First Principles

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Williams and Norgate, 1870 - 559 pages
 

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Page 49 - it is that the hypothesis carries in itself the proof of its own inconceivableness. For if Space and Time are forms of thought, they can never be thought of; since it is impossible for anything to be at once the form of thought and the matter of thought. That Space and Time are
Page 46 - to the most stoical critic of human creeds, must be the one we seek. If Religion and Science are to be reconciled, the basis of reconciliation must be this deepest, widest, and most certain of all facts—that the Power which the Universe
Page 108 - to the established limits of our intelligence; and not perversely to rebel against them. Let those who can, believe that there is eternal war set between our intellectual faculties and our moral obligations. I for one, admit no such radical vice in the constitution of things. THE RECONCILIATION.
Page 109 - position, is an essentially religious one—nay is the religious one, to which, as already shown, all others are but approximations. In the estimate it implies of the Ultimate Cause, it does not fall short of the alternative position, but exceeds it. Those who espouse this alternative position, make the erroneous assumption that the choice is between personality and
Page 192 - Such then is the foundation of any possible system of positive knowledge. Deeper than demonstration—deeper even than definite cognition—deep as the very nature of mind, is the postulate at which we have arrived. Its authority transcends all other whatever ; for not only is it given in the
Page xiii - MORALITY. VOL. I. PAKT I. THE DATA OF MORALITY.—Generalizations furnished by Biology, Psychology and Sociology, which underlie a true theory of right living: in other words, the elements of that equilibrium between constitution and conditions of existence, which is at once the moral ideal and the limit towards which we are progressing. II. THE
Page 433 - bo higher, as we find them to be, but they must be longer, as we also find them to be. Thus, leaving out of view other modifying forces, we see what immense heterogeneity of surface arises from the one cause, loss of heat—a heterogeneity which the telescope shows us to be paralleled on
Page xi - II. THE INDUCTIONS OF SOCIOLOGY.—General facts, structural and functional, as gathered from a survey of Societies and their changes: in * Respecting the several additions to be made to the Principles of Psychology, it seems needful only to say that Part V. is the unwritten division named in the preface to that work—a division of which the germ is
Page 77 - something, without which it could not be an object of consciousness, and actually nothing, without which it could not be infinite. * * * " A second characteristic of Consciousness is, that it is only possible in the form of a relation. There must be a Subject, or person conscious, and an Object, or thing of which he
Page 533 - to a limit in whichever direction it is carried, the indestructible Motion thereupon necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally-coexistent forces of attraction and repulsion, which, as we have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes—produce now an immeasureable period during which the attractive forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and then an

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