An Instance of the Fingerpost
OCLC 37781458 | |
An Instance of the Fingerpost is a 1997 historical mystery novel by Iain Pears.
Synopsis
A murder in 17th-century
Most of the characters are historical figures. Two of the narrators are the mathematician
The accounts are written in the form of memoirs by each narrator many years after the events they describe, after Thomas Ken gained his Bishopric but before the death of Henry Bennet. This dates them to 1685, the last year of Charles' reign.
A contrast portrayed in the novel is, on one hand, a philosophy based on ancient and medieval learning, and, on the other, the scientific method that was beginning to be applied in physics, chemistry and medicine.
While much of the plot is laid in a concrete, historically accurate 17th century background, the book has a considerable
Title
The four parts of the novel are preceded by
- Among Prerogative Instances I will put in the fourteenth place Instances of the Fingerpost, borrowing the term from the fingerposts which are set up where roads part, to indicate the several directions. These I also call Decisive and Judicial, and in some cases, Oracular and Commanding Instances. I explain them thus. When in the investigation of any nature the understanding is so balanced as to be uncertain to which of two or more natures the cause of the nature in question should be assigned on account of the frequent and ordinary concurrence of many natures, instances of the fingerpost show the union of one of the natures with the nature in question to be sure and indissoluble, of the other to be varied and separable; and thus the question is decided, and the former nature is admitted as the cause, while the latter is dismissed and rejected. Such instances afford very great light and are of high authority, the course of interpretation sometimes ending in them and being completed. Sometimes these instances of the fingerpost meet us accidentally among those already noticed, but for the most part they are new, and are expressly and designedly sought for and applied, and discovered only by earnest and active diligence.
The term "fingerpost" is also an obscure synonym for prelate or priest, foreshadowing one of the book's main plot points.[2]
In the original Latin, the term "fingerpost" is simply "cross" (crucis), echoing the decisive "crucifixion" revealed in the story:
- Inter praerogativas instantiarum, ponemus loco decimo quarto Instantias Crucis; translato vocabulo a Crucibus, quae erectae in biviis indicant et signant viarum separationes. ...
Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, Book Two, "Aphorisms", Section XXXVI.
See also
- The Siege of Candia
- An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump
- Also compare: Ann Lee
- Rashomon effect
References
- British Medical JournalVol. 285, 18 December 1982 p. 1792
- OCLC 1050467752.