Theology and Logology

Author(s): Kenneth Burke

Source: The Kenyon Review, New Series, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Winter, 1979), pp. 151-185
Published by: Kenyon College
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THEOLOGYAND LOGOLOGY
KennethBurke

Foreword

HERE is the possibilityof confusion, in connectionwith my use

of the term "logology." Though I shall constantly be encountering occasions where theology (as "words about God")
and logology (as "words about words") overlap, particularlyas when
logology was taken literallyto mean "the Doctrine of the Logos" (the
referenceto Christas The Word in the book of John), in my discussionI
shallbe stressingthe secularmeaningof the term.
Technically,each term could treatthe otheras of narrowerscope.
For logology in the secular sense could class all sorts of "isms" and
"ologies" and many other kinds of utterance,includingitself, as modes
of "verbalbehavior." And theologywouldcertainlylook upon any such
theorizingas far less comprehensivein scope than theology's concern
with the relationsbetweenthe human, word-usinganimaland the realm
of the supernatural.
Professor J Hillis Miller, most notably in his essay on "The
Linguistic Moment in 'The Wreck of the Deutschland'" (The New
Criticismand After, edited by Thomas Daniel Young [Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia, 1976], pp 47-60), has expertlydiscussed
Hopkins's way of fusing a fascination with words in general and a
devotion to Christas the creativeLogos. And when elsewherehe refers
to "the peculiarlyprecariousFeuerbachianpoise which says, in effect,
'All the affirmations of Christianityare true, but not as the believers
believe,' " I thought of the Kabbalistswho said that Biblicalreferences
to God as though he had a human body are not figurative;they are
literal. But only God knows how to interprettheir literalmeaning-and
the nearestwe can come is by understandingthemas figuresof speech.
Our bodies are gestated and born in wordlessness-and out of
such a state grows the doctrinal(that is, the verbal,the scripturaleven).
Themselvesspeechless,they help us learnto speak.
T

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I
W

E HAVEheardmuchtalkof a "birthtrauma,"theshockof a

foetus in being exiled from an Edenic realm in which it had

flourished but which its own stage of growth had begun to
transformfrom a circleof protectioninto a circleof confinement.With
its firstoutcryafterparturitionit is startedon its pilgrimageas a separate
organism, its sensations, its feelings of pleasureand pain, being immediately its own and none other's. We assume that such immediate
experiences of a particular physiological organism are like the experiences of similar other organisms. But at least they are far from
identicalin the sensethat your pleasuresand painsareexclusivelyyours,
and no one else's.
Whether or not the organism's radical change of condition at
birth is a "trauma," a wound that leaves a deep scar, we do know that
underordinaryfavorableconditionsthe organismbeginsto flourish,and
even so much so that in later life the vague memoriesof its early years
can assume an "Edenic" quality, presumablythe materialout of which
mythsabout a primal"golden age" can take form. And this is the stage
of life duringwhich the infant (that is, literallythe "speechless"human
organism)learnsthe rudimentsof an aptitudewhich, to our knowledge,
distinguishesus from all other earthly beings: namely, language (or,
more broadly, familiaritywith arbitrary,conventionalsymbol-systems
in general-insofar as traditionsof dance, music, sculpture,painting,
and so on are also modesof such "symbolicaction").
But the kind of arbitrary conventional symbol-system that
infants acquire in learning a tribal language differs from the other
mediumsin at leastthis notablerespect:it is the one best equippedto talk
about itself, about other mediums, and even about the vast world of
motion that is wholly outside all symbol-systems,that was going on long
before our particular kind of symbol-using animal ever came into
existence, that is the necessarygroundof our animalexistence,and that
can go on eternallywithoutus.
Rousseau tells us that our kind was born free. But that formula
can be misleading in its implications. Every infant emerges from
organic infancy (speechlessness)into languageduringa period of total
subjection-subjection to the ministrationsof "higher powers," the
familial adults with whom it comes to be in what MartinBuberwould
call an "I-Thou" relationship.Under favorableconditionsthesepowers
are benign; sometimesthey are malign;or there is an ambiguousarea,
inasmuch as ministrations that the powers conceive of as wellintentionedmay be interpretedotherwiseby the maturinginfant, since

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its condition does not enable it to clearly recognizethe limitationsimposed upon the higher powers which the infant conceives of as allpowerful.
The first cry of the infant had been a purelyreflex action. But as
the aptitude for symbolic action develops, the child acquiresa way of
transformingthis purely reflex response into the rudiments of communication. In effect, the cry becomes a call, a way of summoningthe
higher powers by supplication. In out-and-out language, it becomes a
way of saying "please." There we see emerging the profound relationship between religion and prayer. The Wailing Wall is not a cry
of despair.The WailingWall is a cry of hope. It is not the cry of Hell, as
with Dante's line, "Abandonall hope, ye who enter here." The cries of
Hell are eternallyhopeless.But the prayersof religionare in theiressence
as with the infant's cries, which had become transformedfrom a conditionof sheerlyreflexexpressioninto a plea, the veryessenceof prayer.
I would consider these paragraphs a logological observation
about the "cradle" of theology. Theology is wordsabout God; logology
is words about words. Logology can't talk about God. It can only talk
about words for "God." Logology can make no statementat all about
the "afterlife" and the related concept of the "supernatural."Logology can't either affirm or deny the existence of God. Atheism is as
far from the realm of logology as is the most orthodox of Fundamentalistreligions. All logology is equippedto do is discuss human
relationsin termsof our natureas the typicallysymbol-usinganimal. In
that regard, without pronouncingabout either the truth or falsity of
theologicaldoctrine,logology does lay greatemphasisupon the thought
that theology, in purely formal respects, serves as a kind of verbal
"grace" that "perfects" nature. It "rounds things out," even if such
fulfillmenthappenedto be but the verbalor doctrinalcompletingof the
pattern that the infant "naturally" experienceswhen first learning
language, and its modes of supplication in an "I-Thou" (familial)
relationshipwith "higherpowers."
Logology involvesonly empiricalconsiderationsabout our nature
as the symbol-usinganimal. But for that very reason it is fascinatedby
the genius of theology;and all the more so because, throughso muchof
our past, theologianshave been among the profoundestof our inventors
in the ways of symbolicaction. Also, everywherelogology turns,it finds
more evidences of the close connection between speech and theologic
doctrine. St Paul tells us, for instance, that "faith comes from hearing
[exauditu]," whichin the last analysisamountsto sayingthat theologyis
exactly what it calls itself etymologically, an "ology." The story of
creation in Genesis is an account of successiveverbal fiats ("and God

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said"). And in the New Testamentthe Book of John tells us that in the
beginningwas the Logos.
But these issues don't stop with such obvious cases as that. In my
essay on "TerministicScreens" (Languageas SymbolicAction [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973], pp 44-62) after having
noted how the natureof our termsaffects the natureof our observations,
by directingour attentionin one way ratherthan another(hence"many
of the 'observations' are but implications of the particular terminology
in terms of which the observations are made" [p 46]), I turned to the

formula which Anselm had developed at great length from Isaiah 7:9
(nisi credideritis, non intelligetis): "Believe, that you may understand"
(crede, ut intelligas).
It is my claim that the injunction,"Believe, that you may understand,"has a
fundamentalapplicationto the purelysecularproblemof "terministicscreens."
The "logological," or "terministic"counterpartof "Believe" in the
formula would be: "Pick some particularnomenclature,some one terministic
screen." And for "That you may understand," the counterpartwould be:
" Thatyou may proceed to trackdown the kinds of observationimplicitin the
terminologyyou have chosen, whetheryour choice of terms was deliberateor
spontaneous." [p 47]

Or, in my The Rhetoric of Religion ("On Wordsand the Word:

Sixth Analogy" [1961; reprint edition, Berkeley and Los Angeles:
Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1970],pp 29ff) I have triedto show how
"the relationbetweenthe nameand the thing namedwouldbe the Power
(equals the Father);the name would be the Wisdom (equals the Son,
whichthe Father"generates"in the sense that the thing namedcalls for
its name);and the two together"spirate"Love (equalsthe Holy Spirit,in
the sense that there is the perfectcorrespondencebetweenthe thingand
its name, and the perfect term for such correspondenceor "communion"betweenthe termswould be Love).
And as for "Perfection" itself, the theologicalideaof God as the
ens perfectissimumhas a strikinglogological analogue in the astoundingly many ways in which terminologiesset up particularconditionsfor
the tracking down of implications. The whole Marxist dialectic, for
instance,is so designedas to foretell fulfillmentin what logology would
class as an Utopian perfection, a dialectic so "perfect" that it is to

inevitablyculminatein the abolition of itself (with the "witheringaway

of the state," a state of the politicalstate that maybe quitedubious,but
that can make claims to inevitability if we substitute for the state of the

body politic the analogousstateof the humanbody).

In more restricted ways, the tracking down of implications
towardsvarious perfectionsmanifests itself in our many technological

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nomenclatures,each of which suggeststo its particularvotaries further

steps in that same direction. Such expansionist ambitions are nearinfinite in their purely visionary scope; but though they have no inner
principleof self-limitation,theirrangeof ideal developmentis restricted
by the ways in whichthey interferewith one another,includingacademic
problemsto do with the allocation of funds among the various departments.
This logological principle of perfection (which I would call
"entelechial," restrictingthe Aristotelianconceptof the "entelechy"to
the realmof nomenclature,"symbolicity")can also be seento operatein
areas which we do not ordinarilyassociate with the idea of perfection,
except in such loose usagesas "perfectfool" or "perfectvillain." But its
powers along that line are terrifying. It showed up repeatedly in
theological charges of heresy, in which the hereticswere nearly always
saddledwith the same list of hateful vices. And in our day the Nazis did
the most outrageous job with "perfection" in that sense by the
thoroughnessof their charges against the Jew. It takes very little inducementfor us to begin "perfecting"the charactersof our opponents
by the gratuitousimputationof unseemlymotives. Thus, all told, in my
logological definition of humankind,I put a high ratingon my clause,
"rotten with perfection." Satan was as perfectan entelechyin one sense
as Christwas in another.DoubtlessMachiavelliwas thinkingalong those
lines when he told his Princethat, whereasone should be wary of hiring
mercenaries,the way to get the best fightersis makethe war a holy war.
Languageis one vast menagerieof implications-and with each
channel of such there are the makings of a correspondingfulfillment
proper to its kind, a perfection in germ. For the logological study of
dialecticteachesus that therearetwo quite differentwaysof introducing
the "entelechialprincipleof perfection,"thus:
(1) Thereis thething,bread.
(2) Thereis the correspondingword, "bread."

