The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man

Front Cover
E.H. Butler, 1868 - Ethics - 460 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 226 - Look then abroad through Nature, to the range Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres, Wheeling unshaken through the void immense ; And speak, O man ! does this capacious scene, With half that kindling majesty, dilate Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose Refulgent from the stroke of...
Page 25 - Heav'n forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, Bids each on other for assistance call, 'Till one Man's weakness grows the strength of all.
Page 397 - It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit, is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolours of death; but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is, 'Nunc dimittis' when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations.
Page 206 - Thus the distinct boundaries and offices of reason and of taste are easily ascertained. The former conveys the knowledge of truth and falsehood: The latter gives the sentiment of beauty and deformity, vice and virtue. The one discovers objects, as they really stand in nature, without addition or diminution: The other has a productive faculty, and gilding or staining all natural objects with the colours, borrowed from internal sentiment, raises, in a manner, a new creation.
Page 225 - Mind, mind alone, (bear witness, Earth and Heaven!) The living fountains in itself contains Of beauteous and sublime...
Page 240 - Romse, alia Athenis, alia nunc, alia posthac ; sed et omnes gentes, et omni tempore una lex et sempiterna et immutabilis continebit ; unusque erit communis quasi magister et imperator omnium Deus.
Page 141 - Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury...
Page 327 - fair light, And thou enlighten'd earth, so fresh and gay, Ye hills, and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains, And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell, Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here?
Page 299 - In the words of the sect which in our own day has most perseveringly inculcated and most perversely misunderstood this great doctrine, his character is formed for him, and not by him ; therefore his wishing that it had been formed differently is of no use ; he has no power to alter it. But this is a grand error. He has, to a certain extent, a power to alter his character. Its being, in the ultimate resort, formed for him, is not inconsistent with its being, in part, formed by him as one of the intermediate...
Page 66 - ... yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hard-hearted (good to make severe inquisitors), because their tenderness is not so oft called upon.

Bibliographic information