The Good Apprentice (5 page)

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Authors: Iris Murdoch

BOOK: The Good Apprentice
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‘Stuart is late,’ said Thomas.
‘He’s probably at a prayer meeting,’ said Harry.
‘But Stuart doesn’t believe in God,’ said Midge.
‘That doesn’t stop him. And to do him justice, I don’t really think it’s a sect, he’s doing it all on his own, he thinks he’s got a mission to mankind, he’s waiting for it all to start, he’s expecting the first miracle.’
‘I’ll have some jugs of water ready for him in the kitchen.’
‘I suppose he reads lots of oriental books like they all do,’ said Willy.
‘No, he doesn’t, he reads nothing, he doesn’t like any form of art, he hasn’t any friends, he just sits wrestling with himself, wondering what the purehearted young idealist does now!’
‘It’s an out-of-date question,’ said Midge.
‘He’s an out-of-date boy.’
‘You said once he wanted to be a soldier.’
‘That was ages ago, just symbolic, the idea of duty and obedience, and a life of monkish deprivation. He wants to be like Job, always in the wrong before God, only he’s got to do it without God.’
‘Does he want martyrdom then?’ said Ursula.
‘I expect so. He’ll probably die young, in the sea or underneath a train or — ’
‘Not suicide?’
‘No, no, stupidly trying to save somebody’s life. He’s a retarded schoolboy.’
‘Stuart
thinks
before he laughs at a joke,’ said Midge, ‘and then if he does laugh, he laughs loudly like a child.’
‘No
risqué
jokes when he’s around!’
‘Is it true he’s taken an oath of celibacy?’ said Willy. ‘How’s it done?’
‘At his age it’s impossible,’ said Midge, ‘he just lacks confidence. I’ll find him a girl. He wants to draw attention to himself. It’s a cry for help.’
‘No, he takes it all seriously,’ said Harry.
‘All what?’ said Thomas.
‘About being good, being perfect!’
‘Well, I suppose it was meant to be — ’
‘Can he do anything for Edward?’ said Willy.
‘No, he’s too self-obsessed, he scarcely knows that Edward exists, and they never really got on — ’
‘I think Stuart was wrongly advised at the start,’ said Ursula, ‘don’t you agree, Willy? He ought to have done biological sciences. But really he’s all right, he’s just having a schoolboy religious crisis a bit late in the day, he always was a slow sort of chap.’
‘I suppose it’s nuclear war,’ said Midge, ‘the young say it hangs over us all.’
‘I confess I don’t notice it all that much,’ said Ursula, ‘but then I’m so busy.’
‘Stuart is more worried about computers,’ said Harry.
‘Computers?’ said Ursula. ‘But they’re man’s best friends. They’re invaluable in medicine.’
‘Harry, you’ve hurt your hand,’ said Midge. ‘It looks like a burn.’
‘It is a burn. What do you prescribe, Ursula?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Trying to bring home a point to Edward, I picked up a red hot coal.’
‘Was he impressed?’ said Midge.
‘Stuart has moved in on me, he arrived yesterday with all his stuff. He’s terminated his grant, and his digs, he didn’t have to, typical youthful selfishness at someone else’s expense. And of course Edward’s been at home since that business. I’m cooking for those two loutish boys now,
and
one’s a vegetarian!’
‘You love cooking,’ said Midge. ‘Oh dear, the cheese soufflé will be spoiling. Stuart will have to miss his drink.’
‘Drink? He doesn’t
drink,’
said Harry. ‘He’s like a camel as far as serious liquid refreshment is concerned.’
‘I must go,’ said Willy.
The door bell rang. Midge went.
Willy turned to Thomas. He was red in the face, as if near to tears. Ursula came to him and took his arm. Willy said to Thomas, ‘How absolutely lovely Midge looks tonight.’
‘Yes,’ said Thomas, ‘she is so warm, a life-giver.’ Thomas sounded insincere, almost ironical, but one never knew with Thomas.