(3) Languagebeingsuchas it is, withno troubleat all I can makeup the expression,"perfectbread."
(4) We maydisagreeas to whichbreadcould properlybe called"perfect."
(5) A mean man, or a dyspeptic,or a philosophermight even deny that in this
worldtherecan be sucha thingas "perfectbread."
(6) Nevertheless,theologianscan speakof God as the ensperfectissimum-and
the expression "perfect bread" is a secular counterpartof such dialectical
resources.
(7) Nay more. Even if thereis no such thing as perfectbreadin actuality,I can
considerbreadfromthe standpointof perfectbread"in principle."
(8) "Hereis some perfectbread";or
(9) "As comparedwith perfect bread, this breadI am offeringyou is a dismal

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substitute";or
(10) "I can assureyou that, humbleas it is, this breadrepresentsperfectbread
in principle." (It "stands for the spirit of perfect bread.") (KennethBurke,
Dramatismand Development [Barre, Massachusetts:Clark UniversityPress,
1972],p 59; appendixto essayon "Archetypeand Entelechy.")

But the question of the relation between logology and theology

also requiresthat we look in anotherdirection,namely,the questionof
the relation between logology and behaviorism.A handy way to introduce this issue is by referenceto a passage in my review of Denis
Donoghue's recently published admirable collection of essays, The
Sovereign Ghost: Studies in Imagination (Berkeley: University of
CaliforniaPress, 1976):
On going back over Coleridge'sBiographiaLiteraria,I ran acrossa footnotein
which with regardto the "desynonymizing"of the terms "imaginationand
"fancy," he says:insofar as any such distinctionsbecomeaccepted,"language
itself does as it werethink for us." It is a chanceremarkwhichthe structuralists
would make much more of than would eitherColeridgeor Donoghue. ("The
SovereignGhost by Denis Donoghue," The New Republic177 [September10,
1977]:30-31)

In effect Coleridge is saying that words are doing what the

theologian would say that the "mind" is doing, an interestingtwist
inasmuchas Coleridge,in his day, was knownmuchbetterfor workslike
his theological Aids to Reflexion than as a literarycritic, though his
worksgenerallyhad a theologicalcast. Yet in passing,Coleridgetherehit
upon a quite strategic substitution, since the immediate context of
situationin which wordsare learnedis the realmof nonsymbolicmotion,
whereas "mind" is more readily associated with an ultimate supernaturalgroundbeyondthe realmof physicaland physiologicalmotion.
Logology here is in an intermediateposition betweentheology
and behaviorism (which monistically acknowledges no qualitative
differencebetweena humanorganism'sverbaland nonverbalbehavior).
Logology is as dualistic in its way as theology is, since the logological
distinction between symbolic action and nonsymbolic motion is as
"polar" as theology'sdistinctionsbetweenmind and body, or spiritand
matter.Logologyholds that "persons"act, whereas"things"but move,
or are moved. And "personality"in the humansense dependsupon the
ability and opportunityto acquirean arbitrary,conventionalsymbolsystemsuch as a tribal, familiallanguage.
However, logology need not be drivento a "mentalist"position
when in controversy with a behaviorist. Indeed, seizing upon a
behavioristterm, logology needs but point to the empiricaldistinction
betweenverbalbehavior(whichlogology would call "symbolicaction")

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and "molecular" behavior (which logology would call "nonsymbolic

physiologicmotion").
To adapt some commentsfrom WesternSpeech(Summer1968),I
read somewherethat, when thrillersare shown in movie houses, the airconditioning plant must be accelerated, owing to the audience's increased rate of respiration,and so forth, in responseto the excitement
of the fiction. The fiction is in the realm of "symbolic action," with
which the air-conditioningplant has no relation whatever. The airconditioner's"behavior" is in the realmof nonsymbolicmotion, which
relatesdirectlyto the physicalconditionsproducedin the theatreby the
body's nonsymbolic molecular motions correlativewith the symbolusing organism'sresponsesto the story (whichas a story is whollyin the
realmof symbolism, though the sights and sounds of the story, in their
role as mere uninterpretedvibrations,are but in the realm of motion).
For in the empirical realm, no symbolic action is possible without a
groundingin motion, as words on the screencan't even be words unless
theycan be seenor heard.
But logology would hold that theirsymbolicdimensioncannotbe
monisticallyreducedto the orderof physicalmotion alone. Whateverthe
mutation wherebyour prehistoricancestorsacquiredtheir aptitudewith
symbolicity,from then on the humananimalwas a compositeorganism,
be the duality conceived in theological terms of mind and body, or in
logological terms of symbolic action and nonsymbolic physiological
motion. The principleof individuationwas in the body, with the immediacyof its sensations.The realmof symbolism,with its manymodes
of identification (family relationships, geology, history, politics,
religious doctrine, and so on), shaped the public aspects of human
awarenessand personality.
II
ITH Coleridge's passing remark that, if a new distinction
becomes generally established, in effect the corresponding
words think for us, we are at the very center of logological
inquiry: the close but indeterminaterelationshipbetween substitution
and duplication. There is obvious duplicationin the very fact that we
have verbal parallelsfor nonverbalthings, processes,and relationships.
There is substitutioninasmuchas, given the thing bread and the word
"bread," the person who asked for bread with the propersymbol (the
word for bread in that particularlanguage) might be given instead
another symbol, the money with which to buy it. One could spend a
lifetime doing nothing more than tracking down the intricately inW

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terwovenmanifestationsof thesetwo principles,whichare perhapsmore

accurately discussed not just as aspects, but as the very essence, of
language.For presentpurposes,let us cite a few suchaspectsat random:
First, there are the extensions of language by analogy, what
Benthamcalled "fictions," a termthat itself is probablya metaphorical
extension of the expression "legal fictions." Terms that have a quite
literal meaning as applied to physical conditions can be adapted
figurativelyto subject matter that does not admit of such usage. For
instance,if we speak of one object as beingat a certain"distance"from
another, our statementcan be strictlyliteral, capableof verificationby
measuringthe distance. But if we speak of one person'sviews as being
"distant" from another's,we areemployinga "fiction" whichadmitsof
no such literal physical test. Or, in saying that a certain leaningobject
has an "inclination" of 30 degrees, we are using the term literally, in
contrast with the statement that a person has an "inclination" to do
such-and-such. In this connection Bentham observes that our entire
vocabulariesof psychology and ethics are made up of such "fictive"
duplicates,withoutwhichwe could not talk about suchmattersat all. Go
to the etymologicaloriginsof all such terms, and you will spot the literal
imagesimplicitin suchideas.
The relation between our sensory experience as individual
speechlessphysicalorganismsand the vast publiccontext of symbolicity
we acquireas social beings sets up the endlesslycomplexconditionsfor
such duplicationas is revealedin the spontaneoususe of termsfor the
weatheras a nomenclaturefor "states of mind," or "attitudes." And
one can glimpse how a whole magic world of human relationsmight
develop from that mode of duplicationwhereby,as one pious person
fearsomely plants a crop, another (an expert in the lore of mythic
counterparts)"collaborates"by contributinghis skill to the process,in
scrupulouslyperformingthe "necessary"attendantritualof a planting
song ("necessary" because, man being the symbol-usinganimal, the
realmof nonsymbolicnaturalmotion is not completelyhumanizeduntil
reduced to terms of symbolicity;hence spring calls for a spring song,
harvestfor a harvestsong; marriage,death,changesof status,and so on
similarlyattaintheir"completion"whenthus rituallyparalleled).
The resourcesof duplicationand substitutionare revealedmost
clearlyof all in such mathematicaloperationsas the use of the symboln
instead of 3.1416, or the internalrelationshipswhereby2 plus 2 can be
the same as 4 times 1. And surely mathematicsbegan with that primal
substitutionwhereby,in makingthree marksto stand for three apples,
one also had a sign that would stand for three of anything,whereupon
one's symbol had advanced to a "higher level of generalization"
wherebythe numberitself could be operatedon in its own right,without

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referenceto any particularnumberedthings.

On inspectingmore closely this aspect of what we might call the
"duplication-substitutioncomplex," we come upon a similarusagethat,
at first glance, might seem of a quite different sort. Insofar as some
particularritualis ceremoniallyrepeatedin identicalfashionon different
occasions (which would also include annual seasonaloccurrences,since
no two situations are identical) in effect the ritual acts as a mode of
classification that abstracts from any particular occasion, just as
numbersbecome abstractedfrom any one particularinstance of their
use. Thus, a marriagerite is an institutionwherebyall sorts of couples
are "processed"in identicalfashion. It is not like a situationwhereJohn
and Mary are consulting a marriagecounselor about their particular
problems. Rather, it is individualizedonly insofar as there is a blank
space to be filled with whateverpropernames are to be includedunder
that head this time.
The ubiquitous resources of substitution probably attain their
profoundest theological embodiment in the doctrines and rites of
vicarious sacrifice. I plan to discuss later the distinctions between
theologicaland logological concernswith the principleof sacrifice.But
let us now consider the astoundingthoroughness(even to the edge of
paradox) wvithwhich Christian theology developed the logological
principle of substitution. Of all victims that were ever offered as
redemption for the guilt of others, surely Christ was conceived as the
most perfect such substitute, even to the extent of being perfectly

abhorrent,as bearerof the world'ssinfulness.Thus Luthersaid:

All the prophetssaw that Christwouldbe the greatestbrigandof all, the greatest
adulterer,thief, profanerof temples,blasphemer,and so on, that therewould
never be a greater in all the world.

. .

