a forerunner of modern computer simulations of random systems, the “Monte Carlo” methods used today in fields ranging from economics and finance to engineering and meteorology.

Assisted by Institute staffers armed with sharp pencils, Slutsky took random lottery numbers and added them sequentially. He created a new series of numbers consisting of the sum of a given random digit plus the nine that preceded it, then the sum of the next digit plus the previous nine, then the sum of the next digit plus … and so on. The process is akin to repeatedly rolling dice and adding up the values of the previous rolls; in Slutsky’s case, he calculated a 10-item moving sum of random digits, producing a new numerical series analogous to the dice totals (see In Sum: Slutsky’s Experiment below,)

In Sum: Slutsky’s Experiment

Slutsky’s simplest model began with a long string of random numbers. A 10-item moving sum of these produced a second series (34,35,37 and so on in this example). A graph of this series formed wave patterns similar to time-series economic data.

Slutsky showed that output from his random-number model bore a striking resemblance to actual British business cycles.

Deconstructing Slutsky

“The Summation of Random Causes as a Source of Cyclic Processes” was written in Russian; the paper wasn’t widely available to Western economists until 10 years later, when a longer English version was published in the journal Econometrica. But the few business cycle researchers in Europe and the United States who gained access to Slutsky’s 1927 paper immediately recognized its significance. A random element had to be accounted for in analyzing economic time-series.

One interpretation of Slutsky’s work is that the remarkable synchrony he found between simulated cycles and the ups and downs of the British economy is an artifact of statistics, an illusion with no bearing on the movements of the real economy. But Western economists were intrigued by an alternative reading of his paper: The similarity of randomly generated cycles to actual business cycles is no accident; random events such as inventions, storms and conflicts somehow shape the rhythms of the real-life economy. (Slutsky himself isn’t clear on the matter, although the paper’s title and the letter to his wife suggest that he favored this view.)

Simon Kuznets, a Russian émigré to the United States who studied under Mitchell at Columbia University, reviewed Slutsky’s findings and conducted statistical experiments on time-series to test his ideas. In a 1929 paper, Kuznets theorized that a careful analysis of business cycles would reveal the signatures of different types of random shocks acting upon the economy: a string of small shocks versus one or two big shocks, for example. He also noted the ramifications of this line of reasoning for the business cycle theories of Mitchell and his contemporaries: “If cycles arise from random events … then we obviously do not need the hypothesis of an independent regularly recurring cause which is deemed necessary by some theorists of business cycles.”⁶

Norwegian economist Ragnar Frisch also seized upon Slutsky’s findings in his 1933 analysis of the forces driving business cycles. Hitching Slutsky’s work to Wicksell’s rocking-horse analogy, Frisch (co-winner of the first Nobel Prize in economics) developed a dynamic macroeconomic model that incorporated random shocks.

In his model, delays in capital investment needed to satisfy increased consumer demand cause recurrent oscillations in economic output—the swings of the rocking-horse. But the rocking-horse would come to rest after two or three cycles without some external force acting upon it. Frisch wondered what would happen if the horse were hit with a club—“a stream of erratic shocks that constantly upsets the continuous evolution, and by so doing introduces into the system the energy necessary to maintain the swings.”⁷ He mimicked such shocks with a “stochastic difference equation”—a mathematical apparatus still used today to simulate the impact of chance events on economies.

While Western economists were pondering the meaning of Slutsky, the man himself had abandoned economics to apply his statistical acumen to hydrology and meteorology. In 1928, Stalin had released a five-year master plan for controlling every aspect of the Soviet economy. When Kondratiev dared to criticize the plan, the Conjuncture Institute was shut down, and its former director imprisoned and later executed. Slutsky realized that continuing to work in economics—even on abstruse theoretical topics—was too dangerous under Stalin’s rule, said John Chipman, an economics professor at the University of Minnesota who has studied Slutsky’s career.

“He saw what happened to Kondratiev,” Chipman said in an interview. “I think it’s incontrovertible that Slutsky switched fields in order to preserve his life.” Tellingly, in his 1938 autobiography, written as part of a job application, Slutsky skips over his two-year tenure at the Conjuncture Institute.

In the 1930s and during World War II, working in government research posts, Slutsky studied weather patterns instead of business cycles. In his last years, he performed important but laborious duty in statistics, preparing tables of probabilities for various distribution functions. When he died at age 67 of lung cancer, his obituary was written by the great Soviet mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov.

Business cycles revisited

After World War II, economists largely lost interest in business cycles. In an era of rising global prosperity, the emphasis was on measuring economic growth and fine-tuning it by applying Keynesian stabilization policy. In the United States, the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics developed complex macroeconomic models designed to identify optimum levels of government spending and taxation to achieve economic growth and full employment. In the 1960s, economic advisers to the Kennedy administration shaped tax and spending policies in an ill-fated effort to eliminate recessions altogether.

