Varieties of Thought Volume II

Varieties of Thought

Attempt at a Tamrielic History of Ideas

Volume II -- The Iconoclasts

by Maelix Pallania

The preceding volume concluded on the apotheosis of the last hero-gods of Summerset, and on the perpetual anguish felt by the Aldmer in front of their ever-dwindling connection to the divine. As a result, philosophy turned away from the mortal plane, to focus on vain formal exercises, or on the futile pursuit of genetic purity. Dogmatism replaced critical thought, and traditional ancestor worship turned into bigotry. It is around that time that several groups of Aldmer left their archipelago to escape religious intolerance, political oppression and scholarly narrow-mindedness that have plagued the Summerset Isles for the next three thousand years.

Despite having created the formal and logical frame still in use in modern science, ancient Aldmeri philosophy -- and most contemporary Altmeri philosophy-- is excessively normative and cut-off from the material world and its phenomena. To a High Elf, what is, is what should be, and what should not be falls under Padomay, change, and as a result is-not, regardless whether its manifestations are noticeable to any mortal on Nirn. It is, among other things, that narrowing worldview that the Psijic or the Velothi rebelled against, which led to their departure from Summerset. As for the Ayleids and the Altmeri colonists of the Iliac Bay, the Direnni first among them, their estrangement from their homeland allowed for the emergence of original ideas. The sundering of the Elves effectively expanded human thought's horizon of possibility, thus paving the way for modern science and the indefinite progress of knowledge.

Psijic founder Iachesis was among the first to perceive the calcification that was striking Aldmeri society, as their Divine ancestors were leaving Nirn, and was rightfully afraid this process would in time contaminate philosophy, arts, politics, and all human endeavors. He departed to the isle of Artaeum, and created the Psijic Order -- a shelter for the critical spirit, away from the numbing influence of orthodoxy. The Psijic school of thought is hard to pin down, for there is no official dogma. Their thinkers are pragmatic, turned to political and ethical action, but do not shy away from the most esoteric research. The Psijic are known as the inventors of the school of Mysticism, long before any other attempts at the codification of spellcasting. During the Ages of Man, they became common figures of the most powerful Tamrielic courts, dispensing their advice to rulers and holding convent with local scholars. As a result, they can be considered as the true progenitors of modern Tamrielic academia.

Iachesis and the Psijic were not alone in fleeing the increasing rigidity of Elven society. The Middle Merethic was a time of continuous exodus from Summerset, fertilizing Tamriel with the most adventurous and curious of the elvenfolk. We today know, with the benefit of hindsight, that the followers of Veloth and the ancestors of the Ayleids eventually gave birth to archaic political organizations and cultures filled with superstition. Nonetheless, these peoples charted the unknown, studying the practical connection between the mortal and the divine, the mundane and the magical, and the relations between the powers of Oblivion. Modern Imperial scholars specialized in the fields of medicine and cosmology, or in the schools of Restoration and Conjuration, are -- often unknowingly -- deeply indebted to these early Aldmeri iconoclasts.

Among the High Elves who settled the Western coast of Tamriel, the Direnni of Balfiera came to hold political hegemony over High Rock in the early First Era. They were followers of Phynaster, but rather than study his writings as dogma, they preferred to imitate the old master's example, and derive exotic new practices from studying the world itself through experimentation: a deviant and devious idea to the dogmatic Altmer. This progressist and positivist state of mind allowed Direnni science to flourish; They eschewed the preservation of inheritance to the experimentation of it, and gave birth to a series of living, alchemical constructs that haunt their old fortresses to this day.

Finally, other Elven mages worked to remove the unnecessary religious constraints weighing on Altmeri magical research. Mannimarco is the founder of modern necromancy, and seemingly managed to endlessly extend his own life, before he ended up reaching apotheosis in the late Third Era -- a feat accomplished by very few Elves, through undeath or otherwise, since the days of the Aedra.

Former Psijic monk Vanus Galerion is the progenitor of modern magic, with his book 'Natural Divisions of Magic' still a staple in our understanding of spellcasting today. After having made magic a science, he made magic a business by founding the Mages Guild in 2E230. A blasphemy to the Altmer, but a blessing for Tamriel and scientific progress; Profitability made magic a service that could be bought by everyone, and a trade that could be taught to anyone. Among his many contributions to the contemporary practice of magic, the mechanics of soul trapping and enchanting have remained virtually unchanged since they were discovered by Galerion in the early First Era.

Despite its seminal influence on modern thought, ancient Aldmeri philosophy would have remained an empty formal exercise if it hadn't been used and expanded on by a series of marginals, exiled, and iconoclasts brave and curious enough to direct their speculations where the venerable scholars of the Aldmer race dared not. Freed from the constraints of Summerset and sown on Tamriel's fertile soil, philosophy would find here a new home. How Cyrodiil would become the new cradle of human thought -- home of a civilization where knowledge and science are the cardinal values -- is the object of our next and final volume.