Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy: Based on the Doctrine of Evolution, with Criticisms on the Positive Philosophy, Volume 1Houghton, Mifflin, 1916 - Evolution |
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Absolute Existence admit anthropomorphic assertion belief Berkeley causation cause chapter cognized Comte Comte's conceive conception concerning conclusion consciousness Cosmic Philosophy Cosmism Descartes discussion distinct doctrine of evolution ence essay experience explained expression external fact feeling Fiske Fiske's force Hegel human Hume hypothesis ideas inconceivable infinite intelligence interpretation Kant knowledge later ledge Leibnitz Lewes losophy manifested matter means ment mental metaphysical Mill mind modern monotheism motion nature necessary truth ness never nomena Noumenon objective reality order of phenomena organic origin pheno philoso physical Plato posi Positive Philosophy Positivism possible postulate Power premises primitive Principles problems proposition Psychology regard relations relativity of knowledge religion religious scientific scientific methods sciousness sense sequence social speculation Spencer Spencerian subjective method teleological Theism theory things thinker thought tion tive true University Lectures unknown verified volition
Popular passages
Page cvii - Then sawest thou that this fair universe, were it in the meanest province thereof, is in very deed the Stardomed City of God ; that through every star, through every grass-blade, and most through every living soul, the glory of a present God still beams.
Page 209 - That which is necessary, that which must be, means that which will be, whatever supposition we may make in regard to all other things.
Page 109 - Not a step can be taken towards the truth that our states of consciousness are the only things we can know, without tacitly or avowedly postulating an unknown something beyond consciousness. The proposition that whatever we feel has an existence which is relative to ourselves only, cannot be proved, nay cannot even be intelligibly expressed, without asserting, directly or by implication, an external existence which is not relative to ourselves.
Page xlv - Unknowable which we call motion, heat, light, chemical affinity, &c., are alike transformable into each other, and into those modes of the Unknowable which we distinguish as sensation, emotion, thought : these, in their turns, being directly or indirectly re-transformable into the original shapes.
Page 126 - ... external actions, which both constitutes our life at each moment and is the means whereby life is continued through subsequent moments, merely requires that the agencies acting upon us shall be known in their co-existences and sequences, and not that they shall be known in themselves. If x and y are two uniformly connected properties in some outer object, while a and...
Page 6 - The very conception of consciousness, in whatever mode it may be manifested, necessarily implies distinction between one object and another. To be conscious, we must be conscious of something; and that something can only be known, as that which it is, by being distinguished from that which it is not.
Page 221 - Our will causes our bodily actions in the same sense (and in no other) in which cold causes ice, or a spark causes an explosion of gunpowder.
Page 6 - Accordingly, if we are to conceive the First Cause at all, we must conceive it as limited; in which case it cannot be infinite: and we must conceive it as different from other objects of cognition; in which case it is relative, and cannot be absolute. Finally, we cannot know the Absolute, because all knowledge is possible only in the form of a relation. There must be a Subject which cognizes and an Object which is cognized. The subject is a subject only in so far as it cognizes the object, and the...
Page 207 - I have no objection to define a cause, the assemblage of phenomena, which occurring, some phenomenon invariably commences, or has its origin. Whether the effect coincides in point of time with, or immediately follows, the hindmost of its conditions, is immaterial. At all events it does not precede it ; and when we are in doubt, between two coexistent phenomena, which is cause and which is effect, we rightly deem the question solved if we can ascertain which of them preceded the other.
Page cxlii - matter cannot be conceived except as manifesting forces of attraction and repulsion. Body is distinguished in our consciousness from space, by its opposition to our muscular energies ; and this opposition we feel under the twofold form of a cohesion that hinders our efforts to rend, and a resistance that hinders our efforts to compress. Without resistance there can be merely empty extension. Without cohesion there can be no resistance. Thus we are obliged to think of all objects as made up of parts...