Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
Second Inaugural Address
"With malice toward none, with charity for all" — Lincoln's most theologically searching speech: the war as divine judgment on both North and South for the offence of slavery
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Second Inaugural Address (Late (six weeks before assassination)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Scripture |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Second Inaugural Address
The "two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil" — American history under divine judgment for the duration of slavery.
Space
Second Inaugural Address
The nation as the relevant unit of moral judgment; the divided spatial-political reality of North and South united in shared guilt.
Matter
Second Inaugural Address
The "blood drawn with the lash" and "blood drawn with the sword" — the embodied material reality of slavery and war.
Observer
Second Inaugural Address
The American citizen, placed under shared divine judgment with the defeated enemy. Plural, embodied; God as personal-providential framework.
Energy
Second Inaugural Address
The "mighty scourge of war" — the divine energy of judgment working through human violence.
Information
Second Inaugural Address
Moral-theological memory of the nation's sin and judgment, to be preserved in the post-war settlement.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Was Lincoln himself Christian in any orthodox sense? He was raised Calvinist Baptist, never joined a church, used providential-biblical language with increasing theological seriousness through the war. Modern Lincoln scholars (Mark Noll, Ronald White, Allen Guelzo) read the Second Inaugural as expressing a kind of Calvinist-providentialist faith deeper than conventional Civil Religion. The Address has been heavily criticised by some Southern theologians and politicians as a theological imposition; defended by others as the only remotely adequate post-war framework. The relation between its theological content and Lincoln's political-strategic objectives is debated.