Affinity

“ Strange is that affinity, bearing witness as it does not only to his profound need of the Universal and the Absolute, but to his intuitive sympathy with the whole of life, to his impulses of love for the general soul of fruitfulness and for all its single and multitudinous forms. ”

“ If any one will but take pains to observe the variety of actions to which he is equally inclined in certain moods of mind, and those to which he is averse, he will see how deep is the chain of affinity. ”

“ We are not only drawn by affinity to those like ourselves, but often still more powerfully, with rebuking and redeeming effect, to those above us that we may become like them, to those beneath us that we may pity and help them. ”

“ Will these, too, separate themselves from me again, or some of them? I know not, but I fear it not; for my relation to them is so pure, that we hold by simple affinity, and the Genius of my life being thus social, the same affinity will exert its energy on whomsoever is as noble as these men and women, wherever I may be. ”

“ How frequently is this the case with mankind! no ties of affinity can cause two dispositions to unite and flow on together in a tranquil or felicitous course, where nature has placed a marked opposition of sentiment and character. ”

“ The law of affinity is not in moral beings a simple force necessitating an endless uniformity of state, but a complex of forces, sometimes mingling the unlike by stimulants of wedded similarity and contrast to bless and advance all, now punishing, now rewarding, but ever finally intended to redeem. ”

“ And it is the especial business of what we may call the central consciousness, the dominant thought or emotion, to bring these separate thoughts and impulses, these separate groups thereof, into more complex relations, to continue on a far vaster scale that vital contact, that trying of all things by the great trial of affinity or repulsion, of congruity or incongruity. Thus we make trial of ourselves ”

“ Mind and heart, understanding and sense, were drawn together with an inevitable elective affinity, and this at the same time produced an intimate union between individuals of the most different types. ”

“ Affinity and analogy, so dissimilar in their essential characters, were constantly mistaken one for the other; and upon the peculiarities which struck the observer most at first sight, animals were brought together, sometimes upon the ground of true affinity, sometimes, also, upon the ground of close analogy ”

“ You mean, then, two kinds of affinity; the one privative, the which may be towards something which is power, as, infinite is darkness, the end of which is the position of light; the other perfecting, which tends to the act and perfection, as infinite is the light, the end of which would be privation and darkness. ”

“ All men's inventions, thoughts, cogitations, projects, and endeavours, what do they tend to but to the satisfaction of their lusts,—either the lusts of the mind, as ambition, pride, avarice, passion, revenge, and such like,—or the lust of the body, as pleasure to the ears and eyes, and to the flesh? Man was made with an upright soul, with a dominion over that brutish part, more like angels, but now, all his invention runs upon that base and beastly part, how to adorn it, how to beautify it, how to satisfy it, and for this his soul must be a drudge and slave. ”

“ You have gained an increase of power. The influence which is most truly valuable, is that of mind over mind. How entire and perfect is this dominion, over the unformed character of your infant. Write what you will, upon the printless tablet, with your wand of love. Hitherto, your influence over your dearest friend, your most submissive servant, has known bounds and obstructions. Now, you have over a new-born immortal, almost that degree of power which the mind exercises over the body, and which Aristotle compares to the "sway of a prince over a bond-man." ”

“ All our thoughts of him, all our affections towards him, should have the stamp of singularity, such as may declare there is none like him, none besides him, our love, our meditation, our acknowledgement should have this character on their front,—“There is none besides thee; thou art, and none else.” And then a soul should, by the cords of affection to him and admiration of him, be bound to serve him. Creation puts on the obligation to glorify him in our body and spirits which are his, but affection only puts that to exercise. ”

“ Yet the essence or nature of this spirit of piety which we would analyse, consists in consciousness of the reality of the object of its yearning or devotion. Not altogether through induction or deduction, but with an irrational immediacy of conviction, it feels and knows its object. In place of the knowledge which is mediated through rational processes, is substituted a conviction upheld by yearning, love’s conviction indeed, of the reality and presence of that which is all the greater and more worthy because it baffles reason. ”

“ How difficult is it to fight always for duty against inclination? I know what obligations this veil lays on me, but I feel more strongly what power a long habitual passion has over my heart. I am conquered by my inclination. My love troubles my mind, and disorders my will. Sometimes I am swayed by the sentiments of piety which arise in me, and the next moment I yield up my imagination to all that is amorous and tender. ”

“ In the case of the Love of Wealth, Power, or Dignity, the Love of Individuals, the Love of Family, and all other causes of our Pleasures, we have uniformly found the Affection to be one thing, the Motive another. The Affection consisted of the association of the idea of the object as Cause, with that of our Pleasures as Effect. The Motive consisted of the association of the idea of the object, as cause, with that of our pleasures, as effect, and the idea of an act of ours, as cause of that cause. ”

“ We see, therefore, from this view of our internal feelings, that no scenes of misery ought to be exhibited which are not connected with the display of some moral excellence, or agreeable quality. If fortitude, power, and strength of mind are called forth, they produce the sublime feelings of wonder and admiration: if the softer qualities of gentleness, grace, and beauty, they inspire love and pity. The management of these latter emotions is our present object. ”

“ My course of study had led me to believe, that all mental and moral feelings and qualities, whether of a good or of a bad kind, were the results of association; that we love one thing, and hate another, take pleasure in one sort of action or contemplation, and pain in another sort, through the clinging of pleasurable or painful ideas to those things, from the effect of education or of experience. ”

