Does Smith assume that "produce is naturally distributed" (p. 128), or does he demonstrate it?

What is the point of the comparison between making nails and making pins (p. 133; Chapter 1)?

Do capitalists & landlords help further the division of labor, or are they simply side-effects of it?

Why does Smith believe that most people gain liberty as the division of labor advances?

Do you agree that habit, custom, & education account for almost all the differences in people's talents?

Schedule Change

The December 3rd meeting on Goethe's Sufferings of Young Werther had to be cancelled owing to illness on my part. At the next meeting, December 17, the group will discuss both Werther and the scheduled reading, a selection from Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations ("Introduction" and Chapters 1-8 of Book I). That meeting will begin at 7 PM, half an hour earlier than planned. Copies of both readings are available at the Q&A Desk on a first-come, first-served basis. - Hugh.2

Why can’t Werther pull himself away from Lotte?

Is Lotte in love with Werther?

Why doesn’t Albert get rid of Werther?

Is Goethe asking us to consider Werther’s suicide a rational decision? See especially the letter of 12 August 1771 (pp. 62-67).

Can you interpret the letter of 10 October 1772 (p. 104)? Why is written the way it is?

Who is the “editor?”

Does the full title of "Tintern Abbey" tell us anything important that we don't learn in the text?

What is the "presence" of l. 94?

In speaking "Of eye, and ear," what does Wordsworth mean by "both what they half create/And what perceive" (ll. 106-7)?

Why does Wordsworth say that "nature & the language of sense" are the "soul of all my moral being" (ll. 108-11)?

What role does Wordsworth's sister play in his sense of himself?

What are "the fields of sleep" (l. 28)?

Is it too much for Wordsworth to call the child "Thou best philospher" (l.111)?

What is the "primal sympathy" of l. 186?

What is the "one delight" (l. 195) that has been relinquished?

Why the highly varied line lengths & rhyme scheme?

Does Rousseau believe that people are motivated only by self-interest?

Does the social contract sometimes require one to act contrary to his own interests?

How can citizens be sure that laws are established by the "general will" rather than by a deluded "will of all" (p. 277)?

Why does Rousseau believe that a people can never be corrupted (p. 277)?

Why, according to Rousseau, is capital punishment legitimate but killing prisoners in time of war is not (pp. 268, 281-3)?

Are we presently living under the social contract?

Why make Dorothea and Celia orphans (Book 1.Chapter 1.Page 4)?

After Chapter 1, are there any examples of Dorothea rationalizing her motives or behavior? Are any other characters innocent of this?

Why is Casaubon lacking in "passion" (1.7.58) for Dorothea?

How does the epigraph to Chapter 13 reflect on its contents? Chapter 72?

When Dorothea leaves Rosamond & Will suddenly (5.43.412), what is troubling her?

What are the "Two Temptations" of Book 7?

Is "Middlemarch" a feminist novel?

Is religion important in "Middlemarch?"

Why does Eliot give us sentences that look beyond the end of the action? e.g.: "Will never quite knew how it was that he saved himself from falling down at her feet..." (6.54.515) or "...in certain states of dull forlornness Dorothea all her life continued to see the vastness of St. Peter's..." (2.20.184).

What does de Tocqueville mean by a class?

What does de Tocqueville mean by an aristocracy?

Does manufacturing make products better?

This question was skipped when a member pointed out that "productions" in the text does not mean products, but production processes.

Why did de Tocqueville think the manufacturing aristocracy to be "one of the most confined & least dangerous (p. 3)?"

Can we say when or how Ivan Ilych went wrong?

Who had the "most simple & most ordinary" life (p. 45), Ivan Ilych or Gerasim?

Does Ivan Ilych suffer & die because he did not live as he ought to have? Does the answer to this question contain "the sole solution of all the riddles of life & death (p. 78)?"

Why does Ivan Ilych fail to find relief in the reception of communion?

Should we interpret Ivan Ilych's illness symbolically, or is a literal reading sufficient?

Is the narration of Ivan Ilych's illness & death too long & repetitive?

Is Tolstoy too harsh in his judgment of Ivan Ilych & other characters?

How is "injustice anywhere...a threat to justice everywhere (p. 1)?"

Why do "groups tend to be more immoral than individuals (p. 3)?"

Who may determine whether a law is just, or how is this determination made?

How can it be that "justice too long delayed is justice denied (p. 3)," if "time itself is neutral (p. 6)?"

