The Senior Common Room was unusually quiet.
Professor Quillibrace was reading.
Miss Stray was looking out of the window.
Mr Blottisham was standing beside the fireplace holding a stone.
“I have solved it,” he announced.
Quillibrace did not look up.
“Have you?”
“Yes.”
Miss Stray turned.
“What have you solved?”
“The people.”
There was a pause.
Quillibrace closed his book.
“That is rarely a promising beginning.”
“They don't understand anything.”
Miss Stray smiled.
“What makes you say that?”
“They don't know why they do things.”
Blottisham held up the stone.
“They put stones beside trees. They walk around trees. They leave cups beside trees. They put newspapers under trees. They draw pictures of trees that don't look like trees.”
He paused.
“Therefore they're all idiots.”
Miss Stray looked at Quillibrace.
Quillibrace looked at Blottisham.
“Yes,” he said eventually. “There it is.”
“There what is?”
“Your theory.”
“It's not a theory. It's an observation.”
“An observation followed immediately by a conclusion about their intelligence.”
“Well, yes.”
“That is not quite the same thing.”
Blottisham frowned.
“They don't know what the difference is.”
“Perhaps,” said Miss Stray.
“They don't know what the tree means.”
“Perhaps.”
“They don't even know why they are doing what they are doing.”
“Yes.”
Blottisham looked triumphant.
“Then they don't understand.”
Quillibrace leaned back.
“Do you know how to ride a bicycle?”
“Obviously.”
“Can you give me a complete account of the physics involved?”
“No.”
“Do you therefore not understand cycling?”
“That's different.”
“Why?”
“Because I can ride a bicycle.”
Quillibrace nodded.
“Exactly.”
Blottisham considered this.
Then he looked annoyed.
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves rather a lot.”
Miss Stray took the stone from him.
“The story makes a distinction between knowing what something is and knowing what to do with it.”
“Pragmatics,” said Blottisham.
“Not necessarily.”
“Meaning in context.”
“Closer.”
“Use.”
“Closer still.”
Blottisham brightened.
“Therefore it is about use.”
Quillibrace sighed.
“Not everything has to become a slogan.”
Miss Stray smiled.
“I think the more interesting point is that the people of Bellwether have acquired a distinction before they have formulated it.”
Blottisham looked at her.
“What distinction?”
“That.”
She pointed at the stone.
“The difference between an ordinary tree and that tree.”
Blottisham looked at it.
“That's just a tree.”
“Exactly.”
“But they behave differently around it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“They don't know.”
“And yet they do.”
“Yes.”
Blottisham stared at the stone.
“So they have a distinction they cannot state.”
Quillibrace nodded.
“Now you are getting somewhere.”
Blottisham paced.
“But surely if they cannot state the distinction, they don't possess it.”
“Why not?”
“Because a distinction has to be explicit.”
“According to whom?”
“According to me.”
“That explains a great deal.”
Miss Stray laughed.
Blottisham ignored her.
“If you cannot tell me what the distinction is, how do you know that there is one?”
“Because you can observe the difference in what people do.”
“Then behaviour is enough?”
“No.”
“Then what is enough?”
Miss Stray thought for a moment.
“Perhaps nothing is enough by itself.”
Blottisham looked dissatisfied.
“That sounds suspiciously philosophical.”
“It is.”
“Can we have something more practical?”
Quillibrace said, “The child putting the stone down is practical.”
Blottisham looked at him.
“She doesn't know why she does it.”
“But she knows what to do.”
“So?”
“So the distinction exists in a form that need not yet be a definition.”
Blottisham stopped pacing.
“A form?”
“A way of participating.”
There was a knock at the door.
Nobody answered.
The door opened.
A young man entered carrying a cup.
He looked around.
“Excuse me.”
“Yes?” said Quillibrace.
“I've brought this.”
He held up the cup.
“What is it?” asked Blottisham.
“A cup.”
“Why have you brought it here?”
“I don't know.”
“Where did you get it?”
“The café.”
“Why did you take it?”
“I don't know.”
“Why did you bring it here?”
The young man looked embarrassed.
“It seemed necessary.”
Blottisham turned triumphantly to Quillibrace.
“You see?”
Quillibrace nodded.
“I do.”
“The man doesn't understand his own behaviour.”
“Apparently not.”
“Therefore—”
“Don't.”
Blottisham stopped.
The young man looked at the cup.
Then at the fireplace.
Then at a small table near the window.
He walked over and put the cup on it.
Everyone watched.
The room seemed to settle.
Miss Stray looked at him.
“Why there?”
He shrugged.
“I don't know.”
Then he left.
Blottisham waited until the door closed.
“That's ridiculous.”
“Yes,” said Miss Stray.
“And yet,” said Quillibrace, “you knew he had put it in the right place.”
Blottisham opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Looked at the cup.
