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Fourthly
I have four points, but they won’t explain everything
Ah, the modern folly of explanationism! — attempting to explain every mystery, and in the process generating other mysteries in need of explanation. In saying “modern,” by the way, I mean 20th-century.
I guess you could say that my forthcoming poetry book, Attis & Aleph: Poems of the Daimonic, reacts to explanationism and resists it. I’ve been looking for ways to describe (not explain) my book.
Patrick Harpur made a comment of this nature in his introduction to Daimonic Reality. Explanationism is a “peculiarly modern folly,” he wrote. This passage by Harpur contains the world’s most perfect use of the word “fourthly,” cherried on top by citing a man named Fort.
As someone prone to explanationism, I hear that “fourthly” ring out like a perfect fourth.
The next time I do an explanationism, I will start on my “fourthly.” Why not? It won’t have been the first time in my life I’ll have explained something anyway.
You’ll never guess, but in Chapter 1, it continues! Fairy forts! Also called forths!
I wouldn’t obstruct fairy traffic. Woe betide me if I get in the way of a good fourthly.