. God sent his only begotten Son into the

world, and laid all sins upon him, saying: "You are to be Peterthe denier,Paul
the persecutor,blasphemer,and wild beast, David the adulterer,you are to be
the sinnerwho ate the apple in the Gardenof Eden, you are to be the crucified
thief, you are to be the person who commits all the sins in the world." (I
translatefrom Leon Chestov, Kierkegaardet la philosophieexistentielle[Paris:
Vrin, 1948].)
Thus, in terms of the specifically "Christian Logology," the most
perfect divine Logos also became the perfect fiend, in serving as the
substitute vessel for the guilt of all.
With regard to the vexing issue of the relation between wordsand
"mind" (whereby some nomenclatures would substitute "words" for
"mind," as per the tangential remark we have cited from Coleridge),
before moving on to other aspects of our subject we should consider
Professor J Hillis Miller's ingenious and penetrating essay, "The

LinguisticMoment in 'The Wreck of the Deutschland.'" This essay is

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particularly relevant since Hopkins's exceptional involvement in strictly

logological concerns is so strikingly interwoven with the most poignant
of theological devotions. Miller here notes "three apparently
incompatible theories of poetry. . . each brilliantly worked out in theory
and exemplified in practice":
Poetry may be the representationof the interlockedchimingof createdthingsin
their relation to the Creation. This chiming makesthe pied beautyof nature.
Poetry may exploreor expressthe solitaryadventuresof the self in its wrestles
with God or in its fall into the abyss outside God. Poetry may explorethe intricate relationshipsamong words. These three seeminglydiverse theoriesof
poetryare harmonizedby the applicationto them all of a linguisticmodel.This
model is based on the idea that all words rhymebecause they are ultimately
derived from the same Logos. Nature is "words, expression,news of God"
(Sermons,p. 129), and God has inscribedhimself in nature.The structureof
naturein its relationto God is like the structureof languagein relationto the
Logos, the divineWord;and Christis the Logos of nature,as of words.[pp47481

Coleridge,when commentingon how wordscan thinkfor us, and

noting that the two words "imagination" and "fancy" (the one from the
Latin, the other from the Greek) were often used synonymously,

proposed to "desynonymize"them, so that they would have different

meanings.But Hopkinsproceededin the other direction;he let the word
"Logos" think for him by refusing to distinguish between its secular
meaning as a word for "word" and its meaning in Chnstian theology,

wherethe New Testamentword for Christwas the "Word." Hopkins's

thinkingcould not possiblyhave been as it was had thoseearlysectaries,
the "Alogians," succeededin their attemptsto exclude the Gospel of
John and Revelations from the Christiancanon because in both texts
Christwas referredto as the Logos.
St Augustine had in effect desynonymizedthe two usages by
explicitly referring to his conversion from his career as a pagan

rhetorician(a "peddlerof words," venditorverborum)to a preacherof

the Christian Word. But he had also Christianized the very beginning of
the Old Testament by noting that God's successive acts of Creation

had been done through the Word (when he had said, "Let there
be . . .")-and thus in effect the Creation was done by the Father's
Word,whichwas the Son.
Miller begins his essay: "By linguistic moment I mean the
momentwhen languageas such, the meansof representationin literature,
becomes a matterto be interrogated,explored, thematizedin itself" (p
47). Whilehis engrossingstudyof what B F Skinnermightcall Hopkins's
"verbalbehavior"is essentiallylogological, the very fact of Hopkins's
refusal to "desynonymize" the two usages keeps the study of the

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"linguistic moment" constantly infused with the theological implicationsof Hopkins'spoetics.

As might be expected,variationson the theme of "duplication"
and "repetition"are plentiful;even talk of a "primalbifurcation"is a
signal to look for ways of tying the issue in with the distinctionbetween
speechless nonsymbolic physiological motion (analogous to the
traditionalterms, "matter" or "body") and the publiclyinfused realm
of symbolic action (analogous to the traditional terms, "spirit" or
"mind"). In this connectionMillerhas a footnote whichsuccinctlybears
upon "polar" aspects of the human being as a dualistic, "composite"
individual, in contrast with the monistic assumptionsof behaviorism,
which denies any qualitativedistinction between verbal behavior and
nonverbalbehavior(in brief, it "thinks" by refusingto "desynonymize"
the term "behavior"). Referringto an "admirablepassagein Hopkins's
commentary on The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius," Miller
quotes:
And this [my isolation] is much more true when we considerthe mind;when I
consider my selfbeing, my consciousnessand feeling of myself, that taste of
myself, of I and me above and in all things, whichis moredistinctivethan the
taste of ale or alum, more distinctivethan the smellof walnutleafor camphor,
and is incommunicableby any meansto anotherman. [p47]

In my view of logologicaldualism(whichHopkinscomes close to

replacingwith a monismexactlythe reverseof the behaviorists',insofar
as Hopkinswould reduceeverythingto termsof the universalLogos) the
"linguistic moment" proclaimed by that resonant sentence implicitly
pronounces the principle of "inscape" in what are essentially
"problematical" terms. The "selfhood" of a Catholic priest must
obviously be grounded in Catholic doctrine, which is necessarily
"spiritual," on the side of what logology would call public "symbolicity." But he expressesthe sense of his separateidentityin termsof
immediate sensation, which is in the realm of the individual's sheer
physiology.
True, poets have traditionallyused the terminologyof sensation
to give the feel of the internalimmediacythat Hopkinsaims to suggest.
And there is no good reason for denying poets such a time-honored
rhetoricaldevice. I am but pointing out that the essential polarity or
dualityof the humanconditionis not actuallybridged(it can't be) but is
stylisticallydenied. The mode of expressionis thus in effect a "linguistic
element" that repressesan explicitstatementof the case. Whereuponthe
"returnof the repressed"revealsitself in the personof Hopkinshimself
as the "wreck" with which the poem starts out (significanttiming!) by
beingexplicitlyand exclusivelyconcerned.

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The first five stanzas are in the form of an "I-Thou" prayer.

Forty lines in all, there are nineteen cognates of the first-person
pronoun, fourteen of the second. The second half of the First Part is
transitional,in that the pronouns move fartheroff (first-personplural
and third-personsingular).The SecondPart, two-thirdsof the poem, is
built explicitlyaround the wreck of the Deutschland,a "pied" name if
thereever was one ("0 Deutschland,doublea desperatename!"-as the
home of both the nun Gertrude, "Christ's lily," and the "beast,"
Luther). With regardto the poem as a structure,we could say that it
transformsthe "pied" natureof the poet's personalproblemsinto the
granderinterwovenambivalencesof sinkingand salvation.
At the end of the essay Milleraddsa footnote:
KennethBurke, in remarksabout this paperafter its presentationat the
RansomSymposiumat KenyonCollege in April of 1975, arguedthat I should
add somethingabout the multiplemeaningof the word wreckin the title. The
poem, he said, is about Hopkins'swreck.This was a powerfulpleato relatethe
linguisticcomplexities,or tensions,back to theirsubjectivecounterparts.Much
is at stake here. That the poem is a deeply personaldocumentthere can be no
doubt. Its linguistic tensions are "lived," not mere "verbal play" in the
negative sense. . . . In "The Wreck of the Deutschland" Hopkins is speaking
of his own wreck. . . . The danger in Burke's suggestion, however, is, as

always, the possibilityof a psychologizingreduction,the makingof literature

into no more than a reflectionor representationof somethingpsychic which
precedes it and which could exist without it.

. . .

Subjectivity, I am arguing, with

all its intensities,is more a resultthan an origin.To set it first, to makean explanatoryprincipleof it, is, as Nietzschesays, a metalepsis,puttinglate before
early,effect beforecause. Ipp59-60n]
I wrote Miller, calling attention to the closing paragraph of an
essay by me concerning Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" ("Symbolic

Action in a Poem by Keats," A Grammarof Motives 11945;reprint

edition, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969],
pp 447-63). In that essay I had noted respects in which traces of the
symptoms of the disease he was to die of manifested themselves. But I
added this qualification:
We may contrast this discussion with explanations such as a materialist

of the Kretschmerschool might offer. I refer to accounts of motivationthat

might treat disease as cause and poem as effect. In such accounts,the disease
would not be "passive," but wholly active; and what we have called the mental

action would be wholly passive, hardlymore than an epiphenomenon,a mere

symptom of the disease quite as are the fever and the chill themselves.Such
accounts would give us no conceptionof the essentialmatterhere, the intense
linguisticactivity. [pp462-68]
In that last paragraph, I wrote Miller, "at least I say I'm not
doing exactly what you say I am doing." Then I added: "However, I'll

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meet you halfway. I think the relationbetweenthe physiologyof disease

and the symbolic action of poetry can be of the 'vicious circle' sort.
One's poetizing,in the veryact of transcendinghintsgot from the body's
passions, can roundaboutreinforce the ravages of such sufferings." I
had in mind here such a "reflexive"process(I guess currentcant would
call it "feedback") as the role of "psychogenic" asthma in Proust's
searchfor essenceby the "remembranceof thingspast."
III
ET us now list some cases the discussion of which might most
directly help us inquire, by comparisonand contrast, into words
about the divine, the supernatural(theology) and words about
words (logology) including words for the divine and supernatural,
whetheror not therebe such a realm,whichtheologieshavewordsfor.
Since theology in our tradition is so clearly grounded in the
relation between the Old Testament and the New, let's begin
logologically from there. The formula of the Christiantheologianswas
stated thus: Novum Testamentumin Veterelatet, Vetusin Novo patet.
How translate it exactly? "The N T was latent in the 0 T. The 0 T
becomes patent in the N T." Or "The implicationsof the 0 T became
explicitlymanifest in the N T." It was a way of both letting the Jews in
and keeping them out, unless they became convertedor, like an 0 T
patriarch, each had been an anima naturaliterChristiana; I forget
whether Socrates was adjudged such, but his association with the
symbolic action of Platonism might well include him, for his Hellenic
contribution to the cult of Logos that the early Alogian Christians
wantedto rule out.
In any case, the Christiantheology, with regardto the relation
Lr

lAny such possible relationshipbetween personal tensions and their use as

materialfor intense linguisticactivity (to be analyzedand admiredin its own terms)
might figure thus. But there are special, purely logological, incentives for such a
relationshipbetween poetic activity and psychologicalpassion. On various occasions
(particularlythe essay, "The First Three Chaptersof Genesis," in my Rhetoric of
Religion)I have discussedthe processwherebythe effort to characterizeconditionsnow
turnsinto a "story" of "origins"then, often a purely"mythic"past. Thisendeavorcan
come to tie in with purelypsychologicalmotives in such cases as, for instance,a poet's
inclination to dwell "regressively"on thoughts of early years, actual or imaginary
vestigialmemoriesof infancy.ThusWallaceStevens'spuzzlementsaboutthe "firstidea"
seemto me an attempt,by an act of the "imagination,"to recovera senseof whatthings
must haveseemedliketo a childbeforethingsbecamecodifiedby names,or evencolored
by the assumptionthatanythingunnamedwas potentiallynamable.