Is Dr. King persuasive in positioning himself as a moderate "between two opposing forces in the Negro community (p. 6)?"

Is Dr. King's warning of Negro violence "not a threat but a fact of history (p. 7)?"

Dr. King notes the disappointment of young people in the church (p.9); why has the church continued to decline?

Is the connection between "the American dream and...our Judeo-Christian heritage (p. 10)" real, or rhetorical?

Had Lear already decided how to divide his kingdom before he tested his daughters?

Why is Cordelia, in the first scene, "so stiff-necked," to use Joseph Papp's phrase?

Both Lear (III.iv.28-36) & Gloucester (IV.i.65-70) come to embrace the equalization of wealth. But didn't that cause the initial problem?

Why does Lear suddenly attack female sexuality (IV.vi.118-129)?

Is Lear in his second childhood?

Please interpret IV.i.10-12:"O world/But that thy strange mutations..." How is it an appropriate response by Edgar to his first glimpse of his blinded father?

Why don't we see the fool again after III.vi?

What did you find most interesting about Edmund?

What difference is there between Goneril & Regan?

Do the last 4 lines of the play belong to Edgar, or to Albany?

What tempts Young Goodman Brown to the Devil's communion?

Why do we hear so often about Faith's pink ribbons?

What does the story gain from the narrator's allowance that it may not be real (p. 12)?

Is laughter of the devil's party?

What is Elisa thinking when she tells Henry (p. 236) "You didn't know what you said?"

Why does Steinbeck tell the story through a limited 3rd-person narrator?

Why, at the end (p. 238), is Elisa "crying weakly - like an old woman?"

What causes the "hard little place" (p. 162) at the center of the mother's heart?

Why doesn't Paul want his mother to know about his luck (p. 170)?

Why doesn't the rocking horse have a name?

Why is Bassett associated with religious terms?

Is Paul's father less to blame than his mother?

Is Uncle Oscar an enabler?

Is the scene added at the end of the movie in keeping with Lawrence's story?

Is "The Rocking Horse Winner" a great story?

What causes Anne to regain her “bloom?”

Would we prefer that Anne’s words to Captain Wentworth on the gravel-walk (pp. 270-2) had been given in direct discourse? Why did Jane Austen choose otherwise?

What does Anne’s final defense of her first decision (pp. 276-7) tell us about her?

When does Captain Wentworth change his mind favorably toward Anne?

Is Lady Russell a good friend to Anne?

What is the role of persuasion in Persuasion?

Are women more inconstant than men (pp. 264-5)?

What “indefinable” quality (p. 137) could make Gomov attractive to women?

What does Anna’s lorgnette symbolize?

How does the digression on the sea (pp. 140-1) fit in with the story?

What’s so important about the dog that he gets into the title?

Is the ending optimistic?

What might the missing two pages (p. 275) have contained?

What do you make of the coincidence that Yu Tsun’s intended victim is the one person who grasps the meaning of Ts’ui Pen’s legacy?

Why doesn’t Yu Tsun kill Albert at the first opportunity?

What does Yu Tsun mean by saying, “The future is with us (p. 283)?”

What is the cause of the weariness that Yu Tsun says he feels at the end of his statement?

What does Freud believe is "of true value in life (p. 235)?"

Would Freud conclude that an individual who has the oceanic feeling is more primitive than one without the feeling?

Why is the common man's religion the only religion which ought to bear the name (p. 240)?

Is it true that "instinctual passions are stronger than reasonable interests (p. 254)"?

How can conscience work as civilization's most important method of controlling aggression if many people have no conscience (pp. 255-7)?

Is it possible to acknowledge Freud's insights, yet regard religion as a positive force?

Why is the first part entitled "The Window?"

Why does Mrs. Ramsay think that "the love of man for woman...[bears] in its bosom the seeds of death (p. 151)?"

Why can't or won't Mrs. Ramsay tell her husband she loves him (pp. 184-6)?

Is Mrs. Ramsay a kind of artist?

Is sympathy what men want most from women (p.225)? Or is it just Mr. Ramsay? Or is it just Lily?

In Part III, is Lily nostalgic for her earlier time at the Ramsay house, or glad to be free of it?

How & why does Part II differ from Parts I and III?

What does the lighthouse signify to various characters?

How are distance and art related in To The Lighthouse?

The characters often know what others are thinking. How do they do that?