A Study of Religion, Its Sources and Contents, 2. köideClarendon Press, 1888 |
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admit affirm animal antecedent appear assume Axioms of Causality Bain become brutes causality cause character conception conscience consciousness constitution creature Deism Descartes determining Divine doctrine effect elements empirical energy essence ethical evil existence experience external faith feeling finite force former freedom give human human menagerie idea ideal immanent impulses individual infinite infinitude instinctive intellectual J. S. Mill James Mill less limits living Malebranche means mind moral motives movements Natura naturata nature necessity noumenal objective order of reverence organism ourselves pain Pantheism passion perfection phenomena physical pleasure possible predicates present principle reason relation religion rule Schopenhauer self-conscious self-determination sensation sense sentient sentiment simply soul Spinoza spirit springs of action suffering Theism Theodore Parker theory things thought tion transcendent true truth uncon universe volition voluntary whole word
Popular passages
Page 311 - But the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. G ranted that a definite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously ; we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass, by a process of reasoning, from the one to the other.
Page 242 - In a given state of society, a certain number of persons must put an end to their own life. This is the general law; and the special question as to who shall commit the crime depends, of course, upon special laws; which, however, in their total action, must obey the large social law to which they are all subordinate. And the power of the larger law is so irresistible, that neither the love of life nor the fear of another world can avail anything towards even checking its operation.
Page 312 - Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, " How are these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness...
Page 327 - For my own part, therefore, I believe in the immortality of the soul, not in the sense in which I accept• the demonstrable truths of science, but as a supreme act of faith in the reasonableness of God's work.
Page 327 - Man is to rob the whole process of its meaning. It goes far toward putting us to permanent intellectual confusion, and I do not see that any one has as yet alleged, or is ever likely to allege, a sufficient reason for our accepting so dire an alternative.
Page 326 - Are Man's highest spiritual qualities, into the production of which all this creative energy has gone, to disappear with the rest? Has all this work been done for nothing? Is it all ephemeral, all a bubble that bursts, a vision that fades?
Page 312 - ... the passage from the current to the needle, if not demonstrable, is thinkable, and that we entertain no doubt as to the final mechanical solution of the problem ; but the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously, we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor, apparently, any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass by a process...
Page 2 - This statement, however surprising to those who are unaccustomed to look into the ultimate grounds of human cognition, is deliberately made. I know of no logical advantage which the belief in finite objects around us can boast over the belief in the infinite and righteous Cause of all. The fundamental form which the Moral Intuition assumes has been fully expounded in a previous treatise on the theory of Ethics 1, and can here only be recalled by a few words of recapitulation.
Page 217 - This almost overwhelming cumulative proof seems, however, more than balanced by a single argument on the other side : the immediate affirmation of consciousness in the moment of deliberate volition.
Page 352 - ... systems, and that the beautiful scheme of nature would never be unfolded, but in an exceedingly imperfect manner to any of them. This, therefore, naturally leads us to consider our present state as only the dawn or beginning of our existence, and as a state of preparation or probation for further advancement ; which appears to have been the opinion of the most judicious philosophers of old. And whoever attentively considers the constitution of human nature, particularly the desires and passions...