Naturalism and Agnosticism: The Gifford Lectures Delivered Before the University of Aberdeen in the Years 1896-1898, Volume 2Adam & Charles Black, 1899 - Agnosticism |
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Common terms and phrases
absolute abstract activity agnostic monism Agnosticism analogy answer anthropomorphic BAILEY SAUNDERS causal cause ception collateral product conceive conception of Nature concrete connexion conscious automaton consciousness Descartes determined distinct doctrine dualism duality elements ence energy epiphenomena epistemological essential existence external fact human Hume Huxley hypothesis ideal ideas implies independent individual experience inert intellectual intelligence interaction intersubjective intercourse Kant Kant's knowledge lecture Leibniz logical material means mechanical theory mental motion naïve realism natural law naturalistic necessary necessity neutral monism never organon passivity perceptions phenomena philosophy physicist position possible present presupposes principle psychical series psychology psychophysical parallelism pure question R. H. CHARLES rational reality reflexion regarded relations rience scientific sensations sense shew side SOHO SQUARE space Spencer Spinoza spirit spiritualistic standpoint subject and object substance supposed teleological things thought tion truth unity universal experience unknown volition whole
Popular passages
Page 55 - Permit me to enforce this most wise advice. Why trouble ourselves about matters of which, however important they may be, we do know nothing, and can know nothing? We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it. To do this effectually, it is necessary to be fully possessed of only two beliefs : the first, that the...
Page 222 - ALL the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation, which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain.
Page 249 - And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do : and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
Page 214 - For, after all, what do we know of this terrible "matter," except as a name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our own consciousness ? And what do we know of that "spirit...
Page 43 - But when, as commonly happens, we change will into must, we introduce an idea of necessity which most assuredly does not lie in the observed facts, and has no warranty that I can discover elsewhere.
Page 222 - Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction...
Page 249 - And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
Page 270 - This objection looks fatal ; and it would be fatal were its premiss valid. Unexpected as it will be to most readers, the answer here to be made is that at the outset a germ of truth was contained in the primitive conception — the truth, namely, that the power which manifests itself in consciousness is but a differently -conditioned form of the power which manifests itself beyond consciousness.
Page 228 - But all my hopes vanish when I come to explain the principles that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or consciousness.
Page 223 - It is more conformable to the ordinary wisdom of nature to secure so necessary an act of the mind, by some instinct or mechanical tendency, which may be infallible in its operations...