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From: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
Subject: Re: a "dormitive virtue""
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Date: Tue, 8 Aug 1995 14:54:29 GMT
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In article <405u4u$6ju@rebecca.albany.edu>, labonnes@csc.albany.edu (S. LaBonne) writes:
|> In article <400k4k$djp@news.service.uci.edu>,
|> Fritz Lehmann <flehmann@orion.oac.uci.edu> wrote:
|> 
|> >     Within logic, the "dormitive virtue" joke is not necessarily always
|> >a joke, to the discerning at least.
|> 
|> And this is even true to the discerning _biochemist_ such as yours
|> truly.  The "dormitive virtue" explanation of the narcotic action of
|> opium is 1) correct as far as it goes, in that it implies that the
|> narcotic effect is due to  _intrinsic chemical properties of opium_,
|> _plus_ the _propensity of these properties to produce certain effects_ on
|> the brain; and

It implies no such thing.  This is how *you* now choose to interpret
"dormitive virtue" given *your* current knowldege of biochemistry.
It is *not* what the phrase *means* (and certainly not what the phrase
*meant*).  It is rather, your current explanation of why something
*has* a dormitive virtue.

|> 2) probably as good an explanation as the 17th century
|> could possibly have come up with.  (Try to frame a better one in the
|> context of the available chemical and biological knowledge in Moliere's
|> time!)

It is not an *explanation* at all.  It is simply the use of different
words with the same semantics to describe a phenomenon.  Your
revisionist attempt to attach different semantics to one of the
phrases ("dormitive virtue") could not -- even if successful --
affect the explanatory power of the phrase and its use in the
17th century.

-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, Compiler and Tools Division]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
