There is a point in every life at which the protagonist will develop a desire to know herself, her true place in the world, her society, her body, her mind. It can begin with two different initial conditions, at an arbitrary point in her life. In the first condition, she becomes too comfortable with her existence without understanding it and yearns for justification, not necessarily change. In the second, there is a sense of oddness, of a bad fit, a slanting horizon in the image of her life, that the protagonist wishes to adjust. That she will ever reach a happy medium is debatable, but the tools of adjustment and justification, once acquired, will ensure a satisfactory range of feeling. These tools can only come from an academic study of knowledge, reality, and existence: the standard definition of “philosophy”. They may come from periods of intense thought and concentration, or in incandescent flashes of realization – a photo-op of the mind. Usually, these two systems are intertwined, and follow or lead as the mind navigates its task. We do not travel alone on this journey, nor are we the first to walk that path. Others have gone before, and the broken flash bulbs of inspiration litter the way, while the ideas hang above them, shining as brightly as when they were first conceived.
In the beginning, our protagonist is unaware of the potential photogenic possibilities of her way of life; “as a stream necessarily follows the several inclinations of the ground on which it runs, so are the ignorant and thoughtless part of mankind actuated by their natural propensities.” (Hume 103). She is Dante in a dark wood, unsure of her way and being turned in circles by obstacles. There are many ways to try, many mistakes to be made, “but if mistakes be often, be inevitably committed, let us register these mistakes; let us consider their causes; let us weigh their importance; let us inquire for their remedies.” (Hume 86). In this way she will advance, by trial and retrial, error and success, over- and underexposure, and when she has “fixed all the rules of conduct”, and “reduced these rules to practice”, her composition will be complete (Hume 86). This process is not random, rather she must establish her ideal, be cognizant of her own deviations from this ideal, and constantly correct herself, “by a continual effort, from the vices, towards the virtues”, and in time she will be transformed for the better (Hume 104). This is a personal journey, but one which requires a guide, a professional shutterbug. If our protagonist has the luxury of time-travel at her disposal, she might choose so great a poet as Virgil, so high-minded a man as Mohandas K., so masterful a lensman as Ansel, to be her guide, in person. If she has the great fortune to know a great man in her own age, she may consult him on the matter, although he might say: “I shall deliver my opinion on the matter, and shall only desire you to esteem it of as little consequence as I do myself.” (Hume 97). Yet this man is a wise man, and only says this that she might not lose the ability to know “by common prudence and discretion” what the next step will be (Hume 97). However, if she has neither time travel nor a suitable contemporary available to her, she must turn to learned pursuits, to study the craft, in which “we choose our favourite author as we do our friend, from a conformity of humour and disposition” (Hume 150). She must do this with a very strict criteria, choosing those who “have fixed all the rules of conduct”, in a word, philosophers (Hume 86) If she finds none of these to be fitting, she must consider the cause, and remedy it. This is a readjustment of her values, a move toward a more studious way of life. She must understand that “when we find a man who arrives at such a pitch of wisdom as is very uncommon, we pronounce him a wise man: so that to say there are few wise men in the world, is really to say nothing; since it is only by their scarcity that they merit that appellation.” (Hume 46) She is faced with a circular decision: in order to utilize the tools necessary to arrive at her ideal, her ideal must be one in which mastery of those tools is a necessity.
Is she capable of this (perhaps immeasurable) leap of faith? To make herself in this image? “Some exalt our species to the skies, and represent man as a kind of human demigod, who derives his origin from heaven, and retains evident marks of his lineage and descent. Others insist upon the blind sides of human nature, and can discover nothing, except vanity, in which man surpasses the other animals, whom he affects so much to despise.”(Hume 43) She must be aware of this, in her choice, that there are many ways of exposing herself, of subjecting herself to light, and remember, he who would form an image “above all consults himself; the being conscious that he himself thinks” (Cronk 56). This is her internal nature, it is hers to frame, to fit to her ideal.
