From: wthyde1953@gmail.com   
      
   Martin Harran wrote:   
   > On Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:44:02 -0500, William Hyde   
   >  wrote:   
   >   
   >> Martin Harran wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> Saint John Henry Newman has been mentioned else-thread.   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> I see I am behind the times.  I thought he was "merely" a doctor of the   
   >> church.   
   >>   
   >> I must apologize to the spirit of my great-grandfather.  A cousin   
   >> informs me that it was Cardinal Manning who was the subject of his ire.   
   >> But it might have been both.   
   >   
   > Not sure about Cardinal manning but I doubt if Newman would have been   
   > too upset as he was a great believer in the necessity of conflict in   
   > opinion being a great source of growth in knowledge:   
   >   
   > "the energy of the human intellect 'does from opposition grow'; it   
   > thrives and is joyous, with a tough elastic strength, under the   
   > terrible blows of the divinely fashioned weapon, and is never so much   
   > itself as when it has lately been overthrown."   
   > [Apologia Pro Vita Sua, C5]   
   >   
   > I think I have observed previously that I often learn more from   
   > debating with those who disagree with me than those who agree.   
      
   I agree entirely.  I have even learned by debating  trolls.  Their   
   shotgun approach to criticism sometimes leads to discoveries.   
      
   One learns nothing from a chess game that was easy, much more from one   
   that was hard and, according to most great players, most from a game one   
   loses.   
      
   >   
   >>   
   >> W. Somerset Maugham would advocate for Newman on the basis of his prose   
   >> style alone.  When WSM was teaching himself to write Newman was one of   
   >> his exemplars.   
   >>   
   >> What a strange world that was, when busy atheist doctors (WSM was a   
   >> practicing MD at that point) took the time to read the theological   
   >> musings of a Cardinal.   
   >   
   > And scientists were often gentlemen of wealth and leisure!   
      
   At least we have improved there.  While the GG father mentioned above   
   was never going to be a scientist, another GG who worked as a laborer   
   was apparently quite intelligent, though deprived of any chance of an   
   education (his son was the first family member to get any post secondary   
   education at all).   
      
   Gray wrote about "mute inglorious Miltons".  But if Newton's immediate   
   ancestors hadn't been remarkably clever sheep farmers, we'd have one   
   more "mute inglorious Newton".   
      
   William Hyde   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)