Monologion
Anselm of Canterbury, Monologium (A Soliloquy on the Being of God)
Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury
The long way round to God, taken first.
- Catch rate
- 24 / 255
- Base research
- 138
- Stat total
- 252
Base stats
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
Why these numbers
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
Seventy-odd short chapters, and every one of them leaning on the one before. Long for what it proves.
It argues God from reason alone with nothing quoted from Scripture, because that is what his monks asked for. It contends well and it contends slowly.
Nobody has ever needed to attack it. The famous objection was written against the book that replaced it.
The other one. Anselm wrote two books proving God from reason and the world remembers the short one — this is the long one it came out of.
Cited for this book
Anselm wrote the Monologium about 1076 at the request of his monks at Bec: prove God from reason alone, quoting nothing. He did. Then he spent months hunting a single argument that would stand by itself, nearly gave it up as a distraction, and wrote the Proslogion instead. Both books survive, and the world reads the second one.
Development
A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.
Moves learned
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Linking of Many Arguments | Rationality | Argument | 62 | 100% | 20 |
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 26 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 28 | Argument from Design | Natural Theology | Argument | 76 | 100% | 10 |
| 30 | Question the Premise | Rationality | Type shift | — | — | 10 |