<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Jerry Friedman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jerry_friedman@yahoo.com">jerry_friedman@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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I think we're supposed to take the classification<br>
Severian learned as naive and Master Malrubius as showing<br>
what's wrong with it. At the least, we and Severian are<br>
supposed to consider that there's as much to be said for<br>
monarchy as against it, as in the quotations from Aquinas<br>
and the ancients that Stanislaus kindly posted (so I could<br>
pretend I knew all along about those opinions). <br></blockquote></div><br>I'm not sure that's at all the case. I think here Wolfe is making a point about how he believes God established governance in the human sphere, and how far human beings have departed from it. It would certainly be consistent with Wolfe's Thomism.<br>
<br>-- <br>Matt +<br><br>Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.<br> Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), Nicomachean Ethics, bk. VIII, ch. 1<br>