The
Greek cosmologists
All
students of Pooh are familiar with his balloon adventure in Chapter One and with
his gift of 'a Use-fill Pot' to Eeyore in Chapter Six. All students of early
Greek cosmology will remember that Anaximander put forward the theory that the
earth was shaped like a cylinder, while Pythagoras, like Aristotle later, held
it was round. So far, however, philosophers have disgracefully neglected the
clear connections between these well-known facts. Second only, of course, to the
disinterested search for truth, no task is more pleasing to scholars than
exposing the negligence, ignorance and stupidity of their fellows. To both these
pleasures we now address ourselves.
Let
us first recall the balloon incident. It began when Winnie-the-Pooh asked
Christopher Robin he had a balloon, and Christopher Robin asked why he wanted
one.
Winnie-the-Pooh
looked round to see that nobody was listening, put his paw to his mouth, and
said in a deep whisper. 'Honey!'
Pooh
Bear's secrecy alone should alert us that something more than mere material
honey is in question Everyone who knew him at all must have known hi typically
bearlike passion for that sweet substance So why the secrecy?
Hasty
thinkers may jump to the obvious conclusion that Winnie-the-Pooh was simply
anxious keep this particular honey to himself. Alas! rt is us such superficial
reading that has blinded generations to the true depth of Mime's great work and
denied him his proper place beside Plato. For he indeed is to Pooh Bear as Plato
is to Socrates.
A
very little thought is enough to show how implausible it is to interpret honey'
in this context in its everyday sense. Why should Winnie-the-Pooh take such
elaborate precautions to protect honey that was so difficult to reach? On the
material level, even he, with the help of a balloon, failed to get any.
What
then is the deeper meaning of 'honey'? What was Winnie-the-Pooh really seeking?
It
is no surprise to find our question answered, partly at least, in St Matthew's
Gospel, which tells us that John the Baptist fed on 'locusts and wild honey'; in
Dean Swift, who associates honey with 'the two noblest of ~things, which are
sweetness and light'; and in the hymn that describes the heavenly Jerusalem as
'with milk and honey blest'.
These
quotations - chosen out of many - make it clear that there was an ancient and
persisting tradition which made honey a symbol either of some spiritual quest,
as in
Readers
who are more familiar with 'sweetness and light' in Matthew Arnold than in Swift
will find it easy to apply them to Pooh Bear, who spread these admirable
qualities around wherever he went.
It
is not our purpose here to examine the question of Winnie-the-Pooh's
spirituality or his claims to sanctity. The case for his canonization is at too
early and delicate a stage for that to be appropriate. For the moment, it is
enough to say Hoff has dearly demonstrated that Pooh Bear has achieved
Enlightenment by listening to the voice within. We remember too that Socrates,
whose similarity to the Bear we shall repeatedly recognize, has often been
regarded as a mystic.
Here,
though1 we are concerned with Pooh the philosopher, and so we can
state confidently that the primary meaning of 'honey' in this parable
philosophic truth.
So
far, we have concentrated on the symbolism of the honey, but of course the
balloon is equally important. We have already hinted that here symbolizes the
earth. Let us now explore this idea to learn something of its full richness.
The
shape of the balloon makes the elementary symbolism obvious enough, while. the
picture C the balloon floating in the air is as near to the earth floating in
space as the imaginative limits of this parable allow. Nevertheless, this
picture prompt some questions. It even raises what the shallow minded may
consider difficulties.
If,
such people may object, we do, for the sake argument, accept +his rather
wild theory of a hidden meaning, then surely this incident shows that
Winnie-the-Pooh spectacularly failed in his quest for truth. For he did not gain
the honey, and Christopher Rob had to rescue him by shooting the balloon – and
Pooh Bear down.
What1
others may ask, is the connection between the shape of the earth and
philosophic truth? Isn't this confusing philosophy with astronomy?
To
answer the second question first, may we point out that the separation of
science from philosophy is comparatively recent: Well into modern times what we
now call 'science' was named natural philosophy'. The very earliest Greek
philosophers were cosmologists, that is, enquirers about the nature of the
universe. Row did it begin? What was it made of? What were the stars and
planets? How far off were they? What shape was the earth?
Remembering,
as we must always remember, that Winnie-the-Pooh was a philosopher in a truly
universal sense, we can see it was perfectly natural that he should concern
himself with cosmology. He would not be the unique phenomenon that he is, if he
did not encapsulate the whole of Western philosophy.
The
intelligent reader will already have realized the Bear was here reminding us
that at some time between 550 and 500 BC Pythagoreans taught that the earth was
round and revolved round a central fire. Two centuries later, Aristotle repeated
that the earth was round, though he regarded it as stationary, and placed in the
centre of the universe. And it was Aristotle's picture that was accepted by most
educated Europeans until the seventeenth century, when the sun-centred system of
Copernicus and Galileo took its place.
