No – that wouldn’t do! It was a worthless pretence. Including the two old women who’d step forward in a moment to lay out the body, there were five of us in the room. Three of us weren’t even supposed to be Christians. The other two believed bugger all. My words didn’t touch one of us. When something as empty of meaning as death happens, silence may be the best response. I wanted to get out into the garden, and walk round and round in the sun, looking at the flowers and the fountain, and thinking about what to do next.
‘Edward, I will speak with you later this afternoon,’ I said. ‘What has just happened – together with other matters – alters all our plans. I need to discuss these with you. There are some decisions that only you can make. Until then, I suggest you go to our room and lie down.’ He had the dark circles under his eyes of one who hasn’t slept. If I cared to notice this at all, I might prefer to think that grief had kept him awake.
Chapter 26
‘His illness was, I am assured, one of excessive internal heat,’ Jacob said firmly. ‘It was brought on by a reaction to the excessive cold and wetness of his native land. That would explain why its like has never been known here in Africa. It also confirms that the illness had its roots in his native land.’
I nodded and gave a non-committal grunt. Jacob sighed and continued walking beside me in silence. I had completed five circuits of the garden, and, now rested from a long pause beside the fountain, had begun a sixth. The sun and the return of everyday normality had failed to lift my spirits. I might as well still have been sitting beside the deathbed.
‘It was the opinion of Aristotle himself, that dry heat-’ Jacob tried again.
I stopped at the mention of the hated name and scowled at him. ‘If he’d confined himself to literary criticism and pure logic chopping,’ I said coldly, ‘Aristotle might be more deserving of our respect. As it is, the man corrupted every natural science he touched. All knowledge of things, as opposed to the manipulation of ideas, begins with a rejection of Aristotle. I don’t believe that story about how the Saracens burned the library in Alexandria. But if they really did heat their baths with the collected works of that man, they surely made the world a more enlightened place.’ I looked at Jacob’s shocked face. For the first time that afternoon, I smiled. I untensed my shoulders and put a hand on his arm. He was trying to help. He was the son of a host who’d saved my life. I stepped forward again on our sixth circuit.
‘But, surely, My Lord Alaric,’ he said, keeping pace, ‘the Philosopher is the common heritage of all civilised men, regardless of origin or faith?’
‘Common curse, more like,’ I replied. Now less wintry, I smiled again. I meant what I’d said about the man’s writings. This being said, the story about Omar and the Alexandrian Library was quite untrue – I knew that much, as I’d been its first author. I smiled once more. Jacob had done his best by the boy. If that hadn’t been enough, it was no fault of Aristotle or of anyone else in particular. It was certainly no fault of Jacob’s. I looked up and breathed in the warm, scented air of an African spring. Since we’d hit on a subject that didn’t lead back to the deathbed, or some other matter we’d tacitly agreed not to discuss, I might as well carry on with the lecture.
‘Both our faiths,’ I said, ‘have incorporated the more acceptable teachings of Plato and Aristotle regarding the natural world. They have both decisively rejected the teachings of Epicurus. Since these teachings tend very strongly to atheism, it is a rejection that I can well understand. The teachings are, however, interesting in themselves.’ I stopped before the fountain again and looked at the splashing waters. Jacob said nothing. So far as I could, and without giving any impression of rudeness, I’d lead him away from the self-recriminations he was plainly seeking to escape.
‘It was a thousand years ago that he taught his doctrines in Athens,’ I went on. ‘He taught that the universe consists entirely of matter and void, and all matter is composed of atoms. These atoms are too small to be seen – they are all nearly infinitely small. Even so, they can be classed according to their differing sizes and shapes. They are all rushing infinitely fast through an infinite void. Because their motions are not uniform – indeed, their motions are in some degree indeterminate – they tend to collide. Because they are all hooked, their collision is able to produce the larger structures of the visible world.
‘Now, while nearly infinitely small, these atoms can be classed according to their different sizes and shapes. These may correspond to the fundamental materials of the visible world. All other materials are compounds of these atoms in differing variations.’
‘And the soul?’ Jacob asked.
I’d got him! Like one of those atomic swerves, I’d knocked him off course. And I’d keep him there.
‘What of God?’
‘The soul is composed of very small and highly indeterminate atoms,’ I explained. ‘Organised in the right structure, they are capable of conscious thought and the exercise of free choice. But, as with all other atomic structures, they eventually break down, and the individual atoms begin their rush over again through the void, until such time as they recombine into some entirely different soul.
‘There is no room in this scheme for any God. The atoms have always existed, and always will exist. No truly legitimate social order requires a divine sanction, but will emerge and be sustained through the enlightened self-interest of individuals. The only legitimate social order is one in which the lives and property of individuals are protected so they can pursue the happiness that is not merely the highest, but also the sole, purpose of life. Any law that constrains the actions of individuals is legitimate so far as it protects the equal rights of other individuals. No other laws are binding on the conscience, and may be disobeyed as individuals think appropriate.’
‘No God? No immortal souls? No Judgement? No obligation to obey beyond personal convenience?’ Jacob wondered. And wonder is all he did. He didn’t look even moderately angry – no denunciations of the satanic Apikorus, no defence of his own faith. It was as I’d expected. For the moment at least, I’d left Wilfred and the guilt we variously felt at his death upstairs with the corpse. I sat wearily on a bench placed before the fountain. Jacob snapped his fingers at a slave who’d put his head out into the garden, and called for wine and cakes.
‘None of those things,’ I answered. ‘Because death is the end of all things for us, we have no need to worry about what follows from it. Because there is no supernatural judgement, our only reasons for respecting the rights of others can be the sanction of our own consciences and fear of the law.’
‘And supposing I have no conscience?’ Jacob broke in, finally argumentative. ‘What is there then to stop me from murdering my elderly patients so I can inherit from them? What if the law is too defective to be feared?’
‘Nothing at all,’ I said with a smile. ‘Can you tell me that all the talk of divine punishment has rid the world of crime? And have there been no crimes prompted by religion itself?
‘But let us come back to how all this differs in its view of the material world from the mainstream opinion. Both our faiths – plus the new Desert Faith of the Saracens – place God at the centre of things. He creates our souls, and endows us with a physical world within which we can seek salvation. This being so, the purpose of knowledge is to understand the mind of God and the nature of the divine substance that underlies the accidental manifestations of the world about us. Therefore, all that happens can be explained in terms of specific acts of the Deity – or, at best, as a working out of secondary causes. Therefore, we populate the world with invisible spirits, sent here to do good or ill. Therefore, we command attention to the good spirits, and make laws against communion with the bad spirits who bring evil promptings and evil events.