“There was a period when people thought that business cycles no longer exist, and we don’t have to worry about them in the future,” said Chipman, who was a researcher for the Cowles Commission in the 1950s.

But in the 1970s and 1980s, a new generation of economists—motivated in part by the “stagflation” of the 1970s, which showed that high inflation could coexist with high unemployment—looked at business cycles with fresh eyes. Lucas, Prescott and other investigators rediscovered the meaning of Slutsky and, blending his ideas with advances in modeling how economies grow, developed their own conceptions of rhythmic forces at work in the economy.

By the 1970s, many theorists had come to view the economy as a dynamic system that achieves a balance between the output of firms and household demand, even as its aggregate output fluctuates from quarter to quarter and year to year. In a 1977 article, Lucas defined the U.S. business cycle as “movements about trend in gross national product.”⁸ Over time, the economy grows at a fairly steady rate, but GDP oscillates around that trend, like a sailboat tacking back and forth in order to reach its destination. A series of positive deviations from trend rising to a peak constitutes an economic expansion, while a string of negative deviations leading to a trough indicates a recession. Like gusts buffeting the sailboat, these economic fluctuations are irregular and unpredictable.

Random shocks in dynamic models

A few years later Prescott and Finn Kydland, an economist at Carnegie Mellon University, proposed random events as the major motive behind these oscillations. In a seminal 1982 paper, Prescott (then at the University of Minnesota) and Kydland estimated that random shocks to productivity accounted for 70 percent of the fluctuations in U.S. economic growth after World War II. Their research was inspired in part by the findings of Slutsky and Frisch half a century earlier; in a later paper, Kydland and Prescott describe the work of both men.

Kydland and Prescott envisioned the effects of random shocks to productivity—new technology, energy price spikes, regulatory changes—accumulating over time. The reverberations of economic shocks linger for months or years, reinforcing the effects of new shocks and causing deviations from the long-term growth trend. Thus, the economy steers a serpentine course through booms and recessions.

To simulate these movements, Kydland and Prescott created a macroeconomic model in which households and firms optimally respond to changes in productivity, choosing to work and invest more or less when random shocks either increase or diminish the value of their labor and capital. The economists found that their model with random shocks, mirroring Slutsky’s results, produced estimates of fluctuations in GDP and other variables that corresponded with those in actual economic time-series—in this case, data on U.S. economic performance between 1950 and 1979.

By incorporating random shocks into a dynamic model in which individual agents act on their preferences, Kydland and Prescott, with Lucas and others, ushered in a revolution in macroeconomic theory. Today, dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are standard tools for investigating business cycles and other macroeconomic phenomena.

At the Minneapolis Fed, scholars have built upon Kydland and Prescott’s foundational work in real business cycles by modeling the impact of other types of nonmonetary shocks. For example, Ellen McGrattan, a University of Minnesota professor and monetary adviser to the Minneapolis Fed, has examined the impact of fiscal shocks such as tax changes on economic activity.⁹

Look out—shocks ahead

Precisely how random events exert their influence on the economy is still not fully understood. Researchers beg to differ on many aspects of the mechanics of business cycles, airing their opposing views in professional journals. Real business cycle theories, for example, have come under fire from economists who believe that shocks to consumer demand, or to the money supply, offer a better explanation for economic fluctuations.

One prominent example is Lawrence Summers, now director of the White House’s National Economic Council, who in 1986 criticized Prescott for, among other things, assuming that random shocks to productivity are at the root of economic fluctuations. “He provides no discussion of the source or nature of these shocks, nor does he cite any microeconomic evidence for their importance,” Summers wrote.¹⁰ Prescott offered a spirited reply.¹¹

Summers’ critique highlights a lack of consensus on the nature of the shocks constantly peppering the economy. Economists continue to posit all kinds of shocks as propagators of business cycles, but for the most part, their modeling efforts have focused not on the shocks, but on how the economy reacts to those shocks. To return to Wicksell’s analogy, more attention has been paid to the rocking-horse than to the club.

The deep recession of the past two years has raised anew questions about the interaction of chance events with government action (or inaction) in causing severe economic downturns. (Researcher interest in business cycle theory, it seems, follows a nonrandom, countercyclical pattern.) Some economists contend that misguided industrial regulation or monetary policy can exacerbate contractions already under way due to random shocks.

For all the disagreements, Slutsky’s original insight about the snowballing effect of random causes remains at the core of ongoing research on business cycles. A gifted statistician and frustrated economist, Slutsky revealed hidden rhythms in simulated time-series—rhythms that appear to pulse through the economy as well, often with far-reaching consequences. “The economics keep changing,” observed Lucas, “but the basic idea that we’re going to model the economy as a system of equations subject to external shocks—that’s stayed with us.”

Endnotes

1 Slutsky, Eugen. 1927. “The Summation of Random Causes as a Source of Cyclic Processes.” Problems of Economic Conditions 3 (1). Moscow: Conjuncture Institute. Ten years later, Econometrica translated the original Russian article into English; the 1937 version was revised by Slutsky and incorporated several new results (see note 5).

