The Nature and Reality of Religion: A Controversy Between Frederic Harrison and Herbert Spencer

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D. Appleton, 1885 - 218 pages
 

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Page 201 - Amid the mysteries which become the more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the ONE absolute certainty, that he is ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed.
Page 205 - Is it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much transcending Intelligence and Will, as these transcend mechanical motion ? It is true that we are totally unable to conceive any such higher mode of being.
Page 30 - Consequently, the final outcome of that speculation commenced by the primitive man, is that the Power manifested throughout the Universe distinguished as material, is the same Power which in ourselves wells up under the form of consciousness.
Page 213 - ' 1. Throughout the universe in general and in detail there is an unceasing redistribution of matter and motion. '"2. This redistribution constitutes evolution •where there is a predominant integration of matter and dissipation of motion, and constitutes dissolution where tbere is a predominant absorption of motion and disintegration of matter.
Page 51 - That the opposition between the view actually held by me and the view ascribed to me by Mr. Harrison, is absolute, will be most clearly seen on observing the contrast he draws between my view and the view of the late Dean Mansel. He says : — Of all modern theologians, the Dean came the nearest to the Evolution negation. But there is a gulf which separates even his all-negative deity from Mr. Spencer's impersonal, unconscious, unthinking, and unthinkable Energy.
Page 67 - ... the power which manifests itself in consciousness is but a differently -conditioned form of the power which manifests itself beyond consciousness.
Page 162 - Those who think that science is dissipating religious beliefs and sentiments, seem unaware that whatever of mystery is taken from the old interpretation is added to the new. Or rather, we may say that transference from the one to the other is accompanied by increase ; since, for an explanation which has a seeming feasibility, science substitutes an explanation which, carrying us back only a certain distance, there leaves us in presence of the avowedly inexplicable.
Page 17 - Unlike the ordinary consciousness, the religious consciousness is concerned with that which lies beyond the sphere of sense. A brute thinks only of things which can be touched, seen, heard, tasted, etc.; and the like is true of the young child, the untaught deaf-mute, and the lowest savage.
Page 31 - ... new. Or rather, we may say that transference from the one to the other is accompanied by increase ; since, for an explanation which has a seeming feasibility, science substitutes an explanation which, carrying us back only a certain distance, the.re leaves us in presence of the avowedly inexplicable. Under one of its aspects scientific progress is a gradual transfiguration of Nature. Where ordinary perception saw perfect simplicity it reveals great complexity ; where there seemed absolute inertness...
Page 40 - ... terms as old as Isaiah or Athanasius, Mr. Spencer's Energy has no analogy with God. It is Eternal, Infinite, and Incomprehensible; but still it is not He, but It. It remains always Energy, Force, nothing anthropomorphic; such as electricity, or anything else that we might conceive as the ultimate basis of all the physical forces. None of the positive attributes which have ever been predicated of God can be used of this Energy.

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