How To Read A Book- A Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading - Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren [194]
-as contradistinguished from other social or gregarious animals: that is, that man is a rational social animal who constitutes a society to serve other than merely biological ends.
It follows from this that the state is both natural and conventional-that it is both more and less natural than the family; and it follows also that the state must be formally constituted: other societies are not true states. Second, we may reasonably conclude that the state is a means, not an end. The end is the common human good: a good life. Hence man is not made for the state, but the state for man.
Appendix B 41 3
These conclusions seem to us to be justified, and we also believe that the answers we have given to the questions are correct. But more than feeling or belief is required in a genuine project of syntopical reading. We noted, in our discussion of this level of reading, that it is always desirable to document one's answers and conclusions from the texts of the authors themselves. We have not done that here. You might want to try to do it for yourself. If you are puzzled by any of our answers, see if you can find the passage or passages in the text, either by Aristotle or Rousseau, that must have formed the basis of the answer we give. And if you disagree with any of our answers or conclusions, see if you can document your disagreement by means of the words of the authors themselves.
Answers to Questions
TEST A ( P. 370)
1. ( c ) 2. ( b ) If you said ( a ) and ( b ) you would not really be wrong. 3. ( a ) and ( b ) 4. ( b ) 5. ( c ) Is it pedantic to say that ( b ) is an incorrect answer? Would the situation be diHerent if ( c ) were not available as an answer? 6. ( b ) 7. ( a ) , ( c ) , and ( d ) The text indicates that Bentham was the most influential. 8. ( d ) 9. ( a ) and ( b ) Likely; ( c ) and ( d ) Not Likely. 10. ( a ) , ( b ), and ( d )
TEST B ( P. 376 )
I. ( c ) 2. ( c ) 3. False 4. ( b ) 5. ( a ) and ( b ) 6. ( b ) 7. ( b ) The first answer ( "Why apples fall" ) might have been considered correct if it had been phrased "How apples fall," although of course there is no mention of apples in the Principia.
The point is that the work describes gravity and expounds its operation, but it does not say why it operates. 8. ( a ) 9. ( b ) and ( c ) 10. This striking statement has impressed generations of Newton idolaters. In commenting on it, you probably discussed the modesty of its author. Did you also make any mention of the metaphor that Newton employs? It is a memorable one.
414 HOW TO READ A BOOK
TEST c ( P. 389 )
1. ( a ) 2. (b ) Dante's own titles were the ones that appear in ( c ) ; if you gave that as your answer we would therefore have to count it as correct. 3. ( a ) 4. ( a ) and ( b ) 5. ( b ) This is no accident, of course. Each major division of the poem ( called in Italian a cantiche ) contains 33 cantos: the first canto of Hell introduces the whole work. 6. ( a ) Only the Eighth Circle is divided into pouches. 7. ( b ) Circles ( a ) is not really wrong. 8. ( c ) But ( b ) would also be correct, as in Dante's cosmology the nine orders of angels correspond to the nine heavenly bodies. 9. ( a ) ; ( b ) 10. ( a ) TEST D ( P. 390 )
1. ( b ) 2. ( a ) Beatrice acts for God, so ( b ) is not incorrect. 3. ( b ) 4. ( b ) and ( c ) Dante had not read Aristotle's Poetics, though he had read a synopsis of it suggesting that Aristotle defined a comedy as any work that ends fortunately.
Dante's poem ends in Heaven, hence fortunately, and therefore he titled it The Comedy: but of course it is not a comic work. 5. ( c ) The poem is dependent on all three, but the Christian themes are the most important. 6. Yes. Dante felt that sloth had been one of his main sins, and he here symbolizes this by falling asleep. 7. In Dante's cosmology, the earth is the center of the universe, and Hell is at the center of the earth.