The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy |
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Common terms and phrases
A. R. Wallace absolute 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 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 living 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 162 - Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits — and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!
Page 27 - There are, then, cases where a fact cannot come at all unless a preliminary faith exists in its coming. And where faith in a fact can help create the fact, that would be an insane logic which should say that faith running ahead of scientific evidence is the 'lowest kind of immorality' into which a thinking being can fall.
Page 76 - Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love...
Page 231 - They parted - ne'er to meet again! But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs, which had been rent asunder; A dreary sea now flows between; But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been.
Page 64 - These then are my last words to you: Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
Page 217 - It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it ? neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? but the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.
Page 215 - He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha ; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shouting.
Page 46 - Despicable biped ! what is .the sum-total of the worst that lies before thee ? Death ? Well, Death ; and say the pangs of Tophet too, and all that the Devil and Man may, will or can do against thee ! Hast thou not a heart ; canst thou not suffer whatsoever it be ; and, as a Child of Freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee ? Let it come, then ; I will meet it and defy it...
Page 152 - With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead, And there of the Last Harvest sowed the Seed: And the first Morning of Creation wrote What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
Page 47 - The Everlasting No had said : ' Behold, thou art fatherless, outcast, and the Universe is mine (the Devil's)'; to which my whole Me now made answer: '/ am not thine, but Free, and forever hate thee!