A Private History of Happiness (25 page)

Many centuries have passed, and countless powerful and rich individuals have vanished. Those responsible for Sappho’s exile are not even a flicker in our memories. In contrast, that moment among apple trees has been preserved by her words, and with them comes the feeling of being alive in another time.

Bhaskara, astronomer and mathematician, composing the preface to a book on numbers

UJJAIN, INDIA
• CA. 1150

Having bowed to the deity [Ganesh]
—whose head is like an elephant’s; whose feet are adored by gods; who, when called to mind, relieves his votaries from embarrassment; and bestows happiness on his worshippers—I propound this easy process of computation: delightful by its elegance; perspicuous with words concise, soft, and correct; and pleasing to the learned.

Bhaskara was in his thirties when he wrote these verses. He was in charge of an astronomical observatory outside the ancient city of Ujjain (in today’s state of Madhya Pradesh) in central India. This had been a center for mathematics and astronomy for at least five hundred years already. He was proud to be holding the same position as the mathematician whom he most admired, Brahmagupta, centuries before. Trade routes running from China connected this ancient place both to Persia and on to Europe.

Bhaskara knew that he had important things to say. The verses that follow in this and three succeeding books of his bring together algebraic and geometric ideas developed by previous Indian mathematics (responding partly to Greek predecessors) and add some new and highly sophisticated insights. Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, is the Lord of beginnings, and so he belongs in this opening moment. When Ganesh is called to mind, he carries away embarrassment, leaving us free and at ease. In doing so, he brings happiness with him.

Here, nearly a millennium ago, was a moment of happiness at the gateway leading into self-expression. Under the sign of Ganesh, all the inhibitions slipped away. Filled with confidence and assurance, the young mathematician knew where he was going.

He was ready to teach. So clear were the mathematical ideas in his mind, so prepared were the words to express them, that he was sure
they would in due course bring happiness to other people. His readers would find methods for solving problems here that had previously seemed difficult, even impossible. The world would become an easier place by this “easy process of computation.” Others would benefit from these teachings, as Bhaskara had benefited from the discovery of method and system, curing the obstinacy of tasks and making problems soluble. Even the learned would appreciate his instructions. This was partly a way of saying that there was something here to benefit everybody. Beginners would find that math was no longer frightening. Experts would recognize and enjoy new ideas.

Bhaskara started by explaining the rules of arithmetic, in a way that is still clear and accessible today. He expressed these ideas to Lilivati, his daughter. She represented the many readers to come. But there is also in these words the sense of a private moment of communication—a father addressed, or imagined addressing, his daughter. She shared with him in the blessings of the elephant-headed god.

It seems unlikely that everyone did find all of these mathematical ideas delightfully easy. Bhaskara was launching into unknown seas. He was the first to understand some of the difficulties involved in the idea of dividing by zero. He was the first to employ letters for unknowns in the equations of algebra. He even developed ideas about progressions and limits that in some ways resemble the theories of calculus propounded by Newton and Leibniz half a millennium later.

Yet so crystalline and “pleasing” were these concepts in Bhaskara’s mind as he began to expound them that he himself saw no difficulties. The “elegance” of his ideas was expressed by words of perspicuity. He had no need to assert his personal authority or anticipate difficulties or objections. The Lord of beginnings did indeed bless this moment.

Ralph Thoresby, scholar and museum owner, writing in his diary

LONDON
• JUNE 12, 1712

Attended the Royal Society, where I found Dr. Douglas dissecting a dolphin, lately caught in the Thames, where were present the President, Sir Isaac Newton, both the Secretaries, the two Professors from Oxford (Dr. Halley and Keil), with others whose company we after enjoyed at the Grecian Coffee House. Was afterwards with Mr. Gale observing some basso-relievos at St. Paul’s Church [Cathedral], particularly the six relating to the history of that apostle. And afterwards walked to the Charterhouse [. . .]; diverted ourselves in the shady walks in the wilderness there; remembered with satisfaction one of our family, Henry Thoresby, [. . .] who was so intimate with the founder [of Charterhouse] that he appointed him one of the first trustees [. . .] Was after with Mr. Gale and Mr. Oddy, a learned gentleman, at the Coffee House.

Ralph Thoresby, a gentleman from Leeds in the north of England, was in London to see his many friends there. In his fifties, he was a fellow of the capital’s Royal Society, at the time the premier learned and scientific body, whose president was Sir Isaac Newton. Thoresby had created a well-known museum of natural history and archaeology in his hometown and was something of an expert on Roman coins.

After conducting some business, Thoresby arrived at the Royal Society. There James Douglas was giving an anatomical demonstration, “dissecting a dolphin, lately caught in the Thames.” The Society was funding Douglas to put on such shows, which brought in a bigger audience.

