Studies of Contemporary SuperstitionWard & Downey limited, 1895 - 302 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
Ability according admit adultery Agnosticism Agnostics amongst argument authority belief capital Catholic cause certainty character Christ Christianity civilisation conclusion consider creed declare deny doctrine doubt duty entirely essay evidence evolution exertion existence Fabian essayists fact feel Frederic Harrison fundamental Gospels grounds happiness Harrison Herbert Spencer Hettinger human idea income individual industrial infinite John Morley kind knowledge Labour logical man's marriage matter means means of production merely millions mind miraculous modern science moral never Nonconformists obvious opinion ourselves persons philosophy Pliny the Younger position precisely present principle produce Professor Huxley progress propositions Protestantism question race realise reality reason recognise regard religious result Robert Elsmere scientific sense Sidney Webb Socialism Socialists speak Spencer suppose sympathy teaching tell theism theology theory things thought tion true truth universe Unknowable Ward whilst whole words writers
Popular passages
Page 76 - iron ' law, it is that of gravitation ; and if there be a physical necessity, it is that a stone, unsupported, must fall to the ground. But what is all we really know and can know about the latter...
Page 76 - Simply, that, in all human experience, stones have fallen to the ground under these conditions; that we have not the smallest reason for believing that any stone so circumstanced will not fall to the ground; and that we have, on the contrary, every reason to believe that it will so fall. It is very convenient to indicate that all the conditions of belief have been fulfilled in this case, by calling the statement that unsupported stones will fall to the ground,
Page 117 - Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
Page 65 - Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not lead him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle.
Page 65 - ... situations as the plains of Mesopotamia or of Egypt, and then, for thousands and thousands of years, struggles, with varying fortunes, attended by infinite wickedness, bloodshed, and misery, to maintain himself at this point against the greed and the ambition of his fellow-men.
Page 276 - It is not so much to the thing the State does, as to the end for which it does it that we must look before we can decide whether it is a Socialist State or not. Socialism is the common holding of the means of production and exchange, and the holding of them for the equal benefit of all.
Page 76 - 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 66 - I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than...
Page 56 - Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.
Page 77 - He must remember that, while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future ; and that his thoughts are as children born to him, which he may not carelessly let die.