2 Frisch, Ragnar. 1933. “Propagation Problems and Impulse Problems in Dynamic Economics.” In Economic Essays in Honor of Gustav Cassell. London: Allen and Unwin. Reprinted in Robert Gordon and Lawrence Klein, eds. 1965. Readings in Business Cycles. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, p. 178.

3 Slutsky, Eugen. “Autobiography.” In Sheynin, Oscar, trans., Probability and Statistics: Russian Papers of the Soviet Period. Berlin, 2004, p. 91.

4 Chetverikov, N.S. 1959. “The Life and Scientific Work of Slutsky.” In Sheynin, Oscar, trans., Probability and Statistics: Russian Papers of the Soviet Period. Berlin, 2004, p. 100. Online (see note 3).

5 Slutsky, Eugen. 1937. “The Summation of Random Causes as a Source of Cyclic Processes.” Econometrica 5 (April), p. 110.

6 Kuznets, Simon. 1929. “Random Events and Cyclical Oscillations.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 24 (September), p. 274.

7 Frisch, ibid.

8 Lucas, Robert E. Jr. 1977. “Understanding Business Cycles.” In Karl Brunner and Allan H. Meltzer, eds., Stabilization of the Domestic and International Economy. Carnegie Rochester Series on Public Policy. Amsterdam: North Holland, pp. 7–29. Reprinted in Lucas, Robert E. Jr., Studies in Business Cycle Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981, p. 217.

9 McGrattan, Ellen R. 1994. “The Macroeconomic Effects of Distortionary Taxation.” Journal of Monetary Economics 33, pp. 573–601; also McGrattan, Ellen R. 2009. “Capital Taxation during the Great Depression.” Working Paper 670, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

10 Summers, Lawrence H. 1986. “Some Skeptical Observations on Real Business Cycle Theory.” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review 10 (Fall), p. 24.

11 Prescott, Edward C. 1986. “Response to a Skeptic.” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review 10 (Fall), p. 28.

Phil Davies – Senior Writer
Joe Mahon – Staff Writer

Minneapolis Fed

Slutsky, Eugen. 1927. “The Summation of Random Causes as a Source of Cyclic Processes.” Problems of Economic Conditions 3 (1). Moscow: Conjuncture Institute. Ten years later, Econometrica translated the original Russian article into English; the 1937 version was revised by Slutsky and incorporated several new results (see note 5).

The Hungry Stones

Rabindranath Tagore (Author)
Title: The Hungry Stones
Author: Rabindranath Tagore

“My kinsman and myself were returning to Calcutta from our Puja trip when we met the man in a train. From his dress and bearing we took him at first for an up-country Mahomedan, but we were puzzled as we heard him talk. He discoursed upon all subjects so confidently that you might think the Disposer of All Things consulted him at all times in all that He did. Hitherto we had been perfectly happy, as we did not know that secret and unheard-of forces were at work, that the Russians had advanced close to us, that the English had deep and secret policies, that confusion among the native chiefs had come to a head. But our newly-acquired friend said with a sly smile: “There happen more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are reported in your newspapers.” As we had never stirred out of our homes before, the demeanour of the man struck us dumb with wonder. Be the topic ever so trivial, he would quote science, or comment on the Vedas, or repeat quatrains from some Persian poet; and as we had no pretence to a knowledge of science or the Vedas or Persian, our admiration for him went on increasing, and my kinsman, a theosophist, was firmly convinced that our fellow-passenger must have been supernaturally inspired by some strange magnetism” or “occult power,” by an “astral body” or something of that kind. He listened to the tritest saying that fell from the lips of our extraordinary companion with devotional rapture, and secretly took down notes of his conversation. I fancy that the extraordinary man saw this, and was a little pleased with it.

When the train reached the junction, we assembled in the waiting room for the connection. It was then 10 P.M., and as the train, we heard, was likely to be very late, owing to something wrong in the lines, I spread my bed on the table and was about to lie down for a comfortable doze, when the extraordinary person deliberately set about spinning the following yarn. Of course, I could get no sleep that night.

When, owing to a disagreement about some questions of administrative policy, I threw up my post at Junagarh, and entered the service of the Nizam of Hydria, they appointed me at once, as a strong young man, collector of cotton duties at Barich.

Barich is a lovely place. The Susta “chatters over stony ways and babbles on the pebbles,” tripping, like a skilful dancing girl, in through the woods below the lonely hills. A flight of 150 steps rises from the river, and above that flight, on the river’s brim and at the foot of the hills, there stands a solitary marble palace. Around it there is no habitation of man–the village and the cotton mart of Barich being far off.

