Reber Johnson a violinist also got off another one, after I'd played over the Second Violin Sonata for himthat harmless piece. 'After stuff like that'he said'if you consider that music, and like it, how can you like Brahms or any good music' That is a very common attitude among almost all the well known lilies. They take it i.e., that attitude for granteda kind of self-evident axiom, a settled-for-life matter, ipso facto, admitting of no argument. The classical is good for all time, the modern is bad for all timeso if you like one, you can't like the other. Describing the reaction of a typical professional musician to his, and other twentieth-century, compositions. 'Lilies' was one of Ives' names for most of the concert goers of his era, who expected all music to be conventional and pretty.
Quotes about ipso (3 Quotes)
Let us suppose that an ichthyologist is exploring the life of the ocean. He casts a net into the water and brings up a fishy assortment. Surveying his catch, he proceeds in the usual manner of a scientist to systematise what it reveals. He arrives at two generalisations (1) No sea-creature is less than two inches long (2) All sea-creatures have gills. These are both true of his catch, and he assumes tentatively that they will remain true however often he repeats it. In applying this analogy, the catch stands for the body of knowledge which constitutes physical science, and the net for the sensory and intellectual equipment which we use in obtaining it. The casting of the net corresponds to observation for knowledge which has not been or could not be obtained by observation is not admitted into physical science. An onlooker may object that the first generalization is wrong. 'There are plenty of sea-creatures under two inches long, only your net is not adapted to catch them.' The icthyologist dismisses this objection contemptuously. 'Anything uncatchable by my net is ipso facto outside the scope of icthyological knowledge. In short, 'what my net can't catch isn't fish.' Or - to translate the analogy - 'If you are not simply guessing, you are claiming a knowledge of the physical universe discovered in some other way than by the methods of physical science, and admittedly unverifiable by such methods. You are a metaphysician. Bah'
Cell and tissue, shell and bone, leaf and flower, are so many portions of matter, and it is in obedience to the laws of physics that their particles have been moved, moulded and conformed. They are no exceptions to the rule that God always geometrizes. Their problems of form are in the first instance mathematical problems, their problems of growth are essentially physical problems, and the morphologist is, ipso facto, a student of physical science.