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between 0 T and N T, would see in the 0 T many stories about

charactersthat were conceived as what they were only insofar as they
were"types of Christ." Indeed,the Jewishtribeitself, in its exodusfrom
Egypt, was but a type of Christ.Thus its Jewishidentitywas, in effect (in
principle),being viewed not as that of a tribe in its own right, but as an
emergentstageof the Christianfuture.
Exactly, then, what does logology, as a purelysecularcult of the
logos, do with that particular localization of dialectical resources?
Obviously, the 0 T story of Abrahamand Isaac (telling of how the
father, in obedienceto God's Law, would consent to sacrificeeven his
most beloved person, his son) can be conceived of as incipiently,
propheticallya type of the N T storyof an all-powerfulFather,the very
soul of justice, who actually does fulfill the pattern,in completingthe
sacrifice of his most precious person, his only begotten Son. And
logology looks upon both storiesas variationson the themeof sacrifice.
In my early scatteredreadingsamong mediaevaltexts, I found a
sentence that fascinated me. It was probablya rule of some monastic
order, I don't know which. And though I have lost trackof the original,
I still inclineto go on repeatingmy translation,whichis as resonantas I
could make it: "If any one haveany thing of whichhe is especiallyfond,
let it be taken from him." There is even the ironic possibilitythat I got
the Latin somewherefrom Remy de Gourmont, a nonbelieverif there
ever was one; and he taught me to appreciate,in a kind of twisted
nostalgia, the forlorn fragmentarybeauty of such accents. The fantastically "materialistic"Santayana'sgallantRealm of Spiritis also in
that groove.
But the main consideration,from the standpointof logology, is
the fact that, however variouslytheologians may treat of the relation
betweenthe 0 T and the N T, they havein commonthe theologicalstress

Incidentally, with regard to Keats's ode (which I take to envision a kind of "artheaven," a theological heaven romantically aestheticized), by my interpretation, the
transforming of his disease's bodily symptoms (fever and chill) into imaginal counterparts within the conditions of the fiction would be a poetic embodiment of the orthodox religious promise that the true believers would regain their "purified" bodies in
heaven. That is, the symptoms would have their "transcendent" counterparts in poetic
diction as indicated in my analysis.
I review these various considerations because the discussion of them offers a good
opportunity to at least indicate "humanistic" concern (the admonition to "know ourselves") that I take to be involved in the logological distinction between the human
organism's realm of nonsymbolic motion and the kind of "self" it "naturally" acquires
through its protracted, informative traffic with the (learned) public modes of symbolic
action.

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upon the principle of sacrifice. As viewed from the standpoint of

logology, even the most primitiveoffering of animalson the altarcan be
equatedwith the Crucifixionof Christ insofar as any and all such rites
embodv the principle of sacrifice (which, given the ubiquitous
logological resourcesof substitution,turns out to be synonymouswith
vicarious sacrifice).

As viewed logologically,the theologicalstory of the Creationand

the Fall (in the openingchapterof Genesis)would be summedup thus:
The story of Creation, in representingthe principle of Order,
necessarilyintroduceda principleof Division, classifyingsome thingsas
distinctfrom other things. In this purelytechnicalsense, Creationitself
was a kind of "Fall," inasmuchas it dividedthe principleof Unity into
parts, each of which has a nature of its own, regardlessof how they
mightin principlebe "unified." (As seen from this point of view, even a
project for "unification" implies a grammaticalgerundive, a "to-beunified.") Thus, viewed from the other side, the Orderlyprincipleof
Divisionis seen to containimplicitlythe possibilityof Divisiveness.
The possibility of Divisiveness calls for a Law against
Divisiveness.(In a world set up by the creativeword, how keep Division
from becoming Divisive except by a word, a Law, that says "Don't do
whateverwould disrupt the Order"?) So the story includes a "don't"
that, stories of that sort being what they are, stands for the sheer
principleof Law, as the negativeaspectof Order.But implicitin the idea
of "Don't" there is the possibilityof Disobedience.One says "Do" or
"Don't" only to such kinds of entitiesas can be able to respond(thatis,
can have the responsibility)by in effect saying "Yes" or "No" (that is,
beingobedientor disobedient).
But St Paul's theology was quite in keepingwith logology when
he said that the Law madesin, as Benthamwas to say that the law makes
crime. However, note that, in introducing,via Law, the possibility of
Disobedience, one has by implication introduced the principle of
Temptation (the incentive, however originating, to fall afoul of the
Law). Where, then, locate the "origin" of that Temptation,as befits the
natureof narrative(story, myth)?
At this point, the implications of terms for Law and Order
surface by translation into terms of role. These are two kinds of
"priority." There is logical priorityin the sense of first premise,second
premise, conclusion. Or in the sense that the name for a class of particulars is "prior" to any particularincludedunder that head, quite as
the term "table" already "anticipates" the inclusion of countless
particularobjects that don't even yet exist. Or thereis temporalpriority
in the sequenceyesterday-today-tomQrrow.

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As a result of this doubling, one can state matters of principle

(that is, firsts or beginnings) in terms of either logical or temporal
priority.(Hence in my Rhetoricof ReligionI put majoremphasisupon
the etymological fact that both the Greek and Latin words for "principle" [archeand principiumJrefer to priorityin both the logical and
temporalsensesof the term.) I said somewhere(I think in my Grammar
of Motives, but I can't locate it) that a Spinozistictranslationof the first
words in the Vulgate Bible, "In principioDeus creavit," would be not
"in the beginningGod created,"but "inprincipleGod created."For his
basic equation, Deus sive Natura, amounts exactly to that, since he
would never associate the words "God" and Nature" in terms of a
temporal priority whereby God "came first" in time. Though such
equating of God and Nature was pantheistic, hence anathema, in its
sheer design it resembledthe thinkingof those orthodoxChristianswho
attackedArianismby insistingthat the "priority"of Fatherto Son was
not in any sense temporal.We hereconfronta purelylogologicalkindof
"priority," as we might well say that the number 1 is "pnror"to any
other number,but only "in principle";for no numberin timeis "prior"
to any other, since an internal relationshipamong numbers is nontemporal. "Before numberswere," 3 was less than 4 and more than 2,
though we can "go from" one such to another. And logologicallywe
confront an analogous situation with regard to the narrative or
"mythic" translationof "nontemporal"implicationsamong termsinto
terms of story, as with the narrativeways of stating the principlesof
Orderin the first three chaptersof Genesis, under"primal"conditions
involving an audience for whom the poetic ways of story came first;
however, such expressions were later to be sophisticated by the
"traumatic"step from poetry and mythologyto criticismand critically
maturetheology.
The Old Testamentbegins in its way quite as the N T Gospelof
John begins in its, with pronouncementsthat overlap upon these two
kinds of priority. Genesis "tells the story" of the divine word's informativepower. John tells the story of the Logos, a Hellenisticstress
upon the word that a "Judaizing" sect among the emergentChristian
doctrinarianshad unsuccessfullyattemptedto exclude from the canon.
Hence, though the term in Englishseems to have begunby referenceto
the Logos in the Book of John (a usage that is ambiguouslyimplicitin
these presentshuttlingsbetweentheology and logology), both the Book
of Genesis and the Book of John presenttheir cases in termsof story.
And we now take on from there.
Logologically,we confront the fact that, given the fluid relation
between logical and temporalpriority, the logical "firstness" of prin-

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ciples, when stated in the ways of story (mythos), as with the opening
chaptersof Genesis, calls for translationinto termsof temporalpriority.
Thus the narrativeway of sayingwhat St Paul had in mind when saying
that the Law made sin and Benthamwhen he said that the law made
crime was to say that the first human being sinned against the first law
decreedby the firstand foremostlaw-giver.
The principle of the law, implicit in the principle of order, is
identicalwith an astoundingseiendes Undingthat human languagehas
added to nature, the negative(a purelylinguisticinventionunknownto
the world of sheer wordlessmotion, which can be but what it positively
is). Thus, implicitin the legal negative,the "thou shalt not" of the Law
(which, the story of Beginningstell us, was born with the creation of
worldlyorder)is the possibilitythat its negativitycan be extendedto the
negatingof negativity.Thereis thus the "responsibility"of beingable to
say no to a thou-shalt-not.
But the tactics of narrativepersonalizing(in effect a kind of
substitution that representsa principle in terms of a prince) raise a
problem local to that particularmode of representationitself. If this
kind of "first" is to representthe possibility of disobediencethat is
implicit in the decreeing of a law, where did the "temptation" to
disobedience "come from"? Up to this point, we have been trying to
show that a logological analysis of the case would coincide with a
theological presentation, in that theology has said implicitly what
logology says explicitly;namely:the conditionsof the Fall wereinherent
in the conditions of the Creation, since the divisivenessof Orderwas
reinforcedby the divisive possibility of saying either yes or no to the
primallaw of that order.
However, the sheerpsychology of personalityis such that an act
of disobedienceis but the culminatingstage of an inclinationto disobey,
a guiltydisobedientattitude.And wheredid that priorstep, the emergent
temptation to disobey, originate? Here theology's concern with the
sources of such an attitude introducesa causal chain that turns out to
involvea quite differentprovenance.
Eve was the immediatetemptress.But she had been tempted by
the serpent.But the serpentwas not "entelechiallyperfect"enoughto be
the startingplace for so comprehensive,so universal(so "catholic") a
theological summation. The principle of substitution gets "perfect"
embodimenthere in that the serpentbecomes in turn the surrogatefor
Satan, the supernaturaltempter beyond which no further personal
sourceof temptationneed be imagined, sincehis personalityand his role
as ultimate tempter were identical, in such total consistency that this
supreme"light-bearing"angel was the most thoroughvictim of his own
vocation.