About 250 years ago the Emperor Mahmud Shah II. had built this lonely palace for his pleasure and luxury. In his days jets of rose-water spurted from its fountains, and on the cold marble floors of its spray- cooled rooms young Persian damsels would sit, their hair dishevelled before bathing, and, splashing their soft naked feet in the clear water of the reservoirs, would sing, to the tune of the guitar, the ghazals of their vineyards.

The fountains play no longer; the songs have ceased; no longer do snow-white feet step gracefully on the snowy marble. It is but the vast and solitary quarters of cess-collectors like us, men oppressed with solitude and deprived of the society of women. Now, Karim Khan, the old clerk of my office, warned me repeatedly not to take up my abode there. “Pass the day there, if you like,” said he, “but never stay the night.” I passed it off with a light laugh. The servants said that they would work till dark and go away at night. I gave my ready assent. The house had such a bad name that even thieves would not venture near it after dark.

At first the solitude of the deserted palace weighed upon me like a nightmare. I would stay out, and work hard as long as possible, then return home at night jaded and tired, go to bed and fall asleep.

Before a week had passed, the place began to exert a weird fascination upon me. It is difficult to describe or to induce people to believe; but I felt as if the whole house was like a living organism slowly and imperceptibly digesting me by the action of some stupefying gastric juice.

Perhaps the process had begun as soon as I set my foot in the house, but I distinctly remember the day on which I first was conscious of it.

It was the beginning of summer, and the market being dull I had no work to do. A little before sunset I was sitting in an arm-chair near the water’s edge below the steps. The Susta had shrunk and sunk low; a broad patch of sand on the other side glowed with the hues of evening; on this side the pebbles at the bottom of the clear shallow waters were glistening. There was not a breath of wind anywhere, and the still air was laden with an oppressive scent from the spicy shrubs growing on the hills close by.

As the sun sank behind the hill-tops a long dark curtain fell upon the stage of day, and the intervening hills cut short the time in which light and shade mingle at sunset. I thought of going out for a ride, and was about to get up when I heard a footfall on the steps behind. I looked back, but there was no one.

As I sat down again, thinking it to be an illusion, I heard many footfalls, as if a large number of persons were rushing down the steps. A strange thrill of delight, slightly tinged with fear, passed through my frame, and though there was not a figure before my eyes, methought I saw a bevy of joyous maidens coming down the steps to bathe in the Susta in that summer evening. Not a sound was in the valley, in the river, or in the palace, to break the silence, but I distinctly heard the maidens’ gay and mirthful laugh, like the gurgle of a spring gushing forth in a hundred cascades, as they ran past me, in quick playful pursuit of each other, towards the river, without noticing me at all. As they were invisible to me, so I was, as it were, invisible to them. The river was perfectly calm, but I felt that its still, shallow, and clear waters were stirred suddenly by the splash of many an arm jingling with bracelets, that the girls laughed and dashed and spattered water at one another, that the feet of the fair swimmers tossed the tiny waves up in showers of pearl.

I felt a thrill at my heart–I cannot say whether the excitement was due to fear or delight or curiosity. I had a strong desire to see them more clearly, but naught was visible before me; I thought I could catch all that they said if I only strained my ears; but however hard I strained them, I heard nothing but the chirping of the cicadas in the woods. It seemed as if a dark curtain of 250 years was hanging before me, and I would fain lift a corner of it tremblingly and peer through, though the assembly on the other side was completely enveloped in darkness.

The oppressive closeness of the evening was broken by a sudden gust of wind, and the still surface of the Suista rippled and curled like the hair of a nymph, and from the woods wrapt in the evening gloom there came forth a simultaneous murmur, as though they were awakening from a black dream. Call it reality or dream, the momentary glimpse of that invisible mirage reflected from a far-off world, 250 years old, vanished in a flash. The mystic forms that brushed past me with their quick unbodied steps, and loud, voiceless laughter, and threw themselves into the river, did not go back wringing their dripping robes as they went. Like fragrance wafted away by the wind they were dispersed by a single breath of the spring.

Then I was filled with a lively fear that it was the Muse that had taken advantage of my solitude and possessed me–the witch had evidently come to ruin a poor devil like myself making a living by collecting cotton duties. I decided to have a good dinner–it is the empty stomach that all sorts of incurable diseases find an easy prey. I sent for my cook and gave orders for a rich, sumptuous moghlai dinner, redolent of spices and ghi.

Next morning the whole affair appeared a queer fantasy. With a light heart I put on a sola hat like the sahebs, and drove out to my work. I was to have written my quarterly report that day, and expected to return late; but before it was dark I was strangely drawn to my house–by what I could not say–I felt they were all waiting, and that I should delay no longer. Leaving my report unfinished I rose, put on my sola hat, and startling the dark, shady, desolate path with the rattle of my carriage, I reached the vast silent palace standing on the gloomy skirts of the hills.

