Does a donkey have to bray? 
Terry Eagleton
- Accident: A Philosophical and Literary History by Ross Hamilton Buy this book
It would be surprising if millions of ordinary people turned out to be familiar with the Platonic Forms or Spinoza’s doctrine of nature, yet millions of waiters, nurses and truck drivers have a working knowledge of Aristotle’s distinction between substance and accident. This is because they are Roman Catholics, and the Council of Trent drew on Aristotle’s teaching to account for how the bread and wine of the Eucharist are changed into the body and blood of Christ despite continuing to look and taste like bread and wine. In this way, one opaque doctrine was obscured by another.
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Terry Eagleton is John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at Manchester. His books include Literary Theory, After Theory and, most recently, The Meaning of Life.
Other articles by this contributor:
A Spot of Firm Government · Claude Rawson
Reach-Me-Down Romantic · For and Against Orwell
Newsreel History · Modern Times, Modern Places by Peter Conrad
In the Gaudy Supermarket · Gayatri Spivak
Coruscating on Thin Ice · The Divine Spark
Pork Chops and Pineapples · The Realism of Erich Auerbach
Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching · Terry Eagleton lambasts Richard Dawkins
Unhoused · anonymity
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