Introduction to Ethics: Including a Critical Survey of Moral Systems, Volume 1Hilliard, Gray,, 1811 - Ethics |
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absolute action admit affections anchorites appears Aristotle ascer attain attri attributes body cause chimerical comprehend conceive conception Condillac condition conse consequence constitute contradiction deny desire destiny destroy determine distinct doctrine duty element enlightened self-interest Epictetus error evil existence external faculties faith false feel follows gentlemen happiness Helvetius Hence Hobbes human conduct human intelligence human knowledge human mind human nature ideas impelled impulse individual infinite influence instinctive intellect interest Jouffroy law of obligation lecture limited lute metaphysical mode moral motive mysticism natural right necessarily necessary necessity never notions object observation once ontology opinions ourselves pantheism passions philosophers pleasure possible present primitive principles produce question reason refute relation result revolution rules satisfaction seek self-interest self-love selfish sense skep skepticism society soul Spinoza strongest suppose tendencies thing thought tion true truth universal order vidual volition wholly words
Popular passages
Page vi - For the sun, which we want, ripens wits as well as fruits ; and as wine and oil are imported to us from abroad, so must ripe understanding, and many civil virtues, be imported into our minds from foreign writings, and examples of best ages: we shall else miscarry still, and come short in the attempts of any great enterprise.
Page 204 - God, yet they defer from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, from year to year, the practice of these duties.
Page 201 - ... now, from one end of the country to the other, from year to year, from month to month, from week to week and from day to day. I do not know whether they have obtained any official estimate of the numbers of those that have thus been suffering in silence so long.
Page 266 - ... and again we give new names to the unknown good, and chase a thousand phantoms, which can never satisfy us, but will forever leave us discontented as before. Here is the explanation of the constant disappointments, which for forty years the friends of social liberty have experienced in France. By turns, each new form of freedom has seemed to be the good for which we were sighing, and a want of it the source of all our woes. But when successively we have acquired them and yet found ourselves unimproved...
Page 263 - As he, no more than we ourselves, has any answer for the problems, which we wish to solve, in a few weeks after his elevation to power we find him barren and empty as his predecessors, and at once his popularity declines. In our day, in fact, the mere possession of power is reason sufficient for unpopularity. They only are or can be popular, who have not yet acquired the power they seek for.
Page 224 - ... a consequence that transcends them. Such is the method of reasoning by induction. Its characteristic is, that it proceeds from certain results, communicated by observation, to a general principle, within which they are included. "The process of reasoning by deduction is as follows: — A truth of any kind, particular, general, or universal, being made known, reason deduces from it whatever other truths it includes. Sometimes the deduction...
Page 271 - Thales, even individuals of enlightened minds had already begun to entertain doubts of the prevalent faith, — and two centuries later, in the time of Socrates, there were probably but very few among the citizens exercising political rights, who were not wholly given up to incredulity. Socrates was condemned, to be sure, on the ground that he attacked religion, but his sentence was dictated really by political reasons ; and we, in this day, have seen a parallel instance, in a neighboring country,...
Page 270 - ... which prompts each social movement, and which, for myself, I call a new system of faith on the grand questions which must forever interest man ; — for all such persons a clear understanding of the nature of the passing revolution, and of the precise point at which it has now arrived, is well calculated to moderate impatience. For when we once comprehend what is really to be accomplished, we see that it cannot be done in a moment, but that it must necessarily be the fruit of long labor and slowly...
Page 100 - ... from one not so. And thus, merely from their vivacity and fervor, we may often recognize the stronger from the weaker passion. There is, then, if you choose to say so, a common measure between different impulses of our sensitive nature, which are peculiarly distinguished as emotions. On the other hand, of different courses of conduct which reason and self-interest bring into contrast, I may see that one is much more advantageous than another. There is, then, if you please, a means of comparing...
Page 266 - ... they talk of republic, of unlimited suffrage, of legitimacy, and seduced by the word which we mistake for a thing, we passionately pursue the untried good and discover our mistake, only when experience has proved that it is an empty name. Thus again and again we give new names to the unknown good, and chase a thousand phantoms, which can never satisfy us, but will forever leave us discontented as before. Here is the explanation of the constant disappointments, which for forty years the friends...