On the first floor the stairs led to a very spacious hall, its roof stretching wide over ornamental arches resting on three rows of massive pillars, and groaning day and night under the weight of its own intense solitude. The day had just closed, and the lamps had not yet been lighted. As I pushed the door open a great bustle seemed to follow within, as if a throng of people had broken up in confusion, and rushed out through the doors and windows and corridors and verandas and rooms, to make its hurried escape.

As I saw no one I stood bewildered, my hair on end in a kind of ecstatic delight, and a faint scent of attar and unguents almost effected by age lingered in my nostrils. Standing in the darkness of that vast desolate hall between the rows of those ancient pillars, I could hear the gurgle of fountains plashing on the marble floor, a strange tune on the guitar, the jingle of ornaments and the tinkle of anklets, the clang of bells tolling the hours, the distant note of nahabat, the din of the crystal pendants of chandeliers shaken by the breeze, the song of bulbuls from the cages in the corridors, the cackle of storks in the gardens, all creating round me a strange unearthly music.

Then I came under such a spell that this intangible, inaccessible, unearthly vision appeared to be the only reality in the world–and all else a mere dream. That I, that is to say, Srijut So-and-so, the eldest son of So-and-so of blessed memory, should be drawing a monthly salary of Rs. 450 by the discharge of my duties as collector of cotton duties, and driving in my dog-cart to my office every day in a short coat and soia hat, appeared to me to be such an astonishingly ludicrous illusion that I burst into a horse-laugh, as I stood in the gloom of that vast silent hall.

At that moment my servant entered with a lighted kerosene lamp in his hand. I do not know whether he thought me mad, but it came back to me at once that I was in very deed Srijut So-and-so, son of So-and-so of blessed memory, and that, while our poets, great and small, alone could say whether inside of or outside the earth there was a region where unseen fountains perpetually played and fairy guitars, struck by invisible fingers, sent forth an eternal harmony, this at any rate was certain, that I collected duties at the cotton market at Banch, and earned thereby Rs. 450 per mensem as my salary. I laughed in great glee at my curious illusion, as I sat over the newspaper at my camp-table, lighted by the kerosene lamp.

After I had finished my paper and eaten my moghlai dinner, I put out the lamp, and lay down on my bed in a small side-room. Through the open window a radiant star, high above the Avalli hills skirted by the darkness of their woods, was gazing intently from millions and millions of miles away in the sky at Mr. Collector lying on a humble camp- bedstead. I wondered and felt amused at the idea, and do not knew when I fell asleep or how long I slept; but I suddenly awoke with a start, though I heard no sound and saw no intruder–only the steady bright star on the hilltop had set, and the dim light of the new moon was stealthily entering the room through the open window, as if ashamed of its intrusion.

I saw nobody, but felt as if some one was gently pushing me. As I awoke she said not a word, but beckoned me with her five fingers bedecked with rings to follow her cautiously. I got up noiselessly, and, though not a soul save myself was there in the countless apartments of that deserted palace with its slumbering sounds and waiting echoes, I feared at every step lest any one should wake up. Most of the rooms of the palace were always kept closed, and I had never entered them.

I followed breathless and with silent steps my invisible guide–I cannot now say where. What endless dark and narrow passages, what long corridors, what silent and solemn audience-chambers and close secret cells I crossed!

Though I could not see my fair guide, her form was not invisible to my mind’s eye, –an Arab girl, her arms, hard and smooth as marble, visible through her loose sleeves, a thin veil falling on her face from the fringe of her cap, and a curved dagger at her waist! Methought that one of the thousand and one Arabian Nights had been wafted to me from the world of romance, and that at the dead of night I was wending my way through the dark narrow alleys of slumbering Bagdad to a trysting-place fraught with peril.

At last my fair guide stopped abruptly before a deep blue screen, and seemed to point to something below. There was nothing there, but a sudden dread froze the blood in my heart-methought I saw there on the floor at the foot of the screen a terrible negro eunuch dressed in rich brocade, sitting and dozing with outstretched legs, with a naked sword on his lap. My fair guide lightly tripped over his legs and held up a fringe of the screen. I could catch a glimpse of a part of the room spread with a Persian carpet–some one was sitting inside on a bed–I could not see her, but only caught a glimpse of two exquisite feet in gold-embroidered slippers, hanging out from loose saffron-coloured paijamas and placed idly on the orange-coloured velvet carpet. On one side there was a bluish crystal tray on which a few apples, pears, oranges, and bunches of grapes in plenty, two small cups and a gold- tinted decanter were evidently waiting the guest. A fragrant intoxicating vapour, issuing from a strange sort of incense that burned within, almost overpowered my senses.

As with trembling heart I made an attempt to step across the outstretched legs of the eunuch, he woke up suddenly with a start, and the sword fell from his lap with a sharp clang on the marble floor. A terrific scream made me jump, and I saw I was sitting on that camp- bedstead of mine sweating heavily; and the crescent moon looked pale in the morning light like a weary sleepless patient at dawn; and our crazy Meher Ali was crying out, as is his daily custom, “Stand back! Stand back!!” while he went along the lonely road.

