The common room had acquired the particular stillness that suggested Quillibrace was about to make a distinction.
“I think,” said Miss Stray, “we have been talking about Genesis as though it were describing a world.”
“It is describing a world,” said Mr Blottisham.
“Of course,” said Quillibrace. “But what kind of world?”
Blottisham looked suspicious.
“A mythic one?”
“Precisely.”
“And what does that mean?”
Quillibrace paused.
“It does not mean a second world behind the ordinary one.”
Blottisham relaxed slightly.
“Good.”
“It means the ordinary world as differently construed.”
Blottisham frowned.
“That sounds suspiciously like a second world without the inconvenience of admitting it.”
Miss Stray smiled.
“Perhaps the difference is between changing the things and changing the relations among their meanings.”
Quillibrace nodded.
“A tree remains a tree. But it can also become a symbol. A journey remains a journey, while becoming a way of construing life. Light remains light, while becoming available for construing knowledge, order or revelation.”
“So the original meaning remains?” asked Blottisham.
“Yes.”
“That seems important.”
“It is.”
Blottisham leaned back.
“I had assumed symbolism meant that the thing stopped being itself and stood for something else.”
“An understandable assumption,” said Quillibrace. “But metaphor does not necessarily replace one meaning with another. It makes an existing meaning available for further meaning-making.”
Miss Stray looked thoughtful.
“And mythology takes that possibility and organises it culturally.”
“Exactly.”
Blottisham considered this.
“So a myth is not a collection of symbols with definitions attached.”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“A semantic world.”
Blottisham sighed.
“You do enjoy making things sound larger than they are.”
“It is a world in which things acquire significance through their place within a larger configuration.”
Miss Stray added, “Which is why the same symbol can participate in different meanings without having one fixed interpretation.”
“Genesis,” said Quillibrace, “makes this particularly clear.”
“It tells us how the cosmos began,” said Blottisham.
“Yes. But notice what kind of cosmos it gives us.”
“Light, darkness, land, sea, plants, animals, humans.”
“An inventory?”
Blottisham hesitated.
“Well…”
“It is differentiated. Relational. Ordered. Productive. Evaluated. Meaningful.”
“And humanity has a place within it,” said Miss Stray.
“A rather important place,” said Blottisham.
“Indeed.”
He looked at Quillibrace.
“Are you saying Genesis is doing cosmology, sociology, theology and moral education simultaneously?”
“Something like that.”
“Campbell would have been pleased.”
“Possibly.”
Blottisham smiled.
“For once, I think I see the point.”
Quillibrace looked almost disappointed.
“The myth does not merely tell us about a universe. It gives us a world in which human beings can locate themselves.”
Blottisham nodded.
“That I understand.”
“And that distinction matters,” said Quillibrace. “If mythology were merely an alternative explanation of physical events, its philosophical interest would depend upon whether the explanations were scientifically correct.”
“Which,” said Blottisham, “would leave Genesis in considerable difficulty.”
“Quite.”
“But you are saying that is not the interesting question.”
“Not the only one. A myth can make relationships visible without stating them propositionally.”
Miss Stray looked across the room.
“It can embody a distinction rather than define it.”
“Or place concepts into relations rather than tell us what those relations are.”
Blottisham was quiet for a moment.
“So myth can think without saying, ‘I am thinking.’”
Quillibrace nodded.
“That is rather good.”
Blottisham straightened.
“I have my moments.”
Miss Stray smiled.
“And because the relations are embedded in a world, they can be imagined and inhabited, not merely understood.”
Quillibrace turned towards her.
“Exactly.”
There was a brief silence.
“So,” said Blottisham slowly, “myth is neither literal description nor arbitrary invention.”
“No.”
“It is a mode of construal.”
“Yes.”
Blottisham looked pleased with himself.
“That is also rather good.”
“I was agreeing with you.”
“I know.”
Miss Stray laughed.
Quillibrace continued.
“This is why mythology is so closely connected with metaphor. Metaphor allows meaning to become material for further meaning-making. Mythology allows those meanings to become culturally organised into worlds.”
“And Genesis,” said Blottisham, “organises a world in which creation, differentiation, order, value and humanity all belong together.”
“Yes.”
He thought for a moment.
“Then Genesis is interesting not merely because ancient people believed that the universe began this way.”
“No.”
“It is interesting because a language-using species turned its meaning-making capacity upon the question of the world itself.”
Quillibrace smiled.
“And what happened?”
Blottisham looked around the common room.
“We got a world we could speak about.”
“A world that could be symbolised.”
“A world in which we could find ourselves.”
“And eventually,” said Miss Stray, “a world in which we could ask what it means to be human.”
Blottisham was silent.
Then he said, “I think I prefer that to saying the myth is simply wrong.”
Quillibrace regarded him carefully.
“I thought you might.”
Blottisham frowned.
“Don't sound so surprised.”
“I wasn't.”
Miss Stray looked from one to the other.
“Perhaps that is the philosophical power of myth.”
Quillibrace nodded.
“It does not merely tell us what to think.”
Blottisham completed the thought.
“It gives us somewhere to think.”
Quillibrace looked at him.
“Yes.”
Blottisham smiled.
“Annoyingly, I think that one is worth keeping.”
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