Johannes Hevelius

“ And we ask ourselves what good end Helvétius proposed to himself. Of what was he thinking when he perpetrated so singular a misconstruction of his own meaning as that inversion of beneficence into self-love of which we have spoken? We can only explain it in one way. In saying that it is impossible to love good for good’s sake, Helvétius was thinking of the theologians. Their doctrine that man is predisposed to love evil for evil’s sake, removes conduct from the sphere of rational motive, as evinced in the ordinary course of human experience. ”

“ And then, as they made their examination systematically, calmly and without flurry, Hewitt told the whole tale of his day's adventures, together with all he had heard from the rector. "The man's dead," he said, "and his confidence is at an end. Indeed, I never had it—the case, so far as I am concerned, is over before I have even touched it. I haven't had a chance, Plummer; and the thing is deep and dark, deep and dark. Oh, if only the man had let me come to him in the daylight, spite of all! ”

“ During the eighteenth century, when religious persecution and intolerance were rampant throughout Europe, France furnished men to check oppression and expose superstition, while others followed to lay the foundation of excellence and greatness in the examination and cultivation of its true source—the mind. Heivetius sought to direct men's attention to self-examination, and to show how many disputes might be avoided if each person understood what he was disputing about. ”

“ Or how, turning them inward, can we doubt that there is something within us more noble and more durable than the clay of which we are formed? Those who do not hear, or are unwilling to listen to those feelings, must necessarily be of a vile nature.' I answered him with all those reasons which the superficial philosophy of Helvetius, his disciples and his masters, have taught. ”

“ But Hegel himself should have been the last to object. With his scorn for an Ideal so impotent that its realization must depend upon the effort of private selves, an Absolute so inconsequential that it must wait upon the accidents of future time for manifestation, he sticks in politics [110] more than elsewhere to the conviction that the actual is the rational. "The task of philosophy is to comprehend that which is, for that which is, is Reason." Alleged philosophies which try to tell what the State should be or even what a state ought in the future to come to be, are idle fantasies. ”

“ Martin Hewitt's system, and as he himself always consistently maintains that he has no system beyond a judicious use of ordinary faculties, I intend setting forth in detail a few of the more interesting of his cases, in order that the public may judge for itself if I am right in estimating Mr. Hewitt's "ordinary faculties" as faculties very extraordinary indeed. He is not a man who has made many friendships (this, probably, for professional reasons) , notwithstanding his genial and companionable manners. ”

“ It was agreed between them that Helvetius should write to Montesquieu to give him an account of their joint opinion, that he should not give the work to the world in its present state. Saurin, with some reason, was afraid that Montesquieu would be hurt at their communication; but Helvetius wrote to him—"Be not uneasy; he is not hurt at our advice; he loves frankness in his friends. He is willing to bear with discussions, but answers only by sallies, and rarely changes his opinions. ”

“ To avoid the penalties imposed, Adam Hewes, the father of Joseph, fled from Connecticut with his wife Providence and located near Kingston, New Jersey, where they lived peacefully and died happily. When they crossed the Housatonic river in their flight they were so closely pursued by the Indians that Providence was severely wounded in the neck by a ball from one of their guns. Joseph Hewes was born at the new residence of his parents in 1730. After receiving a good education in the Princeton school he commenced a commercial apprenticeship in Philadelphia. ”

“ Brett, put aside your bourgeois prejudices and join me. Your friend Plummer is coming gladly, I feel sure, and he will be useful, too. And from what I have seen from Mr. Martin Hewitt, I have no doubt I can make it right with him. If I can't it will be very bad for him, I can assure you; you have heard and seen something of my powers, and I need say no more. But Hewitt is a man of sense, and will come in, of course, and you had better come with your friends. I want one or two superior men. Mason—you know about Jacob Mason, of course—Mason was a fool, and he was lost—inevitably. ”

“ Hewitt interrupted rather impatiently. "The man who took the rooms on Monday, now—you'd never seen him before, had you?"
"No, sir."
"Then is that anything like him?" Hewitt held a cabinet photograph before her.
"Why—why—law, yes, that's him!"
Hewitt dropped the photograph back into his breast pocket with a contented "Um," and picked up his hat. "I think we may soon be able to find that young gentleman for you, Mrs. Lamb. He is not a very respectable young gentleman, and perhaps you are well rid of him, even as it is. Come, Brett," he added, "the day hasn't been wasted, after all." ”

“ And there is no doubt that, as a movement of reaction against the traditional British empiricism, the hegelian influence represents expansion and freedom, and is doing service of a certain kind. Such service, however, ought not to make us blindly indulgent. Hegel's philosophy mingles mountain-loads of corruption with its scanty merits, and must, now that it has become quasi-official, make ready to defend itself as well as to attack others. ”

“ The question came from Hewitt, who had looked in to ask for orders for the morning, arousing his master from a curious train of thought.
"I don't mind a drop of hot brandy and water, Hewitt. Half a glass. Something or other seems to have given me the shivers. Is it a cold night?"
"No, Sir Karl; the night's rather warm than cold."
"Has my mother any particular trouble or worry upon her, Hewitt, do you know?" he asked, as he mechanically watched the mixing of the spirit and water. "She seems to be very much put out." ”

“ Somewhere in the Etrurian hills north of Arretium I overheard part of a conversation between Maternus and Caburus. They were talking of me and Agathemer.
"You cannot be sure," said Maternus. "By every rule of reason Hedulio ought to hate Commodus consumedly. But loyalty is so inbred in senators and men of equestrian rank, in all the Roman nobility, that he may have a soft place in his heart for him, after all. Instead of doing his best to help us kill him he might try to shield him, at a pinch." ”

