Stephen Pearl Andrews Texts Online
Kenneth Gregg has finished posting his online text of Stephen Pearl Andrews' Science of Society, with Part II--Cost the Limit of Price--now up and running.
And Shawn Wilbur http://libertarian-labyrinth.blogspot.com/ has found (at Google Books) an online text of Andrews' The Basic Outline of Universology: An Introduction to the Newly Discovered Science of the Universe....
And Shawn Wilbur http://libertarian-labyrinth.blogspot.com/ has found (at Google Books) an online text of Andrews' The Basic Outline of Universology: An Introduction to the Newly Discovered Science of the Universe....
posted by Kevin Carson | 9:19 AM
4 Comments:
Hey, Kevin. Google has also now posted seven of Andrews' phonographic texts, written in collaboration with Augustus Boyle. And I've added his "Revisal of Kant's Categories" to the Labyrinth, along with some discussion of the issues surrounding it.
http://libertarian-labyrinth.blogspot.com/2006/05/stephen-pearl-andrews-revisal-of-kants.html
Andrews' early political works like The Science of Society and Love, Marriage, and Divorce are generally excellent. Unfortunately, his later, "universological" works like Basic Outline of Universology and Primary Synopsis of Universology are, well, barking mad. Here's a sample:
"An arrangement occurs, in Universology, of the Chemical Elements, by which the Non-Metals are recognized as generically Light, Upward-tending, Aerial, and Diaphanous, and as, in that sense, allied (not in any known Chemical sense, but in a new sense not heretofore observed), with the Atmosphere above the surface of the Earth, and so with the "Face of Day," or with the Main Elevation and Front aspect pf the Great World-Cathedral, the Dome-of-Earth-and-Heaven, and typically, or representatively, therefore, with the Frontal Elevation of any House, Edifice, or Temple: and the Metals are recognized, on the other hand, as generically Heavy, Darkling, Obscure, or Downward-tending, or Earthly, in the same Analogical Sense, and so, in that sense, as allied with the Subterranean and otherwise Obscure Position in Space, or with the Foundation-and-Back or the Remote Depths of an Edifice -- the Metals being therefore more numerous than the Non-Metals in the general proportion of 3 to 1, or of a duplication both downward and backward. Further, it is observed, that the Non-Metals, Aerial, Upward-and-Front-wise-tending, or, as it were, visibly presentative, are generically Electro-Negative, or allied with the Lightning, the Grand Type, and, as it were, Fountain, of Electricity in the Cosmos, and with its Aerial Position overhead, or above; and Electro-Negative because they are so allied, since things not attracted to the Pole of Being which is identical with their own nature; they, therefore, being of the nature of the Lightning and of the
Light (or Front-Presence) are attracted to the metals, which are of the nature of the Earth beneath, and of Obscurity, or of that region of the Edifice (or of the Human Body, to which the Edifice is an Adjustment) which is posited downward and behind. On the contrary, the Metals, being "of the Earth, earthy," are, for that reason, Electro-Positive, or capable of attracting the Lightning, and of being attracted by it."
One can't imagine Benjamin Tucker sliding into this sort of thing -- he had too much sense of humor.
On the other hand, it's kind of nice for individualist anarchists to have our own *Dialectics of Nature*.
Kevin,
"Barking mad" or not, the universological texts are still at least a lot more fun than "Dialectics of Nature," which ain't much fun at all. And, as Engels' late work points up some iffy metaphysical stuff that was probably lurking in the background of earlier works, the universological texts may not be quite so easy to separate from the rest of Andrews' work. Tucker wouldn't have "slid into this sort of thing" because he was a child of a rather different world of ideas from Andrews (and Greene.) And Andrews crazier ideas were pretty widely embraced in the circles that are important to us, which is something that we need to account for.
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