Examine
"To solve a problem well, Charles, examine it from every angle. Do not rush, do not be careless in your analysis. Thesis -- antithesis -- synthesis. That is true understanding."
- - - - -
He could almost hear Professor Hicks' voice. He had been thirteen years old, struggling through his first days at St. John's, homesick and overwhelmed by the strange environment. This professor had introduced him to philosophy and logic; he had taught him confidence in his intellectual prowess. That intellect had never yet let him down.
Thesis: A Winchester held no irrational fears. Antithesis: He feared death, feared it with a childlike agony that defeated every attempt to bring the problem before his mind.
He gathered data. His whole professional life, he had gathered data. Life was the result of the healthy and vigorous operation of that marvelous machine, the body. Death was the absence of something that he could not know, could not name or chart or account for. Which meant that life itself was unknowable.
Synthesis. Synthesis lay in a dying boy's eyes, in whatever he did or didn't see.
"Please, I have to know." Charles heard the catch in his own voice and mentally cursed his weakness. He swallowed and tried to speak more plainly. "What is happening to you?"
The boy's head shook slightly from side to side. His attention seemed to be elsewhere. "I smell bread," he said, quite clearly.
Charles blinked in confusion. "I don't understand," he said. He gripped the boy's hand a little tighter. The boy took a last choking breath and was gone.
- - - - -
"On the other hand, Charles, we must never forget the limits of philosophy. The last words of the immortal Peter Abelard, it is said, were 'I don't know.'"
Some lessons had been harder than others.