First Principles of a New System of Philosophy. --

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D. Appleton, 1877 - 566 pages
 

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Page 123 - It is not for nothing that he has in him these sympathies with some principles and repugnance to others. He, with all his capacities, and aspirations, and beliefs, is not an accident, but a product of the time. He must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future ; and that his thoughts are as children born to him, which he may not carelessly let die.
Page 43 - ... it as one ; and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as many. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as personal ; and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as impersonal. It cannot, without contradiction, be represented as active ; nor, without equal contradiction, be represented as Inactive. It cannot be conceived as the sum of all existence ; nor yet can it be conceived as a part only of that sum.
Page 87 - Besides that definite consciousness of which Logic formulates the laws, there is also an indefinite consciousness which cannot be formulated. Besides complete thoughts, and besides the thoughts which though incomplete admit of completion, there, are thoughts which it is impossible to complete; and yet which are still real, in the sense that they are normal affections of the intellect.
Page 78 - Existence, as we conceive it, is but a name for the several ways in which objects are presented to our consciousness, — a general term, embracing a variety of relations. The Absolute, on the other hand, is a term expressing no object of thought, but only a denial of the relation by which thought is constituted.
Page 39 - ... this apparent contradiction by introducing the idea of succession in time. The absolute exists first by itself, and afterwards becomes a cause. But here we are checked by the third conception, that of the infinite. How can the infinite become that which it was not from the first? If causation is a possible mode of existence, that which exists without causing is not infinite; that which becomes a cause has passed beyond its former limits.

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