Masoretic Text

“ Only thus can we gain a fitting idea of the power and wisdom of the supreme Being, not from some small part of creation for which we know neither the construction, usage nor its relationship to other parts. What satisfaction for the human spirit in contemplating these laws of motion and equilibrium for all bodies in the universe, and in finding within them proof of the existence of Him who governs the universe! ”

“ Truly our perspective is limited to where we are; we cannot see far enough to appreciate the order and interconnectedness of things. If we could, we would undoubtedly find the marks of God's wisdom as well as His intelligence in its execution. ”

“ So far as we may conjecture from analogy, we have proofs of the existence of this transcendental science, which includes all sciences, and is in its turn contained in one sole principle, or rather, in one only idea, in one only intuition. If we observe the scale of beings, the grades of distinction between individual intelligences, and the successive progress of science, the image of this truth will be presented to us in a very striking manner. ”

“ Rather, I consider the arguments of a philosopher who made such grand discoveries that he could well judge the truly marvellous in Nature, and whose reasoning was more precise than that of the others. ”

“ We should at least examine the strengths and weaknesses of each argument, to give each one its proper weight; for one can do no greater damage to Truth than to base it on false reasoning.
I will not consider here arguments based on an infinite Being, arguments that seem to prove that an infinitely perfect Being must exist; for that idea is so sublime that, from our finite vantage point, we cannot find a reliable foundation upon which to build reasoned arguments. ”

“ The conjecture of a philosopher so familiar with nature may sometimes be more pregnant with truth than the best established experimental law discovered by empirical inquirers, and though not bound to admit it as a physical truth, we may accept it as a new idea by which our mathematical conceptions may be rendered clearer. ”

“ Must not the mass, in its conscience, be like the individuals of which it is composed? Shall the mass, in relation with other masses, do what individuals in relation with each other may not do? As in the physical creation, so in the moral, there is but one rule for the individual and the mass. ”

“ But the Real Thing postulated by Physics is but one aspect of the whole, and may be, must be, merged in a higher Reality—of which phenomena, on the one hand, and Thought, Conation, Feeling on the other, are the appearances. That involves a further advance, the attainment of a higher degree of Truth which would bridge the Dualism of Thought and Existence, of Self and Not-self, of Spirit and Nature, and whilst, on the one hand, such Reality must fundamentally be a-logical, on the other hand Energy may owe its energy to Spirit. ”

“ A blind and deterministic mechanics follows the plans of a perfectly clear and free Intellect. If our spirits were sufficiently vast, we would also see the causes of all physical effects, either by studying the properties of material bodies or by studying what would most suitable for them to do. ”

“ Of those who have applied themselves to studying the Universe, several have found traces of the wisdom and power of Him who governs it. The more the field of physics has progressed, the more arguments we find for His existence. However, some have been confused by the character of the Divinity revealed in Nature, while others, almost religiously zealous, have given too much weight to some arguments, considering them proofs when they were not. ”

“ If we refer to phenomena of sense perception as forces of matter in general, then this generalized matter is nothing but an abstract conception. But if we mean by the term sense perception the various concrete substances, then the general element which embraces the differences of things and pervades and controls them is force producing concrete effects. And whether we say matter or force, the mental which science is studying, not with its hands, but with its brain, the so-called essence, nature, cause, ideal, superior or spiritual, is the generality comprising the special things. ”

“ Furthermore, the maxim that all the phenomena of nature must be explained by means of the simplest factors and according to the smallest possible [pg 194] number of laws, is usually regarded as one of the most legitimate maxims of science in general, so that the resolute pertinacity with which many investigators maintain the entire sufficiency of the mechanical interpretation, far from being condemned as materialistic fanaticism, must be respected as the expression of scientific conscience. ”

“ Our scientific triumphs at the present day extend precisely so far as we have accepted the evidence of our senses,—as we have sharpened and armed them, and learned to follow them up to the end. What remains is abortive and not yet science—that is to say, metaphysics, theology, psychology, epistemology, or formal science, or a doctrine of symbols, like logic and its applied form mathematics. In all these things reality does not come into consideration at all, even as a problem ”

“ Of course, neither Thought nor Volition, as such, can be the absolute Reality. They, like Physical Force, are but transmutations, affections, phases of Reality. Nor, again, is Energy, as a quality, a correct description of the Absolute, as such. The Absolute, as such, we cannot describe; but in studying, as Physics does, the relations of physical phenomena and stating these in terms of Reality, it conveniently gives Reality a name appropriate to its own standpoint.
Metaphysics rightly declines to be required to study special branches of Science. ”

“ But if this experimental reasoning is of that nature which philosophy describes it as being of, i.e. if it is not itself a process of reason, how can there from an irrational process of the mind arise a proposition at all,—to make which is the function of the rational faculty alone? There cannot; and it is evident that the miraculous does not stand in any opposition whatever to reason.... ”

“ To broaden our knowledge of the world, we use different methods that rarely lead us to the same truths. Nevertheless, it would be remarkable if certain fundamental truths of Philosophy could be illustrated by geometric arguments or algebraic proofs. ”

“ Thus, while we acknowledge all the beauty and all the value of the mathematical reasonings by which the consequences of our general laws are deduced, we may yet consider it possible that a philosopher, whose mind has been mainly employed, and his intellectual habits determined, by this process of deduction, may possess, in a feeble and imperfect degree only, some of those faculties by which truth is attained, and especially those truths which regard our relation to that mind, the origin of all law, the source of first principles, which must be immeasurably elevated above all derivative truths. ”

