Part 10

"Oh, come on. The man was institutionalized."

"And genetic fallacy, too. My, my."

"Ignore him, son," said the glasses to the youth. "He's not been very well since his wife laughed at his last paper. A tree--"

"She did not laugh," interrupted the beard.

"--is a woody plant containing specialized structures, larger overall than a bush and often, as you see here [pointing] having only one trunk rather than many."

"And is this the effect of dotage or of primordial ignorance?"

"False dilemma, Mr. Logician."

"Surely you were there that day in bonehead English when they distinguished between 'definition' and 'explanation.' You are familiar with the English language, aren't you? The young man has asked for an explanation."

"Well, as Frabonarde says, 'The whole is known by its parts.'"

"The doctrine of those who pull the wings from fruit flies."

"Yes, it would be too straightforward for someone who needs six hundred pages to discover that he doesn't know what he is talking about."

"A classic example of the projectionist error. Not everything you don't understand is a problem with the text," said the beard, tapping his finger to his temple.

"If I may be permitted one last allusion to Oriental wisdom, I would note only that the Chinese have said, 'Men hurt their eyes seeking a water lily in a rock garden--even in a large rock garden.'"

"I thought you knew that the Poems of Chen had been exposed as a product of nineteenth-century Europe. Don't make it a habit to go around quoting hoaxes. It gives philosophy a bad name."

"Excuse me, sirs," the youth interjected, "but I have to go now."

"Very well," said the beard. "Only remember, with the knowledge you attain, seek to achieve understanding."

"Oh, so now we are quoting the Bible!" cried the glasses with triumphant scorn. "The rest of the department will be interested in this."

"I was not quoting the Bible. I have never even read the Bible."

"Why don't you ask God to bless him while you're at it?"

"Listen, don't you think I know that your doctrine of cosmic mental states is just a front and that you're a closet monotheist?"

"And may I remind you that slander is an offense punishable by law?"

"And is this the state of a wise man?" asked the beard, looking at the sky, "to threaten his friend for speaking truth?"

"Now he's even praying! I can't believe this!"

"'We cannot see around corners,' says Germulphius, 'so what is left to the man who refuses to see in a straight line?'"

"Someone like your wife," answered the glasses. "No doubt by now she's found twelve more insupportably ridiculous assertions in your paper on aperceptual phenomenalism."

"Well, at least my wife reads my papers. At least my wife can read."

"My wife is an avid reader of literature."

"Since when did the television listings become 'literature'? That's the most transparent semantic ploy I have ever heard."