Breeding Immortal Beings

There is a famous story about Elizabeth Anscombe, which kept drifting into my mind as I read Catherine Ruth Pakaluk’s new book, Hannah’s Children. Anscombe was an Oxford professor, a high-profile analytic philosopher, and also a mother of seven. People sometimes had opinions about that, and the story goes that she came into her classroom one day (pregnant with her seventh) to find that some mean-spirited troll had written the words “ANSCOMBE BREEDS” on her chalkboard. Calmly, without apparent embarrassment, she picked up the chalk and added two words. “ANSCOMBE BREEDS IMMORTAL BEINGS.”