Such was the abrupt close of one of my Arabian Nights; but there were yet a thousand nights left.

Then followed a great discord between my days and nights. During the day I would go to my work worn and tired, cursing the bewitching night and her empty dreams, but as night came my daily life with its bonds and shackles of work would appear a petty, false, ludicrous vanity.

After nightfall I was caught and overwhelmed in the snare of a strange intoxication, I would then be transformed into some unknown personage of a bygone age, playing my part in unwritten history; and my short English coat and tight breeches did not suit me in the least. With a red velvet cap on my head, loose paijamas, an embroidered vest, a long flowing silk gown, and coloured handkerchiefs scented with attar, I would complete my elaborate toilet, sit on a high-cushioned chair, and replace my cigarette with a many-coiled narghileh filled with rose-water, as if in eager expectation of a strange meeting with the beloved one.

I have no power to describe the marvellous incidents that unfolded themselves, as the gloom of the night deepened. I felt as if in the curious apartments of that vast edifice the fragments of a beautiful story, which I could follow for some distance, but of which I could never see the end, flew about in a sudden gust of the vernal breeze. And all the same I would wander from room to room in pursuit of them the whole night long.

Amid the eddy of these dream-fragments, amid the smell of henna and the twanging of the guitar, amid the waves of air charged with fragrant spray, I would catch like a flash of lightning the momentary glimpse of a fair damsel. She it was who had saffron-coloured paijamas, white ruddy soft feet in gold-embroidered slippers with curved toes, a close- fitting bodice wrought with gold, a red cap, from which a golden frill fell on her snowy brow and cheeks.

She had maddened me. In pursuit of her I wandered from room to room, from path to path among the bewildering maze of alleys in the enchanted dreamland of the nether world of sleep.

Sometimes in the evening, while arraying myself carefully as a prince of the blood-royal before a large mirror, with a candle burning on either side, I would see a sudden reflection of the Persian beauty by the side of my own. A swift turn of her neck, a quick eager glance of intense passion and pain glowing in her large dark eyes, just a suspicion of speech on her dainty red lips, her figure, fair and slim crowned with youth like a blossoming creeper, quickly uplifted in her graceful tilting gait, a dazzling flash of pain and craving and ecstasy, a smile and a glance and a blaze of jewels and silk, and she melted away. A wild glist of wind, laden with all the fragrance of hills and woods, would put out my light, and I would fling aside my dress and lie down on my bed, my eyes closed and my body thrilling with delight, and there around me in the breeze, amid all the perfume of the woods and hills, floated through the silent gloom many a caress and many a kiss and many a tender touch of hands, and gentle murmurs in my ears, and fragrant breaths on my brow; or a sweetly-perfumed kerchief was wafted again and again on my cheeks. Then slowly a mysterious serpent would twist her stupefying coils about me; and heaving a heavy sigh, I would lapse into insensibility, and then into a profound slumber.

One evening I decided to go out on my horse–I do not know who implored me to stay-but I would listen to no entreaties that day. My English hat and coat were resting on a rack, and I was about to take them down when a sudden whirlwind, crested with the sands of the Susta and the dead leaves of the Avalli hills, caught them up, and whirled them round and round, while a loud peal of merry laughter rose higher and higher, striking all the chords of mirth till it died away in the land of sunset.

I could not go out for my ride, and the next day I gave up my queer English coat and hat for good.

That day again at dead of night I heard the stifled heart-breaking sobs of some one–as if below the bed, below the floor, below the stony foundation of that gigantic palace, from the depths of a dark damp grave, a voice piteously cried and implored me: “Oh, rescue me! Break through these doors of hard illusion, deathlike slumber and fruitless dreams, place by your side on the saddle, press me to your heart, and, riding through hills and woods and across the river, take me to the warm radiance of your sunny rooms above!”

Who am I? Oh, how can I rescue thee? What drowning beauty, what incarnate passion shall I drag to the shore from this wild eddy of dreams? O lovely ethereal apparition! Where didst thou flourish and when?” By what cool spring, under the shade of what date-groves, wast thou born–in the lap of what homeless wanderer in the desert? What Bedouin snatched thee from thy mother’s arms, an opening bud plucked from a wild creeper, placed thee on a horse swift as lightning, crossed the burning sands, and took thee to the slave-market of what royal city? And there, what officer of the Badshah, seeing the glory of thy bashful blossoming youth, paid for thee in gold, placed thee in a golden palanquin, and offered thee as a present for the seraglio of his master? And O, the history of that place! The music of the sareng, the jingle of anklets, the occasional flash of daggers and the glowing wine of Shiraz poison, and the piercing flashing glance! What infinite grandeur, what endless servitude!

