“There is much else in the literary idiom of nature-philosophy: nothing-buttery, for example, always part of the minor symptomatology of the bogus.”

1960s, Review of Teilhard de Chardin's "The Phenomenon of Man", 1961

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Peter Medawar40

scientist 1915–1987

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1960s, Review of Teilhard de Chardin's "The Phenomenon of Man", 1961

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“Our peasant music, naturally, is invariably tonal, if not always in the sense that the inflexible major and minor system is tonal.”

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Context: Our peasant music, naturally, is invariably tonal, if not always in the sense that the inflexible major and minor system is tonal. (An "atonal" folk-music, in my opinion, is unthinkable.) Since we depend upon a tonal basis of this kind in our creative work, it is quite self-evident that our works are quite pronouncedly tonal in type. I must admit, however, that there was a time when I thought I was approaching a species of twelve-tone music. Yet even in works of that period the absolute tonal foundation is unmistakable.

“There is much else in the literary idiom of nature-philosophy: nothing-buttery, for example, always part of the minor symptomatology of the bogus.”

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Peter Medawar40

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