At this point, she may consider surrender, a throwing in of the lens-cloth. The unyielding tides of fortune and passion may prove too much, the obstacles too great. And yet, even “the richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds; and instead of vines and olives for the pleasure and use of man, produces, to its slothful owner, the most abundant crop of poisons.” (Hume 85). This is also true of the poorest wit, perhaps more so, since the owner of this rubber hammer will suffer a slow poisoning, and may not be sufficiently weakened to the point of recognition of the disease. Regardless of these two extremes, whenever the point may come, eventually “your indolence itself becomes a fatigue; your pleasure itself creates disgust.” (Hume 87) She must recognize this in her pursuit, and know that “Man can only have a certain number of teeth, hairs, and ideas; there comes a time when he must lose his teeth, his hair, and his ideas” (Edwards 136), and at that point, all is lost. She must be driven to her objective knowing that “all men, like animals and plants, are sent into the world to grow” (Cronk 139). To grow, to develop her image is inherently possible through her nature, in that “we are so greatly obliged to the author of nature, that he has made uneasiness inseparable from inactivity, in order to force us, by that means, to be useful both to our neighbour and ourselves.” (Cronk 138) Nor should her shortcomings and conflicts discourage her, for “those contrarieties, which you call contradictions, are so many necessary ingredients to the composition of man, who is just what he ought to be” (Cronk 125). All of humanity enjoys these contradictions in some form or another, there are many people in the world.
“A delicate sense of morals, especially when attended with a splenetic temper, is apt to give a man a disgust of the world, and to make him consider the common course of human affairs with too much indignation” (Hume 43). She, our amateur sage, wishes to capture the best in the world, in society, that which is most fitting to her philosophical tools. She is almost forced into this by the path she travels. However, she must bear in mind that to every man “his own pursuits are always, in his account, the most engaging, the objects of his passion the most valuable, and the road which he pursues the only one that leads to happiness.” (Hume 95). This is spurious, as her guide will show her: “every one’s experience may convince him that each of these kinds of life is agreeable in its turn, and that their variety or their judicious mixture chiefly contributes to the rendering all of them agreeable” (Hume 96). In a further, more exacting and more contrary example: “the most astonishing, the most useful Inventions, are not those which reflect the greatest Honour on the human Mind. ‘Tis to a mechanical Instinct, which is found in many Men, and not to true Philosophy, that most Arts owe their Origin.” (Cronk 51). The film, the camera, the very process by which she enlightens herself, the books she is reading, the presses that printed them, would not be possible without a rude mechanical’s work in the past, who made possible these forms of art by which she seeks to decorate her image. When she quotes: “I feel a pleasure in doing good to my friend, because I love him; but do not love him for the sake of that pleasure” (Hume 48) we should remind her that these men of the past are her friends, since they have indirectly helped her in this exact manner. Thus she must exist in her society, and draw from it her images, yet must not do so selectively, but rather enjoy the whole as it is. She is still bound by moral duties, chemistry, and physics: “when this burning wood is extinguished, I am no longer warm; when the air no longer vibrates, I no longer hear anything; when this rose withers, I no longer smell it; but this wood, this air, and this rose have extension without any participation on my part.” (Edwards 128) It is these morals and sciences that shape her subjectivity, fix her images, and bend her light and keep her camera hanging around her neck, rather than floating away from this planet. The course of her journey, her search for those perfect shots, the tools by which she will reach her goal, both influence and are influenced by her knowledge of the world, her own rules of conduct, which are now becoming fixed. Her image is sharpening, the ideal image is coming into focus. The true, unassuming, glorious, immaculate composition is almost here.
“According to this short and imperfect sketch of human life, the happiest disposition of mind is the virtuous; or, in other words, that which leads to action and employment, renders us sensible to the social passions, steels the heart against the assaults of fortune, reduces the affection to a just moderation, makes our own thoughts an entertainment to us, and inclines us rather to the pleasures of society and conversation than to those of the senses.” (Hume 102) This ultimately, is her happy medium, her squared horizon, her properly (not perfectly) exposed, framed, focused image, the model she has constructed, using her philosophical tools. She can speak, and tell the world of her findings, show them her portfolio, her icing on the cake: “glory is the portion of virtue, the sweet reward of honorable toils, the triumphant crown which covers the thoughtful head of the disinterested patriot, or the dusty brow of the victorious warrior” (Hume 90), or the undistinguished cap of a satisfied photographer.
“But if ever this infirmity of philosophers is to be suspected on any occasion, it
is in their reasonings concerning human life, and the methods of attaining happiness.” (Hume 95)
“Men may well be sensible of the value of virtue, and may desire to attain it;
but it is not always certain that they will be successful in their wishes.” (Hume 103)
Cronk, Nicholas. Letters concerning the English Nation. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Edwards, Paul. Selections. New York: Macmillan, 1989.
Hume, David et.al. Selected Essays. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1998.
