New Theories of Everything (2007)
Context: Scanning the past millennia of human achievement reveals just how much has been achieved during the last three hundred years since Newton set in motion the effective mathematization of Nature. We found that the world is curiously adapted to a simple mathematical description. It is enigma enough that the world is described by mathematics; but by simple mathematics, of the sort that a few years energetic study now produces familiarity with, this is an enigma within an enigma.<!--Ch. 1, p. 2
Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter II, "Religion", pp. 143-4.
Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 170-171 ( 1846 edition http://books.google.com/books?id=UkoWAAAAYAAJ)
Context: This statistical regularity in moral affairs fully establishes their being under the presidency of law. Man is now seen to be an enigma only as an individual; in the mass he is a mathematical problem. It is hardly necessary to say, much less to argue, that mental action, being proved to be under law, passes at once into the category of natural things. Its old metaphysical character vanishes in a moment, and the distinction usually taken between physical and moral is annulled, as only an error in terms. This view agrees with what all observation teaches, that mental phenomena flow directly from the brain.
“Man himself is an enigma in motion”
Introduction
The Gods (1934)
Context: Man himself is an enigma in motion; his questions never stay asked; whereas the mold, the footprint, and by natural extension, the statue itself, like the vaults, the arches, the temples with which man records his own passing, remain immobile and fix a moment of man’s life, upon which one might endlessly meditate.
“The absurd and legendary devil is the enigma of the Church.”
The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (18 October 1890)
The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (1890 and 1891)
“Aren't you an enigma wrapped in a thick coating of contradictions.”
Source: Invincible
“I first heard of the 23 Enigma from William S. Burroughs”
"The 23 Phenomenon" in Fortean Times 23 (1977)<!-- DEAD LINK as of 2015·03·28 published online (May 2007) http://www.forteantimes.com/features/commentary/396/the_23_phenomenon.html -->, also quoted in "The hidden roots of the 23 Enigma" by Theo Paijmans at the Charles Forte Institute (13 May 2010) http://blogs.forteana.org/node/119
Context: I first heard of the 23 Enigma from William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, Nova Express, etc. According to Burroughs, he had known a certain Captain Clark, around 1960 in Tangier, who once bragged that he had been sailing 23 years without an accident. That very day, Clark’s ship had an accident that killed him and everybody else aboard. Furthermore, while Burroughs was thinking about this crude example of the irony of the gods that evening, a bulletin on the radio announced the crash of an airliner in Florida, USA. The pilot was another Captain Clark and the flight was Flight 23.