“ We refuse to regard the Universe as only a machine, and hold by the intuitions of faith and of Poetry, though the objects which these let in on us cannot be counted, measured, or weighed, or verified by any of the tests which some physicists demand as the only gauges of reality. ”

“ Something of the same sort is beginning to be recognized in the world of mental and psychical phenomena. If the mathematical exactness which measured the force of gravity, or placed the sun in one of the foci of an ellipse instead of the centre of a circle cannot be applied here, it is only on account of the vast complexity of the problem presented, and of which we know so few of the elements.
When matter alone is concerned we know exactly how it will act under given conditions. When life is added, the problem becomes more complex. ”

“ When I speak, however, of the union of separate thoughts and feelings in one complex sentiment or emotion, and of the analytic power of reflection or reason, it must not be conceived, that I use these words in a sense precisely the same as when they are applied to matter. A mass of matter, as we have seen, is, in truth, not one body merely, but a multitude of contiguous bodies ”

“ And if we carry our observation outward, we also find that light and darkness, sound and silence, motion and quiescence, equality and inequality, preceding and following, succession and simultaneousness, any positive phenomenon whatever and its negative, are distinct phenomena, pointedly contrasted, and the one always absent where the other is present. I consider the maxim in question to be a generalization from all these facts. ”

“ Hence the orbits of thought, so to speak, must differ among themselves as the initiative ideas differ.”
Have we not here the corollary to, and the explanation of, that law of unconscious cerebration which results in our “ways of thinking,” which shapes our character, rules our destiny? Thoughtful minds consider that the new light which biology is throwing upon the laws of mind is bringing to the front once more the Platonic doctrine, that “An idea is a distinguishable power, self-affirmed, and seen in its unity with the Eternal Essence.” ”

“ So then, we see that the evolution of the unit from the mass, the specialization of faculty in the individual, is the law of Nature, and it hardly needed the philosophy of Nietzsche or the cult of the Superman to enforce the fact upon our minds. ”

“ In the broadest sense, indeed, that notion would be true. The postulate on which we think about the universe is that there is a fixed quantitative relation between every phenomenon and its antecedents and consequents. If there is such a thing as a phenomenon without these fixed quantitative relations, it is a miracle. ”

“ Our ideas, by which we try to understand the reality of things are just so many attempts to correct and set right our illusions and errors. And so the question arises, how far are our ideas about things truths about reality? It is very soon evident that there are some qualities of things that give rise to illusion and error much more readily than others. The spatial qualities of things, solidity, shape, size, seem to be real in a way that does not admit of doubt. We seem able to apply to these qualities a test that is definite and absolute. ”

“ It is apprehended by other faculties than those through which Science works, yet it is in no way opposed to science, but in perfect harmony with it, while transcending it. The mechanical explanation of [88] things—of the Universe—we accept as far as it goes, but we refuse to take it as the whole account of the matter, for we know, on the testimony of moral and spiritual powers, that there is more beyond, and that that which is behind and beyond the mechanism is higher and nobler than the mechanism. ”

“ Surely Nature has more than one physical aspect; for Astronomy, Astrology, and so on, are all on the physical, not the spiritual, plane. 1527. The Natural Genesis, i. 318. It is to be feared that Mr. Massey has not succeeded. We have our followers as he has his followers, and Materialistic Science steps in and takes little account of both his and our speculations! ”

“ In a third stage of partial insight we may stand {101} where, for instance, the masters of the exact sciences stand. We then grasp, with clearness, larger unities of controllable experience. We create objects, as the mathematicians create, in an ideal world of our own contemplation; and we then come to see that these ideal creations of ours do, indeed, reveal the eternal truth regarding a world of seemingly impersonal or superpersonal reality. We learn of this reality through the coherent synthesis of our ideal constructions. ”

“ Thus, step by step, we have tried to build up a theory of the physical cause of all phenomena, which will satisfactorily account for those phenomena, and even for the structure of the universe itself, from the mechanical standpoint, and by so doing have fulfilled the third Rule of our Philosophy as enunciated by Newton and others. ”

“ The eye looks up into the heavens and beholds the sun; I see flowers upon this table; I smell their fragrance; I hear sounds outside, etc, etc. This, they say, is a fixed mathematical law of perception and deduction, the operation of which admits of no doubt whatever; for inasmuch as the universe is subject to our sensing, the proof is self-evident that our knowledge of it must be gained through the avenues of the senses. That is to say, the materialists announce, that the criterion and standard of human knowledge is sense perception. ”

“ All authorities seem to be agreed that at, or nearly at, the root of everything in the physical world lies the mystic formula We do not yet understand that; probably if we could understand it we should not think it so fundamental. ”

“ Thus, then, inarticulate intuitions, ordinary or sometimes more scientific observations of the details of life, and mathematical reasonings concerning the unity and the connections of highly ideal objects such as numbers, come to stand in our experience as more or less sharply sundered grades of imperfect insight. Thus we naturally come to view the typical achievements of our reason as a thing apart, and the rational or exact sciences as remote both from the intuitive faith of the little ones and from {102} the wealthy experience of the men of common-sense and of the men of natural science. ”

“ The doctrine that man's harmony is governed by physical conditions all his earthly days, and that he is then thrust out of his own body by the operation of matter, — even the doctrine of the superiority of matter over Mind, — is fading out. ”