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IV

IN

HIS epic, Paradise Lost, Milton turns that story into a further
story. Beginningwith theology's searchfor the grandestpersonalized
source of temptation, Milton reversesthe mode of derivationas we
have tracedit logologically.Thus, whereaslogologicallythe story of the
revolt in Heaven would be derived from motivational ambiguities
wherebythe eventualityof the Fall was implicitin the conditionsof the
Creation, Milton's theological route would proceedfrom the revolt in
Heavento the Fall, and consequentexpulsionfromthe Garden.
Althoughthereare many respectsin whichlogologyand theology
are analogous(respectsin whichthe two usages,wordsaboutwordsand
words about the Logos, can go along in parallel)therearealso the many
occasions when, as we have here been noting, they will unfold a seriesof
interrelatedterms in exactly the reverse order. A good example is a
creationmyth that I learnedof from Malinowski(compareLanguageas
SymbolicAction, pp 364-65n).
According to this myth, the tribe is descended from a race of
supernaturalancestors (in this case, subterraneanancestors,since their
original ancestors were thought to have lived underground).These
mythicancestorshad a social orderidenticalwith the social orderof the
tribe now. Whenthey came to the surface,they preservedthe samesocial
order, which has been handed down from then to now. In this case,
obviously, whereasconditions now are mythologically"derived"from
imputedprimalconditions"then," logologicallythe mythicimputingof
such primal conditions "then" would be derived from the nature of
conditions now. (I hope later to discuss respects in which we might
distinguishbetween mythology and theology; but in a case of this sort
they are analogous with regard to their difference from logological
derivation. And they have the advantageof providingmuch simpler
examples, at least as usually reported. Also, their polytheisticaspect
makesthem much easierto "rationalize"than the waysof the singleallpowerfulpersonalGod of monotheistictheology,who toleratesso much
that seems to us intolerable.Since logology makes no judgmentat all
about the truth or falsity of theologic doctrine, its only task is to study
how, given the nature of symbolism, such modes of placement are
logologicallyderivablefrom the natureof "symbolicaction.")
Logologicallyconsidered,the issue may be reducedto the matter
of the negative,anotheraspectof the conditionthat arosein the storyof
the Creation when God introducedthe "thou shalt not" of the law.
Implicit in the negative is the possibility of polar terms which bear a
timelessrelationshipto each other. This relationshipis "timeless"in the

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sense that although, with polartermslike "order"and "disorder,"each

impliesthe other, theirrelationshipdoesn't involvea temporalstepfrom
one to the other. But the supernaturalrealmof eternityis timeless.And
heaven was the realm of timeless perfect order. But inasmuch as the
genius of the negative makes such terms as "order" and "perfection"
polar, so far as such termswere concernedthey containedthe timeless
implicationof theircontrastingterm. Also, there are two kinds of polar
negative: the propositional ("is, isn't"), the hortatory ("do, don't").
And they tend to lose theirinitialdistinctness.
Myth, story, narrativemakesit possibleto transformthis timeless
relationbetweenpolar termsinto a temporalsequence.Thatis, mythcan
tell of a step from either one to the other. Thus, with regard to the
perfectionof heaven outside of time, the resourcesof narrativemade it
possibleto carryout the implicationsof polartermssuchas "order"and
"perfection" by such storiesas the revolt of Luciferin heaven. And the
timeless natureof such polarityis maintainedeternallyin the unending
establishmentof heavenand hell, the one all Yes, the otherall No.
Polytheistic myths didn't have the acute problems with this
terministicsituation that monistic theology has. Joseph Fontenrose's
volume, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins(New York:
Biblo & Tannen, 1959) (which I use as the basis of my essay, "Myth,
Poetry, and Philosophy," reprinted in my Language as Symbolic
Action), takes as its point of departurethe myth of the combat between
Apollo and Python, then extends the discussionto two main types in
general.There is a late type, concerninga strugglebetweenan "older"
god and a "new" god, with the new god triumphingand foundinga cult.
But this is said to be derivedfrom an earliertype, concerninga struggle
betweena dragonand a sky-god,with the sky-godtriumphing.
In such cases, the principleof negation in polar terms can accommodate itself easily to such stories of personalcombat. Also, the
timelessnatureof the negativein such termscan be preserved,since the
vanquishedcombatant,though "slain," is yet somehow still surviving,
like Typhon buried by Zeus beneath Sicily and fuming throughAetna,
with the constant threatthat he may again rise in revolt. Or the two may
reignin succession,the vanquishedprincipletakingover periodically,for
a season. Or under certain conditions the opposition can be translated
into terms more like cooperation,with both powers or principlesbeing
necessaryto makea world, wherebythe principlebecomesitself a species
of order, too. Even the kingdom of Darkness is not just a rebellion
against Light, but has its own modes of organization. Polytheistic
mythology could thus readily accommodatetemples to rival gods, for
there was generalagreementthat all such powersshould be propitiated.

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And the meanerthey were, the more reason therewas to appeasethem

withcult.
In transformingthese resources of polytheistic myth, monistic
theology encounters many serious embarrassments.And some years
back, when I happened to be dealing with some of my logological
speculations in a seminar at Drew University, William Empson's
polemical volume, Milton's God (London: Chatto & Windus, 1965),
came along. Obviously, Empsonhad decidedto play the role of a very
bad boy. But whatinterestedme in the book was the fact that its quarrels
with Milton's theology would serve so well to help point up my
"neutral"concernswith logology.
As judged from the logological point of view, there is no
"combat" among terms. In my Rhetoric of Religion, the "Cycle of
TermsImplicitin the Idea of 'Order' " is a set of mutuallyinterrelated
termswhich simplyimply one another.Thoughtermscan confronteach
other as antithetically as "reward" and "punishment," nothing
"happens"until they are given functionsin an irreversible,personalized
narrative.Terms like "disorder," "temptation," "disobedience"come
to life when Adam is assigned the role of personallyrepresentingthe
principleof sin, and Satan is assignedthe role of ultimatetempter.God
has the role of settingup the Orderand givingthe criticalnegativeorder,
so terministicallynecessarybeforea Fall can even be possible.
There is no one strictway to select the "cycle of terms" for such
a chart. In general, the ones I suggest are quite characteristicof the
theological tradition for the discussion of which I am offering a
pragmaticallydesignedpattern(with, behindit or withinit, thoughtson
the strategicinterwovendifferencebetweentemporalpriorityand logical
priority,the distinctionitself beinglogological).
The interestingtwist involves the way in which "supernatural"
timelessness parallels logological timelessness, with both becoming
"mythologized" (that is, translated into terms of a temporally
irreversiblestory, along with an ambiguity whereby history can be
viewed as both in time and in principle, for instance when Christ's
Crucifixionis both said to have happenedhistoricallyonce, and to be
going on still, in principle).Thus, quite as orthodoxChristiantheology
would condemn Arianismbecauseit treatedthe Son's coming after the
Father in a temporal sequence, whereas the Father's prioritywas but
such in principle, so logology would point out that there can be no
temporal priority between two such terms. The very relationshipthat
makes a son a son is, by the same token, the relationshipthat makes a
fathera father. Thus, in effect, the Fathercan but "generate"the Son in
principle.

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Looking upon both mythology and theology as involved in the

problemof translatingsupernatural"timeless"relationshipsinto terms
of temporal sequence, logology tentatively views monotheism as in
various ways struggling to "perfect" the simpler rationales of
polytheismwhile still deeply involvedin the same ultimatemotivational
quandaries.But logology approachesthe matter this way: If you talk
about local or tnrbaldivinities, you are on the slope of polytheism. If,
instead, you talk about "the divine" in general, lo! you are on the slope
of monotheism. (On pp 406-09 of my Languageas SymbolicAction, in
the article I have mentionedon "Myth, Poetry, and Philosophy," I list
several ways in which polytheism"verballybehaved" in this situation.
And I do think that on p 408, with regard to my point about "the
divine," I stumbledinto a real surprise,though my inadequaciesas a
scholar make me fear that something may have gone wrong with my
Greek.I await advices.)
In any case, logology quotes this passage from a letter of St
Ambrose:
The devil had reducedthe human race to a perpetualcaptivity,a cruel
usury laid on a guilty inheritancewhose debt-burdenedprogenitorhad transmittedit to his posterityby a successiondrainedby usury.The Lord Jesuscame;
He offered His own death as a ransom for the death of all; He shed His own
Blood for the blood of all. (Drawn up by His Eminence Peter Cardinal

Gasparri,The CatholicCatechism,translatedby ReverendHughPope [New

York:P J Kenedy& Sons], p 291)

Logology tends to see in such statementsvestiges of the transitionalstage from polytheismto monotheismwhenthe pagangods were
viewed not as mere figmentsof the imaginationbut as actuallyexistent
demons. You pay such high ransom only to someone who has terrific
power over you, not to someone to whom you needed but to say, "be
gone for good," and he'd be gone for good. Logology leaves it for the
scruplesof theology to work out exactlywhy that damnednuisancehas
to be put up with, by an all-powerfulOrdainerof all Order.Logology's
only contributionto the causeis the reminderthat, to our knowledge,the
Law, be it St Paul's kindor Bentham's,is the floweringof that humanly,
humanely,humanisticallyandbrutallyinhumanelyingeniousadditionto
wordlessnature,the negative,withoutwhicha figurelike Satanwouldbe
logologicallyimpossible,as also it would be impossibleto put next a live
wire a sign saying: "Danger, don't touch." Could even heaven be
possible, if not defined by referenceto its polar contradictory,hell? I
have quoted from Fritz Mauthner's Worterbuchder Philosophie: "Die
Bejahung ist erst die Verneinungeiner Verneinung"(Language as
SymbolicAction, "A DramatisticView of the Originsof Languageand
Postscripts on the Negative," p 419). On the same page, from

