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7. In Canto 34 of Hell Dante and Virgil reach the center of the universe. Why?

8. In Canto 9 of Purgatory seven P' s are inscribed on Dante's forehead, and one of these P's is removed as Dante passes upward past each of the ledges of the Mountain of Purgatory. What is the significance of the P's?

9. Virgil accompanies Dante to the Earthly Paradise ( Cantos 28-33 of Purgatory) but departs in Canto 30 and does not go with Dante to Paradise. Why?

10. In Cantos 11 and 12 of Paradise St. Thomas Aquinas narrates the life of St. Francis and St. Bonaventura narrates the life of St. Dominic. What is the significance of this?

The last five questions in Test D, which deal mainly with the symbolism of Dante's Divine Comedy, may be difficult or even impossible to answer on the basis of reading the table of contents alone. For that reason, if for no other, we have provided quite full answers to these questions. The justification for asking such questions is twofold. First, we are not certain that they cannot be answered from the table of contents alone.

Second, and more important, they are designed to suggest one of the major characteristics of Dante's great work: that is, that it is symbolic through and through. Almost every statement Dante makes, and almost every person and event he describes, has at least two meanings, and often three or four. We think that fact is probably clear from reading the table of contents alone, even if the details are not all spelled out. Hence it might be interesting to try to answer Questions 6-10 in this test with-392 HOW TO READ A BOOK

out any outside help whatever even if you have never read Dante before or read about him. In other words, if you have to guess, how close are your guesses?

Tum to p. 414 for the answers to Test D.

The biography of Charles Darwin and the table of contents of his The Origin of Species that appear on the following pages are taken from Volume 49 of Great Books of the Western World. Besides The Origin of Species, that volume also contains The Descent of Man, in which Darwin applied his general theory, as expounded in the Origin, to the puzzling question of the evolution of the human species.

As in the case of Dante, read the biography of Darwin quickly-in five or six minutes-and then skim or pre-read the table of contents of The Origin of Species, devoting no more than ten minutes to the task.

CHARLES DARWIN

1809-1882

In evaluating the qualities that accounted for his "success as a man of science," Charles Darwin in his modest autobiography, written "because it might possibly interest my children," traces from his early youth "the strongest desire to understand and explain" whatever he observed. His childhood fantasies were concerned with fabulous discoveries in natural history; to his schoolmates he boasted that he could produce variously colored flowers of the same plant by watering them with certain colored fluids.

His father, a highly successful physician, was somewhat puzzled by the singular interest of his second son as well as by his undistinguished career in the classical curriculum of Dr. Butler's day school; he accordingly decided to send him to Edinburgh to study medicine. At Edinburgh Darwin collected animals in tidal pools, trawled for oysters with Newhaven fishermen to obtain specimens, and made two small discoveries which he incorporated in papers read before the Plinian Society. He put forth no very "strenuous effort" to learn medicine.

Appendix B 393

With some asperity, Dr. Darwin proposed the vocation of clergyman as an alternative. The life of a country clergyman appealed to young Darwin, and, after quieting his doubts concerning his belief in "all the dogmas of the Church," he began this new career at Cambridge. He proved unable, however, to repress his scientific interests and developed into an ardent entomologist, particularly devoted to collecting beetles; he had the satisfaction of seeing one of his rare specimens published in Stephen's Illustrations