The Senior Common Room at St Anselm's had entered a period of increasing conceptual instability.
No one had officially acknowledged this.
But everyone had begun placing teacups down slightly more carefully.
Rain moved steadily against the windows.
Books remained scattered in arrangements whose organising principles had become difficult to determine.
Professor Quillibrace sat reading beside the fire.
Miss Elowen Stray was making notes.
Mr Blottisham entered carrying several sheets of paper and wearing an expression of determined triumph.
"I have solved it."
Quillibrace looked up.
"Oh dear."
"No, truly."
Blottisham sat down and spread his papers across the table.
"I have discovered how reality is organised."
Miss Stray lowered her pencil.
Quillibrace slowly closed his book.
"And how precisely is reality organised?"
Blottisham looked delighted.
"Hierarchy."
Silence.
Blottisham pointed triumphantly at his pages.
"I have made a chart."
Quillibrace looked briefly alarmed.
"A chart."
"Everything fits perfectly."
He pointed enthusiastically.
"Atoms become molecules."
"Molecules become cells."
"Cells become organisms."
"Organisms become societies."
He moved his finger upward.
"Matter becomes life."
"Life becomes mind."
"Mind becomes culture."
He sat back.
"There."
Quillibrace stared at the papers.
Miss Stray leaned slightly forward.
Blottisham looked pleased.
"The lower levels support the higher ones."
"The higher levels emerge from the lower."
"Everything possesses proper order."
Silence settled around the room.
Quillibrace looked at him carefully.
"You appear very happy."
"I am."
"That worries me."
Blottisham frowned.
"Oh for heaven's sake."
Quillibrace folded his hands.
"Tell me — why do we arrange things into levels?"
Blottisham blinked.
"Because reality is organised that way."
"Is it?"
"Obviously."
Quillibrace waited.
Blottisham shifted slightly.
"I mean... otherwise everything would be chaos."
Miss Stray looked up from her notebook.
"That was rather the problem."
Blottisham looked at her.
"What was?"
"The world presents enormous complexity."
She gestured vaguely.
"Countless relations occurring simultaneously."
"Without some organising principle, explanation becomes rather difficult."
Blottisham nodded.
"Exactly."
"So hierarchy became a solution," Quillibrace said.
"Phenomena could be arranged into levels."
"Each level could explain the one above it."
"The world became manageable."
Blottisham sat back comfortably.
"There we are."
Quillibrace sighed softly.
Miss Stray stared into her notebook.
Blottisham looked offended.
"No really, what now?"
"Nothing initially."
Quillibrace leaned forward slightly.
"It solved a genuine problem."
"But?"
"There is almost always a but."
Quillibrace pointed gently toward Blottisham's chart.
"Where exactly does one level end and another begin?"
Blottisham stared.
"What do you mean?"
"Take language."
"Very well."
"Does language emerge from minds?"
Blottisham nodded.
"Naturally."
Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.
"And minds?"
Blottisham frowned.
"What about them?"
"Do they perhaps emerge partly through language?"
Silence.
Blottisham stared.
"Oh."
Miss Stray spoke quietly.
"Or societies."
"Do societies emerge from individuals?"
"Or do individuals emerge through social relations?"
Blottisham looked from one face to the other.
"Oh no."
Quillibrace nodded sympathetically.
"Quite."
Blottisham stared down at his chart.
"But lower levels determine higher ones."
Quillibrace looked thoughtful.
"Do they?"
He gestured vaguely.
"Social institutions shape individual behaviour."
"Languages shape possibilities for meaning."
"Ecological organisation shapes which organisms survive."
Blottisham frowned.
"Higher levels seem rather busy for derivative things."
"Indeed."
Miss Stray smiled faintly.
"The relations begin looking reciprocal."
"Not merely vertical."
Silence.
Rain moved softly against the windows.
Blottisham stared at the papers for some time.
"So the levels start becoming blurry."
"Mm."
"And influence stops travelling in one direction."
"Mm."
"And the hierarchy begins looking less like reality itself..."
He looked down at his chart.
"...and more like a way of organising complexity."
Quillibrace smiled.
"Very good."
Blottisham looked alarmed.
"No. I know that tone."
Long silence followed.
Blottisham slowly counted on his fingers.
"Substance."
"Essence."
"Origin."
"Representation."
"Identity."
"Hierarchy."
He looked up uneasily.
"Quillibrace?"
"Yes?"
"Do you realise what is happening?"
Quillibrace considered.
"Hm."
"We are steadily dismantling reality."
Miss Stray looked up.
"I don't think so."
Blottisham stared.
"No?"
She looked thoughtfully around the room.
"I think we may be dismantling the scaffolding we mistook for reality."
Silence.
Blottisham looked around nervously.
Then he said:
"I should like it formally recorded that I preferred the scaffolding."
Quillibrace reopened his book.
"An entirely understandable position," he said quietly.
"Though the furniture itself seems increasingly unconvinced."
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