James McBey's Explanation Regarding Frontispiece of Dinner Menu, Portfolio of Menu Cards and Letters Relating to the Khayyam Club
AuthorWritten by
James McBey
(Newburgh, Scotland, 1883 - 1959)
AssociatedAssociated with
The Omar Khayyam Club
Date1937
Object NameEssay
Mediumpaper
ClassificationsMcBey
Dimensions25.3 x 20.2cm
AcquisitionPresented in 1988 by Mrs Marguerite McBey.
Copyright© Aberdeen City Council (McBey Collection)
LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub
Object numberABDAG008362.5
Keywords
The explanation has been typed in two different directions, across two sheets, and reads:
"It is a commonplace that the direct apprehension of a reality is only possible through a subjective participation, and as a corollary to this it follows that the relation between objective and subjective apprehension is an absolute interaction.
There is no such thing as unconditional antecedence and consequence: there is only a series of immediate sequences, making their continuity continually more absolute until the momentum has been transferred from one molecule to another.
As one of our modern poets has profoundly remarked: 'There are almost as many kinds of flowers as there are glass stoppers'. The primary and secondary qualities of matter are ideal relations co-existent only in eternity and mind is not opposed as inextended to an eternal reality.
Causation is therefore a relation of antecedence and consequence, and everything in nature (and art) involves the existence of its contradictory under the law of complimentary opposition.
Extension is not an attribute of things in themselves, but an intellectual construction; in other words, an idea of reflection.
The sub-consciousness extending into four dimensional space repeat all the characteristics of space except its illimitable extension, just as time has a circular, not as is generally considered, a progressive movement.
The conditional synthesis of the understanding, involving the unconditional synthesis of the reason, ends in a dizzy paralogism"
A humorous account of how the explanation was received is given at the bottom of the second sheet - President Low (cartoonist), who invited McBey to give the explanation, claimed he would take the essay home to give to his dog to "chew over", Walter de le Mare wondered if the word "night" should be added to his name, and Professor Plimmer remained convinced that McBey was suffering from a "maladjustment of the cerebral cortex".
Established in 1892, the Omar Khayyam Club of London was set up for the purpose of appreciating good company, good food, and the works of Omar Khayyam. Many well-known authors and artists became club members, including James McBey, Arthur Conan Doyle, and A.A. Milne.
This object is part of an archive that belonged to Marguerite McBey. As a result of her generosity, Aberdeen Art Gallery holds the largest archive of James McBey's work, including prints, drawings, sketchbooks, oil paintings and memorabilia such as this essay.
late 14th-early 15th Century
Thomas Brown
Bill Baxter
Bill Baxter
Mary Garden