Ursula led Willy to the door and out of the room. She returned. ‘I don’t know whether it was Midge or the whisky or the camel!’
Stuart Cuno walked in.
Stuart was as tall as Edward but more robustly made. He had a large pale face and pretty lips and blond hair, golden like his father’s used to be, but cut shorter. His eyes were a light amber brown, almost yellow, like the eyes of an animal. Someone had once likened Stuart to a plump white grub with a big head emerging from an apple, but the image was unjust. Stuart was physically abrupt, ungainly, not at home in space, but not unimpressive. Meredith followed him in.
Stuart, ignoring his hosts, was saying to Meredith, ‘Yes, we’ll fix a day, now I’m settled in we can go running again.’ Stuart and Meredith had been fellow joggers for more than a year. Meredith nodded his head slowly and emphatically several times.
Midge called them in to dinner.
 
 
‘So you think only religion will save us from the wrath to come?’ said Ursula to Stuart.
Dinner was far advanced. Meredith had retired to bed. They were eating cheese. Edward, to whom everyone kept turning with kind bright attention, was mainly silent, but had been forced to make a few simple remarks.
‘It isn’t religion he’s got,’ said Harry. ‘You can’t have religion without God.’
‘But he said that nothing was more important than the future of religion on this planet.’
‘I think he should have a uniform,’ said Midge.
‘I suggest a sheet,’ said Harry.
Stuart smiled.
‘You can tuck into the cheese,’ said Midge to Stuart. ‘I’m terribly sorry I forgot to make you a proper vegetarian dish.’
‘I’ve eaten plenty,’ said Stuart. It was true. He was always hungry. ‘The cabbage was marvellous,’ he added.
‘Edward, do have some cheese,’ said Midge, ‘it’s the kind you like.’
‘But what exactly is it you’re so afraid of?’ said Ursula. ‘Of course there’s nuclear warfare and atomic waste and all that, but you seem to be simply afraid of science.’
‘Doesn’t science prove free will nowadays?’ said Midge.
‘I think you hate science,’ said Ursula, ‘and that upsets me.’
‘But of course I’ve had no education,’ said Midge, ‘and I can’t understand these things.’
‘Don’t show off!’ said Harry.
‘You hate mathematics because that’s the future,’ said Ursula. ‘Actually the human race will be finished off by molecular biology, but we keep that dark.’
‘I’m tired of this century,’ said Harry. ‘I want to start living in the next one.’
‘Isn’t it true that science proves free will?’ said Midge to Thomas. ‘They used to think that everything was like a machine, and now they think it’s all random.’
‘I don’t think either of those ideas has anything to do with free will,’ said Thomas.
‘Personally I find the idea of the nuclear bomb attractive,’ said Harry. ‘Get rid of all that messy accumulated past, all those old ideas and things, shake up the collective psyche. Don’t you think, Thomas?’
‘I want to know what Stuart’s
after,’
said Ursula. ‘You’re
scared,
there’s something you
hate,
and which is making you act in this funny way.’
‘Stuart thinks the world is the work of Satan,’ said Harry.
‘Help him, Thomas,’ said Midge. ‘Don’t just sit mum, you’re as bad as Edward.’
Thomas said, ‘The devil made everything except one thing which he continually looks for but cannot find.’
‘Helpful old Jewish saying,’ said Ursula. ‘Well, the Greeks said God was always doing geometry, modern physicists say he’s playing roulette, everything depends on the observer, the universe is a totality of observations, it’s a work of art created by us — ’
‘Quantum physics is the language of nature,’ said Midge.
‘Who says so?’ said Thomas.
‘I do. I heard it on TV. And the subatomic world needs us to rescue it from chaos. It all sounds perfectly mad. No wonder there are terrorists. No wonder we need religion.’
‘If Newton hadn’t believed in God he would have discovered relativity,’ said Ursula.
‘There you are!’ said Harry.
‘A machine can be cleverer than a man now,’ said Midge.