When
we turn to the first objection, we must frankly admit a more real difficulty.
The story of Pooh Bear, the balloon and the honey does seem to show him failing
in his quest. So how should we proceed?
By
now, the perceptive reader will feel every confidence in our ability to find an
allegorical interpretation1 and the perceptive reader will be right.
There are several interpretations, but they do not a fit easily together. We
will select the more obvious ones and discuss the problems arising. Finally w
will suggest a solution.
1.
The first interpretation is that Pooh Bear is her warning us that the
philosopher's task is long an arduous. If we attempt this task, we must not
expect our first endeavours to lead us to our goal. It significant that a great
contemporary philosopher, Sir Karl Popper, called his autobiography Unended
Quest. We must be prepared for disappointment.' Inevitably, especially in
the early stages, these disappointments will make us downcast, just as Cr
exemplar was literally cast down to earth.
In
its own way, the quest for truth demands a much courage as the quest for the
North Pole. Cu hero rose from the earth and continued his search until he found
the North Pole (Chapter Eight). In this, as in so many ways, he is our moral as
we. as our intellectual guide.
2.
The second explanation is similar to the first, but more precise and concrete.
Whereas the first was a1 general warning about the philosopher's
difficulties the second is particularly concerned with science or natural
philosophy. Consider Pooh's words explain mg why he wants to come down.
'These
are the wrong sort of bees - . So I should think they would make the wrong sort
of honey.'
Pooh
Bear had set out to bring honey (truth) and t] balloon (the hypothesis that the
earth was a sphere) together. That is, to demonstrate the truth of the
round-earth hypothesis. What then made him recoil? Pooh himself tells us quite
explicitly: he discover that the bees that made this h6ney were 'the wrong
sort of bees', and he deduced they would therefore make 'the wrong sort of
honey'.
Something
in his original hypothesis was incorrect. Obviously not that the earth was
round. That, we know, was correct what then? Something to do with the bees.
What
was it that made him decide these bees we the wrong sort? His decision came
immediate1y after we learn
One
bee sat down on the nose of the cloud [i.e., Winnie-the-Pooh's nose] for a
moment, and then got up again
'Christopher
- ow! Robin,' called out the cloud
In
this situation, the only reasonable explanation of1 'ow!' is
that the bee had stung Winnie-the-Pooh’s nose. Now if we ask any qualified
person - in this case, anyone who has been stung by a bee - what did that person
feel when stung? the answer will be, 'I felt a burning sensation.
Precisely:
a burning sensation. And what is the usual cause of burning? Fire. And this of
course brings us straight back to the Pythagoreans, and a serious error in their
picture of the universe.
For
when they said that the earth revolved round a central fire, they did not-mean
the sun. According to Pythagoras, or probably his later followers, the sun
itself, like the earth and other heavenly bodies, revolved round this central
fire, which they called the Altar of Zeus. No human ever saw this fire, they
explained, because the inhabited parts of the globe were always turned away from
it.
So
when Pooh Bear experienced the burning pain of a bee sting, this symbolized the
philosophical pain of discarding a cherished hypothesis. We note the
unhesitating courage with which he performed this painful duty.
We
also see how great his anguish was when we go on to read 'his arms were so stiff
from holding on to the string of the balloon all that time that they stayed up
straight in the air for more than a week.' What a brilliant picture of the way
in which habit and emotion may cling to a belief that evidence and reason have
rejected!
But
here you may object that Pooh seems to have over-reacted, abandoning the
round-earth hypo thesis as well as the Pythagorean fire. For how else can we
understand the shot-down balloon? Here we come to a central problem, which will
meet us again and again in our study. How far dare we probe into that Enormous
Brain, and - an even more delicate matter - can we claim any insight in the
feelings of its owner? In this particular case, it not an impertinent intrusion
to speculate on emotions at the moment his hopes, like his balloon, collapsed?
Such
scruples do credit to the delicacy of those who feel them, but I think they are
misguide Indeed, with the best will in the world, they are no compliment to
Pooh, for they imply that h himself suffered the limited knowledge of the
philosophers he expounds and explains. Can any serious Ursinologist (student of
the Great Bear) believe fit our universal philosopher was, even for a moment
deceived by the Pythagorean error?
Certainly
not He was not experiencing error an! anguish but demonstrating them
for the benefit of U his readers, who are less well informed. So even we take
the deflated balloon to mean the (temporary) abandonment of the spherical-earth
theory, he was not discarding it himself, but merely warning us not to discard a
whole theory just because there are valid objections to part of it.