“ In all these three stages of honour, love, and fidelity, we shall find the soil on which the self-subsistency of personality, the soul, is supported, an independence which, however, constantly unfolds in a wider and more affluent content, remaining in the same self-reconciled. ”

“ Faint and imperfect as are the ideas which our limited perceptions enable us to form of divine wisdom, still they cannot fail to inspire us with awe and admiration. What, then, would be our feelings, were the complete system of nature at once displayed before us! So magnificent a scene would probably be too great for our limited and imperfect comprehension, and it is no doubt among the wise dispensations of Providence, to veil the splendour of a glory with which we should be overpowered. ”

“ It rests on the principle which both our feelings and our experience demonstrate to be true, that every primary and essential desire of the human mind has a co-relative—or, in other words, a something to gratify it—existing in the nature of things. ”

“ It must be proved by the unwavering truth and fidelity—I might almost say, the inward truth of the heart and the outward character of the whole life; and, in short, of a higher love in its every species, whether human or divine. ”

“ But if there are any to whom all that is human is of interest, who have felt in their own consciousness some stirrings of invincible attraction to one individual and equally invincible repugnance to another, who know by their own experience that elective affinities have as their necessary counterpart, and, as it were, their polar opposites, currents not less strong of elective repulsions, let them read with unquestioning faith the story of a blighted life I am about to relate, much of it, of course, received from the lips of others. ”

“ How needful is it, then, that the [47] soul, lifted upon the wings of reverence and humble confidence, should rise above itself and every creature by entire detachment, and should be able to say within itself: He Whom I seek, love, desire, among all, more than all, and above all, cannot be perceived by the senses or the imagination, for He is above both the senses and the understanding. ”

“ Nature has given her a generous heart, sensible to the miseries of mankind.—It was enough; but not for you; and so you have suffered the noblest feelings of an excellent disposition to be perverted by the overstrained and effeminate sensibility of frivolous affectation. ”

“ They pretend that his qualities of heart and mind, his passions, inclinations, virtues, faults, are so combined in his ardent, mobile nature, as to make him in reality the sport of chance; and that no inclination or passion whatsoever could ever become mistress of his heart or mind, so as to constitute the basis of a character, and render it possible to define it. ”

“ Is it not reasonable to suppose that such an infinitely wise and good being, having made a creature capable of appreciating himself and his plan, would be moved by his love and justice to supply the wants of that creature's nature, by giving him some REVELATION? ”

“ We have a confused but strong benevolent feeling toward a cluster of attributes belonging to the friend we have learned to cherish. Some of these attributes are suddenly and strikingly presented to us, and we feel well inclined toward them. We confuse the attributes with the present possessor of them, and benevolence is felt toward the stranger. In this case the genesis is so clear, the confusion so glaring, that they cannot, be overlooked. ”

“ It is the external motive power, just as Affection is the internal motive power,—the body, of which Affection is the soul. Without earnestness, all our other powers come to naught, and we live in vain ”

“ Secondly, There must not only be a goodness supposed in the object, but some correspondence between the worth and weight of that goodness and the measure of our desires and affections, else there wants that conformity between the soul and truth which makes a true zeal of God. I mean this, the soul's most vehement desires should be employed about the chiefest good, and our zeal move in relation to things unquestionably good, and not about things of small moment, or of little edification. ”

“ Aversion, or rather antipathy, is as powerful a motive force as love, and I was looking forward to the end of my studies as the close of a patronage which I felt to be unbearable. To be my own master, to earn enough money to live on, to pay back to my uncle what he had given me—that was my dream ”

“ Inclinations and passions embody the same constituent features as the practical feeling. Thus, while on one hand they are based on the rational nature of the mind; they on the other, as part and parcel of the still subjective and single will, are infected with contingency, and appear as particular to stand to the individual and to each other in an external relation and with a necessity which creates bondage. ”

“ So, in that rightful bringing-in of novelty which is the business of the fully living soul, the most powerful agent is love, understood as the controlling factor of behaviour, the sublimation and union of will and desire. ”

“ But the appetitive faculty—the will, that is—moves us to consider some point either sensibly or intellectually, that is, sometimes out of love for the thing itself—for Where thy treasure is there is thy heart also,—and sometimes out of love of that very knowledge which follows from its consideration. ”

“ He rather belongs to the company of those, or of One, who said, "be ye perfect," and set up as the standard the infinite perfection of God. a "Let the future and the furthest be the motive of thy today." "Do I counsel you to love your neighbor, the one nearest you? I counsel you rather to flee the nearest and love the furthest human being." ”

“ Which three, if they were pondered by us till our souls received the stamp of them, they would certainly be powerful to abstract and draw our hearts from the vain changeable, and empty shadow of the creature, and gather our scattered affections that are parted among them, because of their insufficiency, that all might unite in one and join with this self sufficient and eternal God. I say, if a soul did indeed believe and consider how all-sufficient he is, how insufficient all things else are, would it not cleave to him and draw near to him? Psal. ”

“ This happens when the very discontent with destiny becomes effaced, and is resolved in a presentiment or rather a clear consciousness of a teleological concatenation of things, of a sublime order, of a beneficent will. Then, to the pleasure occasioned in us by moral consistency is joined the invigorating idea of the most perfect suitability in the great whole of nature. ”

“ Our love affairs, our devotions and private passions, for example, will fall more and more definitely into a subordination to our science or whatever our function is. Our romances and our fame and honour will join our vices among the things we suppress. ”