‘And wiser and better,’ said Harry. ‘It stands to reason. The computer age is just beginning. Even now a machine can see infinitely more than we can, see it faster, discern more details, make more connections, correct itself, teach itself, learn new skills which we can’t even conceive of. A machine is
objective
It’s a matter of flesh and blood, it’s a matter of nerve cells, we are puny, we are imperfect, these things are gods. A computer could run a state better than a human being — ’
‘Aren’t we already run by computers,’ said Midge. ‘Isn’t there one at Downing Street which does the budget?’
‘They could help us to redesign ourselves, and we certainly need redesigning! They offer us a vision of the human mind, glorified, clarified and fortified, we can learn about ourselves by watching them, improve ourselves by imitating them — ’
‘Come on, Stuart,’ said Thomas.
‘A machine doesn’t think — ’ said Stuart. ‘A machine can’t even simulate the human mind.’
‘Why not?’ said Harry.
‘You mean it’s syntactical not semantical?’ said Ursula. ‘Isn’t that what they say now? Or that it has mind but not consciousness?’
‘Because we are always involved in distinguishing between good and evil.’
‘Surely not always,’ said Ursula, ‘not even often.’
‘Who is to judge the wisdom of a machine, another machine? Human minds are possessed by individual persons, they are soaked in values, even perception is evaluation.’
‘But isn’t serious thinking supposed to be neutral?’ said Ursula. ‘We get away from all that personal stuff.’
‘Serious thinking depends on the justice and truthfulness of the thinker, it depends on the continuous pressure of his mind upon — ’
‘That’s a different point,’ said Ursula, ‘the chap’s got to be OK, and of course discoveries can be used rightly or wrongly, but the thinking itself can be pure, without values, like genuine science, like maths, like — at any rate that’s the ideal and — ’
‘You can’t just switch it on,’ said Stuart, ‘as you say it’s an ideal, science is an ideal, and partly an illusion. Our trust in science as reason is something frail. Wittgenstein thought that the idea of a man on the moon was not only unreasonable, but forbidden by our whole system of physics!’
‘Stuart just despises empiricism,’ said Harry, ‘he’s opting for the life of the emotions.’
‘You mean there are wicked scientists?’ said Midge. ‘Or computers could go mad?’
‘Not just that,’ said Stuart. ‘It’s not just on the outside, about using discoveries, or as if a man just had to be serious and could then switch to being neutral. Being objective is being truthful, making right judgments is a moral activity, all thinking is a function of morality, it’s done by humans, it’s touched by values right into its centre, empirical science is no exception — ’
‘All right then,’ said Ursula, ‘but there is an exception and it’s mathematics, and
that’s
why you’re giving it up! It’s the only thing which whoever made
your
world didn’t make and is always looking for to destroy it, and I’m against him!
You’d
like to destroy it — ’
‘So it’s all relative?’ said Midge. ‘I’m getting muddled.’
‘No, he is,’ said Harry.
‘Well, maths is an oddity,’ said Stuart, ‘though it’s just our thinking too, and more confused than outsiders imagine. It’s impressive, it looks as if it’s all there and can’t be wrong, we call it a language — But it can’t be a model for the mind, it’s not a super-mind, computer logic can’t be a model for the mind, there’s no ideal model and there can’t be because minds are persons, they’re moral and spiritual all the way through, the idea of a machine isn’t in place, artificial intelligence is a misnomer — ’
‘Now he slips in “spiritual”!’ said Harry. ‘You want to make everything moral, that’s your version of religion, you want to push what’s really objective and factual into a corner. But the lesson of our age is the opposite, modern science has abolished the difference between good and evil, there isn’t anything deep, that’s the message of the modern world, science is what’s deep, Ursula’s right, mathematics is the pure case, and that’s the point, because mathematics is everywhere, it’s swept the board, biology is maths now, isn’t that so, Ursula, the language of the planet is mathematics — ’
‘You’re drunk,’ said Ursula.
‘What
are
you afraid of,’ said Thomas to Stuart. ‘Can you give it a name?’
‘Oh — all that, what we’ve been talking about.’

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