The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy |
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A. R. Wallace absolutely abstract actually appears believe better casuistic chance character conceiving conception concrete consciousness course demands determinism deterministic divine doubt Edmund Gurney emotional empiricism empiricist environment escape essays essence eternal ethical evidence evil existence experience fact faith feel genius give gnosticism Grant Allen heart Hegel hegelian human hypothesis ideal identity indeterminism individual infinite intellectual judgment kind logical matter means mediumship ment mental mind monism mood moral moral universe nature of things negation ness never notion object option outward passion pessimism phenomena philosopher physical point of view possible practical principle prove pure question rational reason reflex action regret relations religion religious result rience scepticism scientific seems sense simply sort space subjectivism suppose telepathy theism theoretic theory thinker thou thought tion true truth unity universe whole word
Popular passages
Page 160 - Love, could you and I with fate conspire To mend this sorry scheme of things entire, Would we not shatter it to bits, and then Remould it nearer to the heart's desire ? " Now, it is undeniable that most of these regrets are foolish, and quite on a par in point of philosophic value with the criticisms on the universe
Page 235 - Allemands. Bismarck's will showed them, to their own great astonishment, that they could play a far livelier game. The lesson will not be forgotten. Germany may have many vicissitudes, but they — " will never do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been " — of Bismarck's initiative, namely, from 1860 to 1873. The fermentative influence of geniuses must be
Page 215 - can save us. The solving word, for the learned and the unlearned man alike, lies in the last resort in the dumb willingnesses and unwillingnesses of their interior characters, and nowhere else. It is not in heaven, neither is it beyond the sea ; but the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it. I
Page 5 - for to say, under such circumstances, " Do not decide, but leave the question open" is itself a passional decision, —just like deciding yes or no, — and is attended with the same risk of losing the truth. The thesis thus abstractly expressed will, I trust, soon become quite clear. But I must first indulge in a bit more of preliminary work.
Page 322 - Each of us is in reality an abiding psychical entity far more extensive than he knows, — an individuality which can never express itself completely through any corporeal manifestation. The self manifests itself through the organism ; but there is always some part of the self unmanifested, and always, as it seems, some power of organic expression in abeyance or reserve.
Page 42 - in a continual, indefinite, pining fear; tremulous, pusillanimous, apprehensive of I knew not what : it seemed as if all things in the heav~ ens above and the earth beneath would hurt me ; as if the heavens and the earth were but
Page 19 - matters, like the question of religious faith. Let us then pass on to that. Religions differ so much in their accidents that in discussing the religious question we must make it very generic and broad. What then do we now mean by the religious hypothesis?
Page 33 - spirituality of things ! too carol the Sun, usher'd or at noon, or as now, setting ; too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth and of all the growths of the earth. . . . sing to the last the equalities, modern or old, sing the endless finales of things, say Nature
Page 31 - of yourself? What do you think of the world? . . . These are questions with which all must deal as it seems good to them. They are riddles of the Sphinx, and in some way or other we must deal with them. ... In all important transactions of life we have to ' take a leap in the dark. ... If we decide to leave the
Page 226 - sphere wholly inaccessible to the social philosopher. He must simply accept geniuses as data, just as Darwin accepts his spontaneous variations. For him, as for Darwin, the only problem is, these data being given, How does the environment affect them, and /how do they