'Cloudy, Cloudy Is the Stuff of Stones'

The best-known and still unchallenged refutation of the Irish Anglican Bishop George Berkeley’s theory of subjective idealism – he called it “immaterialism” -- is recounted by James Boswell on August 6, 1763: 

“After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, ‘I refute it thus.’”

 

Dr. Johnson’s demonstration of common sense is at once amusing, convincing and somehow quintessentially English, the sort of act Jonathan Swift would have applauded (though not Yeats). Johnson’s critics have dismissed his logic as fallacious and dubbed his approach argumentum ad lapidem – “argument to the stone” -- so freshmen in Philosophy 101 and other sophisticates can feel vindicated. For the rest of us it’s QED. A friend sent me a photo of Johnson in the act of refutation:

 

The bronze sculpture is located in the Garden of Heroes and Villains, a privately owned sculpture garden in Warwickshire. Johnson strikes a Baryshnikovian pose. Among his fellow heroes are Billie Holiday, Charles Babbage and Shakespeare. What more to say? In the first stanza of “Epistemology” (Ceremony and Other Poems, 1950), Richard Wilbur endorses Johnson’s reasoning:

 

“Kick at the rock, Sam Johnson, break your bones:

But cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones.”

 

Tom Disch performs a similar poetic service, without quite naming Johnson, in “What to Accept” (Yes, Let’s: New and Selected Poems, 1989):

 

“The fact of mountains. The actuality

Of any stone — by kicking, if necessary.

The need to ignore stupid people,

While restraining one's natural impulse

To murder them. The change from your dollar,

Be it no more than a penny,

For without a pretense of universal penury

There can be no honor between rich and poor.

Love, unconditionally, or until proven false.

The inevitability of cancer and/or

Heart disease. The dialogue as written,

Once you've taken the role. Failure,

Gracefully. Any hospitality

You're willing to return. The air

Each city offers you to breathe.

The latest hit. Assistance.

All accidents. The end.”