The Metaphysical Club

Notes from “The Metaphysical Club” By Louis Menand (0-374-52849-7)

“The abolitionists were not interested in reform. They were interested in conversion”
Page 14

“On [Holmes’s] view, successful people, like Morgan an d Rockefeller, just had a better grasp of social tendencies than unsuccessful people did. Everyone is simply riding the wave chance has put them on. Some people know how to surf; some people drown.”
Page 26

“Pragmatically defined, variations are habits. They constitute a behavioral tendency - for if the had no behavioral consequences, they would have no evolutionary significance. Bigness in beak size is whatever big beaks do for you (if you are a finch), just as (to use an example from “How to Make Our Ideas Clear”) “hardness” is just the sum total of what all hard things do.”
Page 277