The slave-girls to thy right and left waved the chamar as diamonds flashed from their bracelets; the Badshah, the king of kings, fell on his knees at thy snowy feet in bejewelled shoes, and outside the terrible Abyssinian eunuch, looking like a messenger of death, but clothed like an angel, stood with a naked sword in his hand! Then, O, thou flower of the desert, swept away by the blood-stained dazzling ocean of grandeur, with its foam of jealousy, its rocks and shoals of intrigue, on what shore of cruel death wast thou cast, or in what other land more splendid and more cruel?

Suddenly at this moment that crazy Meher Ali screamed out: “Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!” I opened my eyes and saw that it was already light. My chaprasi came and handed me my letters, and the cook waited with a salam for my orders.

I said; “No, I can stay here no longer.” That very day I packed up, and moved to my office. Old Karim Khan smiled a little as he saw me. I felt nettled, but said nothing, and fell to my work.

As evening approached I grew absent-minded; I felt as if I had an appointment to keep; and the work of examining the cotton accounts seemed wholly useless; even the Nizamat of the Nizam did not appear to be of much worth. Whatever belonged to the present, whatever was moving and acting and working for bread seemed trivial, meaningless, and contemptible.

I threw my pen down, closed my ledgers, got into my dog-cart, and drove away. I noticed that it stopped of itself at the gate of the marble palace just at the hour of twilight. With quick steps I climbed the stairs, and entered the room.

A heavy silence was reigning within. The dark rooms were looking sullen as if they had taken offense. My heart was full of contrition, but there was no one to whom I could lay it bare, or of whom I could ask forgiveness. I wandered about the dark rooms with a vacant mind. I wished I had a guitar to which I could sing to the unknown: “O fire, the poor moth that made a vain effort to fly away has come back to thee! Forgive it but this once, burn its wings and consume it in thy flame!”

Suddenly two tear-drops fell from overhead on my brow. Dark masses of clouds overcast the top of the Avalli hills that day. The gloomy woods and the sooty waters of the Susta were waiting in terrible suspense and in an ominous calm. Suddenly land, water, and sky shivered, and a wild tempest-blast rushed howling through the distant pathless woods, showing its lightning-teeth like a raving maniac who had broken his chains. The desolate halls of the palace banged their doors, and moaned in the bitterness of anguish.

The servants were all in the office, and there was no one to light the lamps. The night was cloudy and moonless. In the dense gloom within I could distinctly feel that a woman was lying on her face on the carpet below the bed–clasping and tearing her long dishevelled hair with desperate fingers. Blood was tricking down her fair brow, and she was now laughing a hard, harsh, mirthless laugh, now bursting into violent wringing sobs, now rending her bodice and striking at her bare bosom, as the wind roared in through the open window, and the rain poured in torrents and soaked her through and through.

All night there was no cessation of the storm or of the passionate cry. I wandered from room to room in the dark, with unavailing sorrow. Whom could I console when no one was by? Whose was this intense agony of sorrow? Whence arose this inconsolable grief?

And the mad man cried out: “Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!”

I saw that the day had dawned, and Meher Ali was going round and round the palace with his usual cry in that dreadful weather. Suddenly it came to me that perhaps he also had once lived in that house, and that, though he had gone mad, he came there every day, and went round and round, fascinated by the weird spell cast by the marble demon.

Despite the storm and rain I ran to him and asked: “Ho, Meher Ali, what is false?”

The man answered nothing, but pushing me aside went round and round with his frantic cry, like a bird flying fascinated about the jaws of a snake, and made a desperate effort to warn himself by repeating: “Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!”

I ran like a mad man through the pelting rain to my office, and asked Karim Khan: “Tell me the meaning of all this!”

What I gathered from that old man was this: That at one time countless unrequited passions and unsatisfied longings and lurid flames of wild blazing pleasure raged within that palace, and that the curse of all the heart-aches and blasted hopes had made its every stone thirsty and hungry, eager to swallow up like a famished ogress any living man who might chance to approach. Not one of those who lived there for three consecutive nights could escape these cruel jaws, save Meher Ali, who had escaped at the cost of his reason.

I asked: “Is there no means whatever of my release?” The old man said: “There is only one means, and that is very difficult. I will tell you what it is, but first you must hear the history of a young Persian girl who once lived in that pleasure-dome. A stranger or a more bitterly heart-rending tragedy was never enacted on this earth.”

Just at this moment the coolies announced that the train was coming. So soon? We hurriedly packed up our luggage, as the tram steamed in. An English gentleman, apparently just aroused from slumber, was looking out of a first-class carriage endeavouring to read the name of the station. As soon as he caught sight of our fellow-passenger, he cried, “Hallo,” and took him into his own compartment. As we got into a second-class carriage, we had no chance of finding out who the man was nor what was the end of his story.

I said; “The man evidently took us for fools and imposed upon us out of fun. The story is pure fabrication from start to finish.” The discussion that followed ended in a lifelong rupture between my theosophist kinsman and myself.”