A number of Thoresby’s friends and acquaintances were there. These were serious people, however popular the lecture. Isaac Newton was present, the man whose book
Principia Mathematica
(1687) had revealed the mechanical laws governing the universe, including the Law of Gravity. With him was Edmond Halley (who encouraged Newton to write that book and paid for its publication), himself
one of the most distinguished mathematicians and astronomers of the time; and also John Keil, another Oxford professor and a defender of Newton’s achievements against the claims of foreign scientist philosophers such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

Ralph Thoresby felt reassuringly included when his little circle adjourned to a coffeehouse “with others whose company we after enjoyed.” The “Grecian” was just off Fleet Street, one of the oldest of these welcoming resorts in the city. There was a buzz of ideas, a hubbub of voices all around him. It was pure enjoyment: the atmosphere, the people, and the intellectual companionship.

From there he walked with another friend to see the sculptures at Christopher Wren’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, completed only recently to replace the previous building lost in the Great Fire of 1666. A new world was rising up around him. Theories and architecture, equations and art: it was a dance of new ideas.

Then he visited the Charterhouse, a London school and hospital where the latest medical ideas were being employed. Happily remembering another family connection, he returned to the coffeehouse and to more learned conversation. It had been a day alive with different voices, new perspectives opening with each encounter. He was happy to be a (small) part of it.

Anselm of Canterbury, churchman and philosopher, writing the prologue to a theological book

ABBEY OF BEC, FRANCE
• CA. 1078

I began to wonder whether perhaps it might be possible to discover just one single argument which would need nothing else to be proven beyond itself to establish that God truly exists; that there is one highest good requiring nothing else on which all things depend for their being and their flourishing; and all else that we believe about the Divine Being.

I focused my mind as often and as intensely as possible on this question and sometimes it seemed to me that I was on the point of seizing upon my object, but whenever this happened it refused to become clear in my mind. Eventually in despair I wanted to stop this pursuit of something that it seemed would never be found. But when I wanted to resist these concerns so that they should not fill my thoughts in vain to the exclusion of more practicable projects, an idea began to force itself upon me and would not be denied, however unwilling and resistant I was. When one day I was exhausted from holding out against its demands, into the strife of my thoughts there presented itself the very idea which I had despaired of attaining and I embraced it as passionately as I had resisted before.

Judge then how much I rejoiced to have found something which, if it were written out, would bring happiness also to some who read it.

Anselm had been the prior at the Abbey of Bec in Normandy for over a decade, and in 1078, when he was in his forties, he became the abbot, in charge of this rich and powerful Benedictine monastery. He was destined for still greater success in the church, since he became the archbishop of Canterbury in 1093.

This passage from the prologue of Anselm’s book
Proslogion
(
Proslogium
) describes what truly made him rejoice—and it was not money or power. It was something that was not even visible, something hidden deep inside his mind. Yet this passing and impalpable experience made him happy beyond his dreams.

Anselm was a great thinker as well as a successful administrator. He loved arguments and ideas. They seemed deeply real to him, more so sometimes than the material world of stones and bricks and trees. One idea in particular perplexed him and drove him on.

He wanted to find a single argument that would prove the existence and the beauty of God. But he searched not in the scriptures or the authorities of old, though he loved them, too. Instead he burrowed deep inside his own thoughts, asking himself over and over whether he could at last find his proof.

Sometimes Anselm felt on the very verge of success: “it seemed to me that I was on the point of seizing upon my object.” But then his hope dissolved and the idea remained out of his mental focus. He eventually decided to abandon this intellectual search that clearly took up space that could be used for “more practicable projects.” But now that he had seemingly given up, this idea, the one single argument necessary to prove the existence of God, returned to haunt him.

It is very rare indeed for a writer from the eleventh century to pick out a particular day in his own life. Yet here it is, this “one day” on which he “was exhausted from holding out.” He was certainly trying to keep the issue out of his mind, feeling that he was being tormented by it. And then it burst upon him, this idea that seemed to him the crystalline, singular argument for God: God’s very essence included the necessity of God’s existence. In other words, since God’s essence was to be supremely perfect it was inconceivable that God could
lack
any feature—such as existence—possessed by other beings.

Anselm embraced with passion this sudden great discovery, which has become famous as the ontological argument. Of course, in retrospect, not everyone has been convinced by Anselm’s idea, but it is complex enough to have kept generations of both believers and skeptics fascinated. Here, before all the subtleties, he recorded that moment of joy when the idea burst into his consciousness. He was as happy as a lover in the moment of acceptance, and out of this happiness his book was born.