“I did.”
“How?”
“I don't know.”
There was a silence.
Miss Stray smiled.
Blottisham walked over to the cup.
“I still think the people are idiots.”
Quillibrace reopened his book.
“Of course.”
“But perhaps not because they don't understand.”
“No?”
“Perhaps because they understand too much.”
Miss Stray looked up.
“That is more interesting.”
Blottisham pointed at the cup.
“They can participate in a distinction without having reduced it to a definition.”
“Yes.”
“So they can know more than they can say.”
“Yes.”
“That's inconvenient.”
“Very.”
“Because then language isn't the source of all meaning.”
Quillibrace paused.
“That is a considerably larger claim.”
“I know.”
“And not one the story establishes.”
“I know.”
Miss Stray looked at him.
“You've surprised me.”
“Don't worry.”
Blottisham smiled.
“I haven't finished.”
He picked up the stone again.
“What about the tree?”
“What about it?” asked Quillibrace.
“Suppose nobody had noticed it.”
“Then?”
“Would the difference still exist?”
Quillibrace considered.
“The physical difference, presumably.”
“But not the social one.”
“Perhaps.”
“So noticing changes what the difference can do.”
Miss Stray nodded.
“Now you're onto something.”
Blottisham looked pleased.
“I thought so.”
“The tree was already different,” she continued. “But once someone noticed the difference, other people could begin to participate in it.”
“And then,” said Blottisham, “the distinction became historical.”
Quillibrace looked up.
“Yes.”
“Because each person's response became part of the circumstances for the next person's response.”
“Yes.”
Blottisham put the stone down.
“Morphic resonance.”
Quillibrace sighed.
“There it is.”
“I knew you'd say that.”
“I did not.”
“The tree becomes noticeable. People respond. Their responses make further responses easier. The pattern acquires a history.”
Miss Stray nodded.
“That is certainly one way of reading the story.”
“Therefore Sheldrake was right.”
“No.”
Blottisham frowned.
“You always spoil the ending.”
“Because a story can explore the consequences of a hypothesis without establishing the hypothesis.”
“So the town might be explained by social learning.”
“Yes.”
“Habit.”
“Yes.”
“Expectation.”
“Yes.”
“Imitation.”
“Yes.”
“Or morphic resonance.”
“As a fictional possibility, yes.”
Blottisham smiled.
“Excellent.”
Quillibrace narrowed his eyes.
“What?”
“I've just noticed that you said possibility.”
“Yes.”
“So the story has now acquired another distinction.”
Miss Stray laughed.
“I'm afraid it has.”
Blottisham returned to his chair.
“But there is something else.”
Quillibrace looked suspicious.
“What?”
“The first person.”
“The first person to notice the tree?”
“Yes.”
“What about them?”
“They didn't inherit the distinction.”
“No.”
“They had to notice something before anyone else could participate in it.”
“Yes.”
“So novelty comes before history.”
Miss Stray nodded slowly.
“That may be the most important point.”
Blottisham looked pleased again.
“First someone notices a difference.”
“Yes.”
“Then someone else notices the noticing.”
“Yes.”
“Then a practice develops.”
“Yes.”
“Then the practice becomes easier.”
“Yes.”
“Then people forget why they started doing it.”
Quillibrace smiled.
“Yes.”
“And eventually they call it tradition.”
Nobody spoke.
Blottisham looked around.
“I've solved culture.”
Quillibrace picked up his book.
“No.”
“I've solved something.”
“Possibly.”
“I'll take it.”
There was another knock.
The door opened.
A little girl entered carrying a drawing.
She placed it on the table.
It was a picture of the Senior Common Room.
The room was badly drawn.
The fireplace was enormous.
The windows were in the wrong place.
There were three Quillibraces.
Two Miss Strays.
And five Blottishams.
Blottisham stared at it.
“That's inaccurate.”
The girl looked at him.
“I know.”
“Then why draw it?”
She shrugged.
“It seemed right.”
Blottisham looked at Quillibrace.
Quillibrace looked at Miss Stray.
Miss Stray looked at the picture.
“Do you know which one is you?” she asked Blottisham.
He pointed.
“That one.”
“Why?”
Blottisham hesitated.
“I don't know.”
The girl picked up the drawing.
“That's all right.”
She walked to the door.
Before leaving, she turned.
“You don't have to know.”
The door closed.
Blottisham sat very still.
After a moment he said:
“I think I understand.”
Quillibrace looked over his glasses.
“What?”
Blottisham pointed towards the closed door.
“I don't understand what she meant.”
Miss Stray smiled.
“No.”
“But I know what to do with it.”
Quillibrace closed his book.
For once, he said nothing.
From somewhere outside came the sound of a stone being placed on a table.
Then another.
Then another.
Nobody went to see who was doing it.
They already knew what it was for.
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