-THE END-
Rabindranath Tagore’s short story: The Hungry Stones

Product Details:

• Paperback: 212 pages
• Publisher: 1st World Library – Literary Society
• May 20, 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421804816
• ISBN-13: 978-1421804811

MDPI Open Access Entropy E-Mail Alert (8 new articles)‏

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8 new articles found.

Entropy

Peter Crompton
The Decoherence of the Electron Spin and Meta-Stability of ¹³C Nuclear Spins in Diamond
Entropy 2011, 13(5), 949-965; doi:10.3390/e13050949
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/13/5/949/
Published online: 5 May 2011

Shan Gao
Is Gravity an Entropic Force?
Entropy 2011, 13(5), 936-948; doi:10.3390/e13050936
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/13/5/936/
Published online: 28 April 2011

Michael Paul Gough
Holographic Dark Information Energy
Entropy 2011, 13(4), 924-935; doi:10.3390/e13040924
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/13/4/924/
Published online: 21 April 2011

Theo Kurtén
A Comment on Nadytko et al., “Amines in the Earth’s Atmosphere: A Density Functional Theory Study of the Thermochemistry of Pre-Nucleation Clusters”. Entropy 2011, 13, 554–569
Entropy 2011, 13(4), 915-923; doi:10.3390/e13040915
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/13/4/915/
Published online: 19 April 2011

Daniele Cerra and Mihai Datcu
Algorithmic Relative Complexity
Entropy 2011, 13(4), 902-914; doi:10.3390/e13040902
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/13/4/902/
Published online: 19 April 2011

Yun Zheng and Chee Keong Kwoh
A Feature Subset Selection Method Based On High-Dimensional Mutual Information
Entropy 2011, 13(4), 860-901; doi:10.3390/e13040860
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/13/4/860/
Published online: 19 April 2011

Yudong Zhang and Lenan Wu
Optimal Multi-Level Thresholding Based on Maximum Tsallis Entropy via an Artificial Bee Colony Approach
Entropy 2011, 13(4), 841-859; doi:10.3390/e13040841
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/13/4/841/
Published online: 13 April 2011

Yang Chen and Kazuyuki Aihara
Some Convex Functions Based Measures of Independence and Their Application to Strange Attractor Reconstruction
Entropy 2011, 13(4), 820-840; doi:10.3390/e13040820
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/13/4/820/
Published online: 8 April 2011

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History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena

(Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy)

Martin Heidegger (Author)

“ In other words, “originally and to begin with,” one does not really hear noises and sonorous complexes but the creaking wagon, the ‘electric’ streetcar, the motorcycle, the column on the march, the north wind. Tp ‘hear’ something like a ‘pure noise’ already requires a very artificial and complicated attitude. But the fact that we first directly hear things like motorcycles and wagons, which basically still sounds remarkable, is the phenomenological evidence for what has already been underscored., that in our very being in the world we are first always already involved with the world itself, and not with ‘sensations’ first and then, on the basis of a kind of theater, finally involved with the things. We do not first need to process and shape a tumult and medley of feelings” we are right from the start involved with what is understood itself. Sensations and sensed are first of all outside the scope of natural experience.”

“History of the Concept of Time,” Heidegger, Indiana University Press, 1985, page 266

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

“… an excellent translation of an extremely important book.” — The Modern Schoolman

This early version of Being and Time (1927) offers a unique glimpse into the motivations that prompted the writing of this great philosopher’s master work and the presuppositions that gave shape to it. Theodore Kisiel’s outstanding translation permits English readers to appreciate the central importance of this text for the development of Heidegger’s thought.

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation)

Product Details:

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• 1st Midland Book ed edition January 13, 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253207177
• ISBN-13: 978-0253207173

`Heidegger’s History of the Concept of Time’, translated by Kisiel, is a compilation of Heidegger’s lecture notes from a 1925 course taught at the University of Marburg. These lectures cover much of the same ground articulated in `Being and Time’ (1927), and can be read as a draft of Heidegger’s magnum opus.

Often one of the greatest challenges that students face in reading historic thinkers is the question of context. That is, what is the intellectual milieu that the writer is working within, and, what question(s) are they seeking to address? Getting a feel for these considerations can be particularly difficult with an abstruse writer such as Heidegger. As such, these lecture notes are invaluable in situating the reader and providing valuable context.

Kisiel’s translation of `History of the Concept of Time’ is clear and accessible possessing a smoothness that is absent in some English translations of Heidegger. John Drabinski’s `Between Husserl and Heidegger’ (available on-line course), is an excellent companion to when reading this text – it discusses “History of the Concept of Time” in addition to other works by Husserl and Heidegger. Drabinski is a capable commentator and his pedagogical approach of working from within Heidegger’s language, while challenging for the novice, is an ultimately rewarding approach.

Overall, `The History of the Concept of Time’ is an excellent addition to the corpus of Heideggerian work available in English.

“History of the Concept of Time” offers clarification. Since it is a collection of lecture notes, the writing is usually more straightforward, which as we know is a blessing when it comes to Heidegger.