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Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques: "Le neant n'est qu'un mot,"

but think what it has looked like, with "being" grounded in "nonbeing."
But let's samplea few of the problemsthat turn up withMilton's
theologicaltreatmentof some logologicalsituations:
Praiseis a basic "freedomof speech."Thereis greatexhilaration
in being able to praise,sincepraiseis on the sameslope as love. But what
of God, as the augustrecipientof praise?Is He to be a veritableglutton
for flattery,withjealous signsof a JehovahComplex?
However, the principle of hierarchyso intrinsicto Order, and
formallyperfectedin the ordersof Thrones,Dominations,Princedoms,
Virtues, Powers, could work well in one notable respect. For thus
Satan's revolt could be treatedas motivationfor the obedientrevoltof
the angelsimmediatelyunderhim. They wereloyal to theirlocal leader.
If God in His omnipotencelets the battle rage indecisivelyfor
quite some time whereasHe could have stoppedit the momentit began,
there arisesthe questionwhetherHe is as powerfulas He is supposedto
be, or is cruel. Yet if Milton disposed of the problem from the start,
where would the epic be? Under the conditions of polytheismthe fight
can go on; Fontenrose codifies the stages that can be protractedad
libitum; for both combatantsare mighty powers in conflict. But under
monotheismthereis but one powerwhose wordis powerin the absolute,
except for the one logological embarrassmentthat, implicit in polar
terms, there is a timeless principleof negativitywhich not only warns
against the wiles of Satan, but createsthe needfor Satan. The dragging
out of the battle is not a theologicalmatter. As The Iliad shows, that's
the only way you can writean epic.
Empson seizes upon the notion of the "FortunateFall" as a way
of indictingthe Fatheron the groundthat it provesAdam's fall to have
been in the cards from the start and thus to have involvedthe collusion
of God. But as regardsthe logology of the case, Adam's fall was in the
cardsfrom the startin the sensethat his task, as the "first" man, was to
representthe principleof disobediencethat was implicitin the possibility
of saying no to the first "thou shalt not." The only way for the story
aspect of theology to say that the Law made sin is by translatingthe
statementof such "principles"into temporalterms. Theologically,as a
privateperson, Adam didn't have to sin. But logologically,if he hadn't,
the whole rationaleof the Bible would have been in ruins. By the logologic of the case, he had a task to performthat only the first man could
be "principled"enough to perform. Eve couldn't do it. She could but
serve as a temptress.For it was a patriarchalculture,and such original

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sin could only be establishedthroughthe maleline.

There was a Patripassianheresy that thought of the one God as
offering himself for the redemptionof mankind. But the Trinitarian
relationbetweenFatherand Son allows for a divineself-sacrificewithout
Patripassianism.Empson considers the same grammarwithout benefit
of logology but in his bad-boy method thus: "What Milton is thinking
has to be: 'God couldn't have been satisfied by torturing himself to
death, not if I know God; you could neverhaveboughthim off with that
money; he could only have been satisfied by torturingsomebodyelse to
death.' "
Thereis quite a bit more of such discussionin the pages, "Words
Anent Logology," I sent to the membersof the class by way of a post
mortem on our seminar, later published in Perspectives in Literary
Symbolism, edited by Joseph Strelka (UniversityPark: Pennsylvania
State UniversityPress, 1968, pp 72-82). But this should be enough to
indicate the relation between theology and logology as revealed by
Empson's somewhat naively nonlogological treatment of Milton's
theologicalnarrative.
V
A

SOMEWHAToversimplifiedpatternmightservebest to indicate
the drift of these speculations. Ideally postulate a tribe of
pronouncedly homogeneous nature. Its cultural identity has
developedunder relativelyautonomousconditions. That is, its contacts
with other tribes have been minimal, so that its institutionshave taken
shape predominantlyin responseto the local materialcircumstanceson
whichit dependsfor its livelihood.
The tribe'spoetry and mythswould thus emergeout of situations
with whichthe membersof the tribehad becomefamiliarin theirgradual
transformationfrom wholly dependentspeechlessorganisms, through
successiveinstitutionallyinfluencedstagesalong the way to maturityand
death, a major aspect of such institutionsbeing the role of the tribal
language in shaping the sense of individualand group identity. In this
connection I would place great stress upon the notion that, though the
tribe's language and myths were largelythe work of adult experiences,
usages, and imaginings, they retained the vestiges of their "magical"
origins. Importantamong thesewould be the child'sexperiencesas living
among "higherpowers." The proportionof childto adult wouldthus be
mythologicallyduplicatedin the proportionof adult to "supernatural"
beings, in a realm also associated with the idea of death (a frequent
synonym for which, thanks to the genius of the negative, is "im-

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mortality").
The closeness of the relation betweenpoetry and mythology is
clearly attested by the long tradition of Western "literary"interestin
myths of the Greeks. Myths are grounded in beliefs. And beliefs are
"myths" to whoeverdoesn't believethem. And the step from poetryto
criticismtakes over to the extent that the conditions under which our
hypothetical tribe's body of poetry and mythology took form have
becomenotablyaltered.
One can imagine various such inducements.The tribe's internal development may have introduced new problems (as with the
heighteningof social inequities).Climaticchangesor invasionmaycause
migration. The tribe may become much more closely associatedwith
some other tribe (by becoming a colony of some imperialpower, for
instance, or by becoming an imperialpower itself). And insofar as the
voice of criticismreplacesthe era of poetry,thereis a correspondingstep
from mythology to theology. At least such is the obvious case with
regard to both Jewish and Christiantheology, which developed controversially(as monotheism versus pagan polytheism),and with tense
involvement in problems of empire that radically modified the
possibilitiesof purely internal"tribal" development.But theology as I
would place it still does tie in closely with the aspectof mythologythat
sharedthe poeticsenseof originsin the experiencesof childhood,evento
the stage when the speechlesshuman organismwas but gettingthe first
inklingsof the wayswithverbalutterance.
Also, it's quite likely that a developmentpurely internalto the
medium can favor a great stress upon criticism. The incentives to
criticismincreasewith the inventionof writing,and it's doubtfulwhether
criticismcould ever realize its fullest potentialitieswithout the acutely
anatomicalkind of observationthat the writtenversionof a workmakes
possible. At least, after our long relianceon the writtenor printedtext,
our relianceon the recordhas probablyhobbledour memoryto the point
that, whereas a groundingin primitiveilliteracyis in all likelihoodthe
best conditionfor poetry, criticismmust writethingsdown, the betterto
check on all the subtletiesof interrelationshipsamong the parts of a
text. Yet, althoughin that respectlogology is alwaysmuchmoreat home
with a text than not, it must constantlyadmonishitself regardingthe
limitationsof a text as the adequatepresentationof a symbolicact, and
as instructionsfor the readerto reenactit. In comparisonwith a welledited musical score, for instance, the literarytext when consideredas
instructionsfor performanceis seento be quitedeficient.And thinkhow
impoverishedthe text of a dramais, when viewedas instructionsfor the
readerto reenactit in his imagination.
But what then, in sum, is "logology," in relation to poetry,

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criticism, mythology, theology, and the possible relation that they all
have to the realm of nonsymbolic motion in which all such forms of
symbolicaction are empiricallygrounded?(That is to say, regardlessof
whether theology is right or wrong, it is propounded by biological
organismsthat can themselvespropoundanythingonly so long as they
are physicallyalive, hence capable of motion.) Whatevera theologian
may be in some supernaturalrealm,empiricallyhe can't be a theologian
except insofar as his symbolizingsare enactedthroughthe mediumof a
body-and logology begins (and also necessarilyends) with questions
abouthis naturethus.
Logology relatesto all "ologies" in asking, as its first question,
"What all is going on, when someone says or readsa sentence?"There
are some things going on, with relationto the specificsubjectmatterof
the sentence.And behindor beyondor withinthat, therearethe kindsof
processes and relationships that are involved in the saying or understandingof any sentence.That approachto the subjectin generalsets
up logology's first question, which necessarilyputs the logologeron the
uncomfortablefringesof all the answersto all specificquestions.It must
start from the fact that logology's first questionis a variantof the prime
Socraticquestion, the questioningof itself, and of its relationto nature
(wherebyit becomes the purely technicalanalogue of the theologians'
"grace" that "perfects" but does not "abolish" the realm of nature's
speechlessness).
Even at the risk of resortingsomewhatto the mythical,let's end
by surveyingthe field thus, as it looks in termsof logology:
First, although in many respects the speculations of logology
bring us much closer to behaviorismthan is "naturally"the case with
inquiries into the nature of the word, there is one total, unyielding
opposition. Behaviorismis essentially monistic, in assuming that the
difference between verbal behavior and nonverbal behavior (logology
would call it a distinction between symbolic action and nonsymbolic
motion) is but a mannerof degree.But logology is dualisticallyvowedto
the assumptionthat we hereconfronta differencein kind. Hence, it puts
primarystress upon DUPLICATION, POLARITY, NEGATION(and
countlessvariationsof such)as the verysoul of logologicalinquiry.
And where do such modes of duplication come from? In our
natureas sheerlyphysiologicalorganismsthereis the bisymmetryof the
body, there are the modes of reciprocatingmotion (systole and diastole
of the heart, the rhythm of respiration, the alternations and compensatory balances of walking). And in a vague way the gist of what
Newton summedup in his thirdlaw of motion, "to every action thereis
alwaysan equal and opposite reaction," is experiencedto the extentthat
an organismmust sense the differencein alteritybetweenpushinga reed

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and collidingwith a stone.

