The Natural History of AtheismScribner, Armstrong & Company, 1878 - 253 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
absurdity Æneid Æschylus ages agnosticism Alara altogether ancient Aristotle assertion atheism Atkinson beauty believe Bôdhisatwa Brahmanic Buddha Buddhist called cataphract cause certainly character Christian Church course creature creed David Hume Democritus deny Divine doctrine doubt earth element Epicurus eternal evil existence fact faith father feeling forces gods Greek heaven Hesiod Hindoo Homer human idea imagine instincts intellectual irreligion JOHN STUART BLACKIE John Stuart Mill Jove knowledge living look Lucretius matter mendicant ment metaphysical mind moral nature never Nirvana notion original orthodox Pantheist passion perfect persons philosophical physical science piety pious Plato pleasure poet Polytheism popular practical preaching prince principle produced race reasonable recognise religion religious reverence Roman sacerdotal Sakya Socrates sorrow sort speculation spirit stoicism strong supreme theology things thinkers thought tion transcendental true truth unity universe unreasonable virtue whole wisdom wise words worship καὶ
Popular passages
Page 110 - Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind...
Page 86 - Towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed That timely light, to share his joyous sport : And hence, a beaming goddess with her nymphs, Across the lawn and through the darksome grove (Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes By echo multiplied from rock or cave) Swept in the storm of chase, as moon and stars Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven, When winds are blowing strong.
Page 62 - Physician art thou ? one, all eyes, Philosopher ! a fingering slave, One that would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave...
Page 86 - In that fair Clime, the lonely Herdsman, stretched On the soft grass through half a summer's day, With music lulled his indolent repose : And, in some fit of weariness, if he, When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds Which his poor skill could make, his Fancy fetched, Even from the blazing Chariot of the Sun, A beardless Youth, who touched a golden lute, And filled the illumined groves with ravishment...
Page 49 - All this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty...
Page 160 - In the beginning GOD created the heavens and the earth, and the spirit of GOD moved on the face of the waters, and GOD said let there be light, and GOD saw the light,
Page 61 - A Moralist perchance appears; Led, Heaven knows how ! to this poor sod : And he has neither eyes nor ears ; Himself his world, and his own God; One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling Nor form, nor feeling, great or small; A reasoning, self-sufficing thing, An intellectual All-in-all...
Page 152 - I now desire to turn the wheel of the excellent law ; For this purpose am I going to that city of Benares, To give light to those enshrouded in darkness, And to open the gate of Immortality to men.
Page 229 - As well might we, resting on the earth, deny that there is any depth beneath, or, living in time, deny eternity. I do not say, therefore, that there is no God : but that it is extravagant and irreverent to imagine that cause a Person. All we know is phenomena : and that the fundamental cause is wholly beyond our conception. In this I do not suspend my judgment : but rather assert plainly that of the motive power or principle of things we know absolutely nothing, and can know nothing...
Page 14 - Christian missionaries going about doing good are thus probably not so despicable as some might imagine; there is no necessity for beginning to tell even the most degraded of these people of the existence of a God, or of a future state, the facts being universally admitted. Everything that cannot be accounted for by common causes is ascribed to the Deity, as creation, sudden death, itc. ' How curiously God made these things !' is a common expression ; as is also, ' He was not killed by disease, he...