“ The material earnestness of these thinkers is in sharp contrast to the superficial and frivolous manner in which Helvetius (1715-71) carries out sensationalism in the sphere of ethics. His chief work, On Mind, came out in 1758; and a year after his death, the work On Man, his Intellectual Faculties and his Education. The search for pleasure or self-love is, as Helvetius thinks he has discovered for the first time, [1] the only motive of action; the laws of interest reign in the moral world as the laws of motion in the physical world; justice and love for our neighbors are based on utility ”

“ Each man's tastes are so far affected by circumstances, that it is possible that Helvetius's exclusive association with the selfish circles of the French society, which never lived for the good of others, together with the perception of the hollowness of the respect which persons paid him for his wealth and influence, led him to regard self-love as the sole motive of conduct. His philosophy is expressed in two works;553 the one on the spirit, the other on man: the former a theoretical view of human nature, the latter a practical view of education and society. ”

“ Even at Berlin the popularity of Hegelianism came suddenly to an end, and after a time no truly scientific man liked to be called a Hegelian. These sudden collapses in Germany are very instructive. As long as a German professor is at the head of affairs and can do something for his pupils, his pupils are very loud in their encomiums, both in public and in private. They not only exalt him, but help to belittle all who differ from him. So it was with Hegel, so it was at a later time with Bopp, and Curtius, and other professors, particularly if they had the ear of the Minister of Education. ”

“ John Hewett was not the only father who has come forth after nightfall from an obscure home to look darkly at the faces passing on these broad pavements. At times he would shrink into a shadowed corner, and peer thence at those who went by under the gaslight. ”

“ It seemed a rather large hall, and I caught a momentary glimpse of bare rafters and plasterless wall. Then the match went out and Hewitt stepped within.
Almost on the instant there came a loud jar, and a noise of falling bricks; and then, in the same instant of time I heard a terrific crash, and saw Hewitt leap out at the front door—leap out, as it seemed, from a cloud of dust and splinters.
I sprang to my feet, but Plummer pulled me down again. "Steady!" he said, "lie low! He isn't hurt. Wait and see before we show ourselves." ”

“ It lies beyond the limits of our task to enter into a discussion of Helvétius’s transgressions in the region of speculative ethics, from any dogmatic point of view. Their nature is tolerably clear. Helvétius looked at man individually, as if each of us came into the world [145] naked of all antecedent predispositions, and independent of the medium around us. Next, he did not see that virtue, justice, and the other great words of moral science denote qualities that are directly related to the fundamental constitution of human character. ”

“ But here and there where the Protestant spirit burnt more fiercely than elsewhere, or over in Holland, where the claim of the Duke had been more freely allowed, and where he was eagerly recruiting forces to take with him to England, his cause seemed a righteous cause, and inspired enthusiasm and devotion. Mrs. Hewling could not altogether wonder that her two sons, reared in all the most ardent Puritan and Protestant tenets of the day, should have been fired with a desire to join the expedition, and to strive to strike a blow for their faith upon England's shores. ”

“ The effect, if not the intention, of German idealism as applied in social philosophy was to provide a bulwark for the maintenance of the political status quo against the tide of radical ideas coming from revolutionary France. Although Hegel asserted in explicit form that the end of states and institutions is to further the realization of the freedom of all, his effect was to consecrate the Prussian State and to enshrine bureaucratic absolutism. Was this apologetic tendency accidental, or did it spring from something in the logic of the notions that were employed? ”

“ That will keep you alive, Hedulio and, I trust, help you to get back into good health. Horrible bore, these small-size local matters; worse, if anything, even, than the maintenance of the Rhine frontier. I loathe all this routine. But my agents serve me pretty well. Besides putting me in touch, with all this feud idiocy they have incidentally informed me that you brought to Rome with you a son of Murmex Frugi, also a nephew of Pacideianus, and a pupil of both, who has come to Rome to try his luck at their former profession. ”

“ He is well over fifty now, a large, heavy-faced man with uncommonly wild eyes for a greengrocer—which is what he is, though he dresses very well, considering. He was quite respectful at first, and very awkward in his manner. He took a little time to get his courage, and then he began questioning me about my religious feelings. Well, Mr. Hewitt, I am not the sort of person to stand a lecture from a junior and an inferior, whatever my religious opinions may be, and I pretty soon made him realise it. ”

“ Hewitt, noting the overcoat that lay limp and unheeded on the sidewalk, and the almost imperceptible uncertainty of the young fellow’s neat, boyish back in its conscious equilibrium, stopped to give that second and more searching look one always gives a drunken man, however usual the spectacle of drunkenness. They both stood there a moment: Hewitt half way up the stone steps of the building, the other with his back turned, swaying gently on the walk below, as if listening to the diminishing clatter of the shabby little cab. ”

“ To Hegel, for example, the substance of the doctrines of Protestant Christianity is identical with the truths of absolute philosophy, except that in religion they are expressed in a form not adequate to their meaning, the form, namely, of imaginative thought in which most men live. The disposition to philosophize Christianity [95] is too widely shown in Germany to be dismissed as a cowardly desire at accommodation with things established. It shows rather an intellectual piety among a people where freedom of thought and conscience had been achieved without a violent political upheaval. ”

“ The crowd was visibly amazed to see a young nobleman put himself on a level with the commonality. But they all knew Hedulio's affable ways and there were no hoots or jeers.
"Hedulio examined the horse carefully, fetlocks, hoofs, mouth and all. Then he gentled and patted it. When he vaulted into the saddle, the brute did a little rearing, kicking and bucking, but soon quieted. ”