But a whole furtherrealmof duplicationarisesfromthe natureof
discourseas a "reflection" of the nonlinguisticsituationsin which the
humanorganism'sprowesswith languageis acquired.This is the kindof
duplication that shows up most obviously in the critical difference
betweena physicalthingand its correspondingname.
Further,by the nature of languagesuch parallels("completed"
in the relationbetweenspringand a springsong, or betweenthe physical
processof plantingand a ritual designedto accompanysuch a process)
inevitably give rise to a vast realm of duplicationdue to the fact that
analogyis implicitin the applicationof the sametermswhenreferringto
different situations-and all actual situationsare differentinsofaras no
two such situationsare identicalin theirdetails. Such "idealization,"at
the very roots of the classifying function intrinsicto the repeatedapplicationof the same termsto differentconditions(a propertyof speech
withoutwhich no naturallanguagecould take form or be learned),itself
involvesan endlesslyrepeatableact of duplication.
This analogical aspect of language thus sets up possibilitiesof
further developmentin its own right, making for the fictive range of
identificationsand implicationsand substitutionswhich add up to the
vast complexitiesof the world as we know it. It becomesa realm in its
own rightand essentiallyanthropocentric,in beingverballyamplifiedby
our "isms" and "ologies" and mathematicalreductions(all instances
par excellence of specifically human inventions in the realm of symbolic

action).
Such resourcescan become so highly developed out of themselves, by analogicalextensionand the dyplicationof such analogiesin
correspondingmaterialimplementsand techniques,that the processof
duplicationcan become paradoxicallyreversed,as in Plato's theory of
"imitation." By this twist things are said to "imitate" the "ideas"
(logology would call them the "class names") which we applyto them,
hence in termsof which we can be said to conceiveof them. Herestating
thoughts of "essence" in terms of quasi-temporalpriority, Platonism
concludedthat the "ideas" or "forms" (that is, the class names)for the
particularexistent things of our empirical,everydayworld must have
been experienced in a supernaturalrealm prior to their "imperfect
imitation"that we see all about us.
As viewed logologically, such "forms" are "prior" in the sense
that the name for any class of objects can be viewed as "logically prior"

to the particularsclassed under that head. And any particularcan be

called an "imperfect" instanceof that class name, becausesuch a word
(and its "idea") is not a thing, but a blank to be filled out by a

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definition, which wouldn't be a thing in that sense. Yet no particular

thing could perfectlyrepresentthe definition. To take Plato's example:
there is not one bed which you could point to and say, "That's bed."
Nor could any of the countless other beds, variouslydifferent in their
particularsfrom one another, and many of them not even made yet, be
selectedas the bed. You could say, "that's a bed," but not just "bed" or
"the bed." Incidentally,though you could thus use an indefinitearticle,
Plato couldn't; for thereis no such grammaticalparticlein his Greek.
That impinges upon another realm of speculation in which
logology is properlymuch interested.Considerthe scholastic formula,
Nihil in intellectuquod non prius in sensu. Thereis nothingin the realm
of understandingwhich did not begin in the realm of the senses.
Obviously, we are there involved in the ambiguous relation between
"images" and "ideas" which directlybears upon the analogicalfactor
operatingin the modesof duplication.
To that formula, Leibnizadded, nisi intellectusipse, "except the
understandingitself." The strictlylogologicalequivalentof that addition
would be a concern with respects in which the given structureof a
language(such as its particulargrammar,or even such sheeraccidental
affinities as similarity in sound between particularwords in a given
idiom) sets up conditionsintrinsicto the mediumwherebywe don't just
think with a language,but the languagecan in effect thinkfor us. Much
has already been done along those lines, and much can still be done.
Basically,I take it, the studyof wordsas wordsin contextsasks us to ask
how they equate withone another,how they implyone another,and how
they becometransformed.
Thereare contexts in the sense that a whole text is the context for
any part of the text. There are contexts in the sense of whatever
"background," historical, geographical, personal, local, or universal,
might be conceived of as the scene to which the symbolic act of the
author as agent explicitlyor implicitlyrefers, over and above the nature
of the text's sheerlyinternalrelationships.
But now let us consideragain the behavioristangle. On the issue
which I am to discusshere, don't fail to consulta trulyadmirablearticle,
"Explanation, Teleology, and Operant Behaviorism:A Study of the
Experimental Analysis of Purposive Behavior," by Jon D Ringen,
Philosophy of Science, 43 (1976): 223-53. Though I doubt whether I
quite use it the way it was intended,it is so methodologicallyscrupulous
a performance,its accuracyspeaksfor itself.
There is "operant" conditioning and there is "respondent"
conditioning. Pavlov's (or Watson's) was of decidedlya "respondent"
sort. The experimentalanimalrespondsby salivatingwhen you give it a

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sniff of meat. Test its responsequantitativelyby checkingits flow of

saliva. Then, after having by repetition established the association
betweenthe sniff of meat and the ringingof a bell, ring the bell without
the sniff of meat, and check on the amount of salivationas a response
thus conditioned.
B F Skinnerexperimentedwith an additionaltest. Givean animal
a goal, set up some simple condition whereby,if it pecks at a certain
form (or color) or pressesa lever, it operatesa mechanismthat releasesa
bit of food. Having been systematicallystarved to about 4/5 of its
natural weight, it does whatever it can in the need for food. The
laboratoryconditionsare so set up that thereare few thingsit can do. As
the result of its random motions, it learns to repeat the pressingor
peckingoperationthat is most congruentwithits "naturalendowment."
And conditions are so set up that this operationprocuresit food. The
kind of instrumental"purpose" it thus acquiresis calledan instanceof
"molar" behavior.And such methodsof "control"can be employedby
the experimenter to teach the animal quite specialized modes of
behavior,as comparedwith its natural"repertoire"for gettingfood. At
the same time, of course, there is a kind of "molecular"behaviorgoing
on in the animal, the purely physiologicalcorrelatesof bodily motion
such as Pavlov was studyingin his techniquefor measuringthe degreeof
salivation with which his dogs respondedto his respondentmode of
conditioning.
It is my notion that logology's interest in questions of human
"molar" responseswould primarilyinvolve considerationsof rhetoric
and legislation(as with mattersof penal law and taxation).But whereas
humanisticstudies usually show little interestin questions of "molecular" behavior, logology must stress this subject since it bears so
directly upon the possible correlations between physiological nonsymbolicmotion and symbolicaction along the lineswe touchedupon in
our reference to the air-conditioningplant that had to use proportionately more energy when a more exciting motion picturewas being
shown (which is to say, when the audio-visualmotions of the film were
being interpretedby the audiencein termsof symbolicactionsfor which
the correlative nonsymbolic motions of their bodies put a proportionately greater burden upon the air-conditioningmechanism,which
could have no directresponseto the film itself as a sequenceof motions,
but whichits "sensors" weredesignedto register,as translatedfromthe
film's motions by the audience'sactions, whichwerein turn reflectedas
correlativebodily motions). I have deliberatelyleft that sentencein its
present unwieldy condition, the better to suggest the underlying
problematicsof such logological concerns, though it is obvious that

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modern technology is developing at a high rate the resourcesfor such

clinical inquiriesinto the "molecular"bodily motions that accompany
our ways with symbolic action (apparentlyincludingeven inquiriesinto
correspondingroutinesof self-control).
When consideringsuch mythic figures as the Worm Ouroboros,
the Amphisbaena,or the world conceived as a mighty Hermaphrodite,
one might plausibly derive them from designs purely internal to the
resourcesof symbolicity.For instance,even the rangeof meaningsin the
Greekprepositionamphi is enough to suggesthow the thought of such
aroundnessand aboutnessmightbe "mythologized"(madenarrative)in
the image of a creaturethat went both forwardsand backwards.The
mutualityof ways in which terms imply one anothermight well suggest
the circular analogy of a creaturewith its own tail in its mouth (the
design here, long before there were dictionaries,suggestingwhat does
characterizethe nature of a dictionary, as a wholly self-contained
universeof discourse, a kind of "circularity"in the way all the terms
"circle back upon" one another). And when the principleof polarity
becomeslocalizedin termsof the sexes, it follows as a standardresource
of dialectic that such a quasi-antithesiscan be "resolved" by the most
obviouscorrespondingtermfor synthesis.
Logology does tentatively entertain the likelihood that such
imaginingsmay have a groundingin physiologicallystill existentvestiges
of our "ancestral" evolutionary past. However, even if there may
happen to be such survivalsfrom our preverbalpast, and should they
still be manifesting traces of themselves in some of the verbalizing
animal's most eschatologicalmyths, logology builds on the assumption
that the differentiatingmodes of sensationas immediatelyexperienced
by us animals now contribute most to the imagery out of which a
complextextureof conceptsand ideas can be developedby the resources
of analogyintrinsicto the natureof terms.
By the adjective "intrinsic" here is not necessarily meant a
"power" of language.The same propertycan as accuratelybe called a
mere limitationof language,a limitationdue to the fact that we cannot
apply the same expression to two situations without to some extent
introducing the principle of analogy, metaphor, "fiction," as a
"'creative"resourcein its own right.
Logology tentativelyassumes that, quite as physicallygrounded
"hermaphroditic"tendencies are clearly indicated in many actual instancesof such "synthesis," so such mythicfiguresas the primalworm
feeding on itself may be a responseto physiologicalconditions (prior
even to our uterinestage)still vestigiallywithinus, and actingas a source
of imagery.Though one may doubt whethersuch possibilitiesmay ever

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yield much in the way of furtherdiscoveries,I mentionthem simplyto

indicatethe rangeof inquirywhichwould be involvedin the studyof the
humananimal'snonsymbolic"molecular"behaviorunderlyingthe field
of symbolicaction.
A more rewardingkindof inquiryalongthese linesmightconcern
the possibilitythat the sociallymorbidfeaturingof criminality,violence,
sadism, terrorand the like (manyaspectsof whichshow up in folk tales
for children)may have a double origin. As a social phenomenon(thus
wholly in the realmof symbolicaction)the astoundinglylargenumberof
mercenaries(writers,actors, and the various kindsof expertsemployed
in the purely technological aspects of such behavior) are obviously
producingcommoditiesthat are designedto attractideally a maximum
numberof viewersas a means of establishingas large a marketplaceas
possible where the expertsin sales promotioncan best recommendtheir
clients'products.
The social morbidityof such "art" is greatlyaggravatedby the
natureof currentTV realism,in which thereis no appreciabledifference
betweena merelysimulatedact of violenceand a real one (whichwould
be the equivalentof saying that there is no appreciabledifferencebetween the artisticimitation of sufferingin Greektragedyand the actual
brutalitieswitnessedby the mobs who attendedthe gladiatorialcontests
in decadentRome).
Apologistsfor the profitablesellingof such wareswillpoint to the
high degree of violence in, say, the greatestplays of Shakespeare.They
make no mention of the fact that the qualityof the diction introducesa
notably different dimension. And as a matter of fact, writersfor the
current market operate in a field which, by the very nature of contemporary realism (or naturalism)as addressedto both eye and ear,
wholly obliterates the distinction between real and simulated happenings, a confusion so "natural"to the mediumthat strictlyscientific
depictions of moon-shots and the like must specifically keep admonishing their public when they are not recordingan instrumentin
motion but are merelysimulatingsuch.
If one must be so scrupulouslyspecific in keepingthat distinction
clear, what then of a child who watches quasi-realkillingstime after
time, with no warnings that the simulations appeal to a child's
imaginativenessin a way whereby, after a few years of such fare, that
child has "been through" all those experiences.The incidents have
become "moral" in the most etymologicallyaccuratesense of the term,
that is, "customary." In that medium, such modes of conduct have
become establishedas "the norm," and the child has been "educated"
to think of humanrelationsin suchterms.

