Essays on the Philosophy of Theism, Volume 1

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K. Paul, Trench & Company, 1884 - 349 pages
 

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Page 160 - ... Yet well I ken the banks where Amaranths blow, Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow. Bloom, O ye Amaranths ! bloom for whom ye may, For me ye bloom not ! Glide, rich streams, away ! With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll : And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul ? WORK WITHOUT HOPE draws nectar in a sieve, And HOPE without an object cannot live.
Page 91 - Man is never recognized by him as a being capable of pursuing spiritual perfection as an end; of desiring, for its own sake, the conformity of his own character to his standard of excellence, without hope of good or fear of evil from other source than his own inward consciousness.
Page 168 - The man who left on the memory of those who witnessed his life and conversation, such an impression of his moral grandeur, that eighteen subsequent centuries have done homage to him as the Almighty in person, was ignominiously put to death, as what ? As a blasphemer.
Page 201 - As we proceed in the formation of habits, and become accustomed to will a particular act or a particular course of conduct because it is pleasurable, we at last continue to will it without any reference to its being pleasurable.
Page 161 - A vivid conception of the scene and its feelings came over me, and I was moved to tears. From this moment my burden grew lighter. The oppression of the thought that all feeling was dead within me, was gone.
Page 42 - I conceive, be found, if we advert to one of the characteristic properties of geometrical forms — their capacity of being painted in the imagination with a distinctness equal to reality : in other words, the exact resemblance of our ideas of form to the sensations which suggest them.
Page 80 - The wicked flees, when no one pursueth;" then why does he flee? whence his terror? who is it that he sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of his heart? If the cause of these emotions does not belong to this visible world, the Object to which his perception is directed must be Supernatural and Divine; and thus the phenomena of Conscience, as a dictate, avail to impress the imagination with the picture of a Supreme Governor, a Judge, holy, just, powerful, all-seeing, retributive, and...
Page 61 - I firmly believe that the relics of the saints are doing innumerable miracles and graces daily, and that it needs only for a Catholic to show devotion to any saint in order to receive special benefits from his intercession.
Page 171 - I had obtained in the natural course of my mental progress, poetic culture of the most valuable kind, by means of reverential admiration for the lives and characters of heroic persons ; especially the heroes of philosophy. The same inspiring effect which so many of the benefactors of mankind have left on record that they had experienced from Plutarch's Lives, was produced on me by Plato's pictures of Socrates, and by some modern biographies, above all by Condorcet's Life of Turgot...
Page 161 - I was not a stock or a stone. I had still, it seemed, some of the material out of which all worth of character, and all capacity for happiness are made. Relieved from my ever present sense of irremediable wretchedness, I gradually found that the ordinary incidents of life could again give me some pleasure; that I could again find enjoyment, not intense, but sufficient for cheerfulness in sunshine and sky, in books, in conversation, in public affairs; and that there was, once more, excitement though...

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