History of Philosophy

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Scribner, 1896 - Philosophy - 630 pages

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Page 359 - I ask whether those supposed originals or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no? If they are, then they are ideas and we have gained our point; but if you say they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense to assert a color is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something which is intangible; and so of the rest.
Page 345 - ... the dominion of man in this little world of his own understanding, being much-what the same as it is in the great world, of visible things, wherein his power, however managed by art and skill, reaches no farther than to compound and divide the materials that are made to his hand but can do nothing towards the making the least particle of new matter, or destroying one atom of what is already in being.
Page 360 - A spirit is one simple, undivided, active being: as it perceives ideas, it is called the understanding, and as it produces or otherwise operates about them, it is called the will.
Page 392 - For, first, there is not to be found in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others...
Page 392 - ... and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves ; of such undoubted integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others ; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood ; and at the same time, attesting facts performed in such a public manner and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable : all which circumstances are requisite to...
Page 388 - To recapitulate, therefore, the reasonings of this section: Every idea is copied from some preceding impression or sentiment; and where we cannot find any impression, we may be certain that there is no idea.
Page 394 - These are the obvious dictates of reason; and no man who reflects ever doubted, that the existences which we consider, when we say, this house, and that tree, are nothing but perceptions in the mind, and fleeting copies or representations of other existences, which remain uniform and independent.
Page 360 - When in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall present themselves to my view; and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses; the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of my will. There is therefore some other Will or Spirit that produces them.
Page 176 - For who maketh thee to differ from another ? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?
Page 384 - The only method of freeing learning at once from these abstruse questions is to inquire seriously into the nature of human understanding and show, from an exact analysis of its powers and capacity, that it is by no means fitted for such remote and abstruse subjects. We must submit to this fatigue in order to live at ease ever after and must cultivate true metaphysics with some care in order to destroy the false and adulterate.

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