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Recall the case of the lawyerwho recentlytried to get his young

defendantdeclaredinnocentbecausethe boy had been greatlyinfluenced
by the depictions of violence on the Tube. I doubt whether even a
Clarence Darrow could have used that defense successfully, if only
becausethere is such a vast investmentin the depictionof violence. Yet I
personallygo along with those who believethat "entertainment,"as so
conceived, does function as a morbid kind of education. But the
pressuresof the market are such that the suppliersof commoditiesfor
that market must sacrifice a lot when cutting down on violence and
hopped-upsex, either of which can be a substitutefor the other except
when attacks are directed with equal insistenceagainst both. For any
radicaleliminationof them both would leave a void that other forms of
symbolicaction are not equippedto fill.
But how far should we go when askingwhat is the sourceof such
appeal in these modes of substitution, depicting "criminal Christs"
whose "mission" it is to take on the burden of our guilt, suffer their
imitated passions in our behalf (as is also the case of "real victims,"
offered for the entertainment,fascinationeven, I mean for that inferior
speciesof the "tragicpleasure"we get from digestingthe literalnewsof
each day's crimeand disaster)?
Might not the searchfor such sourcesof appeal lead us back to a
kind of purelyphysiologicalfrustration?I do not refer to ways whereby
imaginary substitutes help us "compensate" by fantasies that fulfill
our wishes for dominance, sexual gratification,or vengeance,and like
wishes that are both stimulatedand repressedby factors in the social
order. I have in mind a more paradoxicalkind of frustration,namely:If
human bodies have been selectivelydisciplinedthroughcountless years
of prehistoryto endurecertainpurelyphysicalkinds of strain,mightthe
conditionsof civilizationfrustratethe directexpressionof suchaptitudes
as get developed by, and inheritedfrom, the conditionsthat prevailed
priorto the conditionsof civilization?
To illustrate by an oversimplifiedanecdote, a spirited youth,
living almostaimlesslyin a modernslum, encounterskindsof frustration
that a young healthy Eskimo, at a time before Westerncivilizationhad
contributedso greatlyto the deteriorationof his tribalculture,could not
have had the slightestnotion of. The physicalityof his purposeswould
have been clear. They would have been developedby traditionsthat also
developed his ability to undergothe kinds of effort and corresponding
strain indigenous to such a mode of livelihood. The conditions of his
situation would also have selectively developed the physical and attitudinal resourcesconsistent with the purposes that the needs for survival underthose conditionscalledfor.

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Insofar as such an endowmentwas developedin answer to the

"challenge" that the conditionsthemselveshelpeddefine, is therenot a
frustration of the aptitudesthat are, as it were, "inborn" in the very
"genetic endowment"of a species thus selectivelytrained,their bodies
thus having had "bred into" them whateverabilitiesto performare by
the same token needs to so perform?After all, I am but saying that,
"inbred" in birds there is the abilityto fly; and insofaras that abilityis
not given expression, they are frustrated, in their very nature
'repressed."

Viewed thus, the spirited youth who becomes a "delinquent"

might more accuratelybe thoughtof as seekingthe "moralequivalentof
war." But warsarelargelysocial constructs,thus motivatedby disorders
in the realm of symbolicity;and we are here asking about a possible
reductionto the realmof sheernonsymbolic,physiologicalmotion. The
kinds of strain or conflict that are being assumed here, and that the
organism's "genetic endowment" needs to "express" if it is not to be
"frustrated,"wouldbe whollyin the realmof motion. One gets glimpses
of such a motive in athletic efforts (now invariablycorruptedfrom the
very start by their tie-in with modes of decadentsymbolicityknown as
professional sports). They are grounded in an asceticismof training,
training to undergo (and thus express) the potentialities of the
physiological organism to endure strain, potentialities that would
otherwisebe deniedexpression.
In an early book (1935;Permanenceand Change,secondrevised
edition [Los Altos, California:HermesPublications,1954]),1 exercised
considerablyabout a correspondingmoral conflict that characterized
Nietzsche'scult of tragedy, and that I relatedalso to a salientaspectof
his style, its restlesshankeringafter "perspectivesby incongruity,"in
the serviceof an Umwerthungaller Werthe.In summingthingsup some
four decades later, I find that related speculationsshould be recalled.
Recallingthem, I mightsum up the whole "logological"situationthus:
Thereis (1) the principleof polaritywith regardto the qualitative
distinction between symbolic action and nonsymbolicmotion. This is
the prime source of duplication, insofar as the experiencesof bodily
sensationshape the materialswhich languagedraws upon as the source
of its "fictions," in the realm of symbolicity. Within the realm of
symbolicityitself thereis (2) the kind of polaritythat the negativeaddsto
nonsymbolicnature. It itself splits into the propositional(is-is not) pair
and the hortatory(do-do not) pair. In the realmof the body as a sheerly
nonsymbolicphysicalorganismthereis (3) the polarityof the distinction
between the need for struggle (in the effort to attain the means of
livelihood)and the rewardsof relaxation(whena hungerhas beensated).

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In a highly complexsocial structurethe resourcesof symbolicityare such

that the sheerphysiologyof such a distinctionbecomes greatlyconfused
by symbolic factors (propertyrelationships,for instance). But we have
tried to indicate why we assumethat it can functionquite paradoxically
as a motive. (Leisure, for instance, can function as a mode of
psychological unemployment, with twists whereby people can "make
work" for themselvesby "inventing"confused purposesand relationships.)
Formal symbolic structuresmight be reducedto threeterministic
relationships:equations(identifications),implications,transformations.
For instance, if some particular"ism" or "ology" or personalitytype or
location or whateveris explicitlyor implicitlypresentedas desirableor
undesirable,it would be identified with corresponding"values"-and
such would be "equations." "Implications"would figureinsofaras one
term explicitly or implicitlyinvolved a cycle or family of terms, as the
idea of "order" implies a companion-term,"disorder," or implicitin
the idea of an "act" is the idea of an "agent" who performsthe act. By
"transformations"would be meant what would be the "from-what,"
"through-what,""to-what" developmentsin a symbolicstructure.Such
unfoldings (from potentialityto actualizationvia a "peripety"of some
sort) can be either narrativeor purelyconceptualor both. The question
of "transformations"necessarily impinges upon the shifting choices
between temporal, narrativepriority (yesterday/today/tomorrow)and
logical priority (the syllogisticfirst premise/secondpremise/conclusion
design-or the dialectical notion of a class name as "prior" to any
particularsthat can be classedunderthat head).
In this connection, the route from logology to theology is via a
logological criticismof Plato's mythologybecauseit assignsto his ideal
forms a realmnarrativelypriorto theirmode of classificationas in effect
general names for worldly particularsincluded under those various
"ideal" heads. Such a procedurewould be called the "temporizingof
essence," in that it does "mythologize" (that is, translateinto termsof
story)a verbalresourceof classificationthat has no temporaldimension.
Since "eternity" is also a kind of nontemporality,the conditions
are presentwherebythe "timelessness"of the supernaturalrealmafter
death (by extension involving a realm prior to all wordly existence)
ambiguouslyoverlapsupon the purelytechnicalsense of timelessnessin
the logological sense of polar termstimelesslyimplyingeach other. And
inasmuchas theology necessarilyuses narrativetermswith regardto the
emergenceof time out of timelessness,logology's businessis to discuss
such embarrassmentsthat survive,even after theologyhas criticallygone
beyondmythology.

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But looking in the other direction,whereaslogology is vowed by

sheerdefinitionto be muchconcernedwiththe "molecularbehavior"of
the body (thereby going along radically with behaviorist inquiries),
logology must insist categorically upon a polar distinction between
verbaland nonverbalbehavior,in contrastwith the behaviorists'notion
that they are thereconcernedwithbut a differenceof degree.Logology's
distinctionbetween the symbolic and nonsymbolicrealmsis at least as
absolute as any distinctionbetween"mind" and "body," though it has
a notablydifferentway of gettingthere. In fact, the distinctionis as basic
as that between bread and the word "bread." Or as the distinction
betweenthe sea as a "mothersymbol" and the sea as the physicalbody
of salt-waterit is, vastlya sloshing-around.
With regard to the logological distinction between symbolic
action and nonsymbolic motion, it makes no difference whetherthe
human animal "thinks with language," or "thought" and "symbolicity" are identical. In either case, insofar as the speechlesshuman
organismacquiresfamiliaritywith a triballanguagetherearisesa duality
of motivationalrealmswherebythe humananimal'sway withsymbolsis
not reducibleto termsof its correlativemolecularbehavior.
But when I read of hermeneutic experts who congratulate
themselves that the traditional Cartesian split between subject and
object, thought and extension,is being avoided, I would note that there
are two quite different ways of consideringany such development.If
Descartes'dualismis attackedas a "psychologyof consciousness,"it is
in trouble.Butwe shouldnot let any reservationsregardingthe Cartesian
formulationof the dualismserve as a device by implicationto discredit
the dualistic principleitself. For if we do so, we are in effect implying
monism either by smugglingin undeclaredvestiges of idealism, or by
willy-nilly subscribing to the "materialistic" oversimplification of
behaviorism. But logology's "dramatistic" (or dialectical) view of
languageas symbolic action is in its very essence realistic-and such a
view is necessarilydualistic, since man is the typically symbol-using
animal, and the linguisticinventionof the negativeis enoughin itself to
build a dualism,even beyond the othertwo polaritieswe also includedin
our summation.
At least as a tentative working principle,logology holds to the
notion that the relationsbetweenpoetryand mythology(and thencevia
criticism and writing to theology, plus wholly secular offshoots or
disrelated growths, if there are such) must in all likelihood embody
"imaginative"tracesintrinsicto any symbolic(that is, human)medium
in its own right, along with traces of the formative experiencesundergonewhile the human animal is graduallyacquiringfamiliaritywith

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185

the medium(such as its initiationin the ways of a triballanguage).And

such tracesof the inceptiveare all the more likely to be still with us since
experiencesof that sort are not a mattermerelyof a human organism's
infantile past, but are ever born anew. For language is innately innovative. No one could go on makinghis wordsmean the same, even if
he expendedhis best efforts to makethem stay put.