Attribute (philosophy)

“ Without Knowledge of the Human Nature. “Varied, according to character, are the demands made by heart and mind,” assures us a representative of modern philosophy, “corresponding to them is the image of the world to which the individual turns by inner necessity. ”

“ What, then, is the proper work of a man? To ascertain this we must ascertain what man's peculiar property or attribute is. His peculiar property or attribute is reason. He has life in common with all organised creatures ”

“ The essential character of any anthropomorphic or human attribute—power for example, or wisdom, or goodness—is that it is limited, imperfect, and liable to error. But when we conceive of these qualities as existing in absolute perfection and boundless capacity, while we retain the idea that they are personal qualities, we in fact divest them of their anthropomorphic or human character. ”

“ Consider, gentlemen, and you will conclude that the condition of being in no way implies matter; it signifies only the connexion between attribute and subject, it expresses merely a relation."
"Doubtless," said Jean Marteau, "but to be without attributes is to be practically nothing. ”

“ To have been derived from something else, is as good as an objection, it sets the value of a thing in question. All superior values are of the first rank, all the highest concepts—that of Being, of the Absolute, of Goodness, of Truth, and of Perfection ”

“ Connected with the distinction just made between ‘object’ in the sense of the qualities actually before the mind and ‘object’ in the sense of the whole thing which possesses the qualities actually before the mind, is another distinction of the utmost importance for a correct analysis of the constituents necessary to a valuable whole. ”

“ The existence of a being, or the possession, or exercise of any principle, passion or attribute, implies personality, or individual identity, which is the same thing. The mind cannot conceive of existence, passion, principle, or action, without conceiving of them inhering in actually existing Essence, which must assume in the mind the idea of personality. Therefore, personality is strictly, and properly applicable to the Divine Essence. But the doctrine of a plural personality is to be established at present. ”

“ Whoever has watched human character, whether in the young or the old, must be well aware of the truth of this: he will know that the value of any character is in proportion to the existence or to the absence of this feeling, or rather, I should say, this principle. ”

“ Properties belong to things in themselves, but qualities exist in the mind as properties are viewed in relation to human designs. Qualities are relations, and the terms of the relation are properties on the one hand and purposes on the other. ”

“ Whenever he thinks of ‘intrinsic value,’ or ‘intrinsic worth,’ or says that a thing ‘ought to exist,’ he has before his mind the unique object—the unique property of things—which I mean by ‘good.’ Everybody is constantly aware of this notion, although he may never become aware at all that it is different from other notions of which he is also aware. ”

“ There are, in every object, qualities we are ignorant of and that are precisely those through which this object fulfils its most beautiful rôle in the universe, those to which it inclines as if toward some miraculous purpose, which are indeed its vocation and its true destiny. ”

“ Further, it is not the intrinsic nature of objects but their value for the particular individual that immediately determines each one's attitude towards them; and as the individuals vary so do their interests and pursuits. ”

“ The character, therefore, of the lower or natural degree of a man's mind, since it determines for ever the quality of the life that inflows, must necessarily determine for ever the character of the man. ”

“ The seventh, and final, "quality" is body or figure, by which he means the fundamental tendency or energy toward expression in actuality and concrete form. The final goal of intelligent purpose is the realization of wisdom, of idea, in actual Nature-forms and life-forms—the incarnation of the spirit. ”

“ But what analysis can we adopt which shall prove universally satisfactory? If we rank men according to mental, moral or spiritual attributes, one quality is sure to contradict or affect the other, and it is hard to decide which trait is paramount. ”

“ But the greatest branch of intellectual [Pg xv] excellence with respect to which every other is nothing, and which, from its nature, can never be foundation of any self-conceit, is virtue, or right dispositions of mind, leading to right conduct in life. Proper sentiments, and just affections of mind, arise from just, and often comprehensive, views of things, past, present, and to come. ”

“ The uses of his intellect for practical affairs are therefore subordinate matters. 'The theoretic life' is his soul's genuine concern." Nothing can be more different in its results for our personal attitude than to take sides with one or the other of these views, and emphasize the practical or the theoretical ideal. In the latter case, abstraction from the emotions and passions and withdrawal from the strife of human affairs would be not only pardonable, but praiseworthy; and all that makes for quiet and contemplation should be regarded as conducive to the highest human perfection. ”

“ And here I conceive it proper to inquire, first, whether any excellence, such as thou hast lately defined, can exist in the nature of things, lest we be deceived by an empty fiction of thought to which no true reality answers. ”

“ It has been indicated that a connotative term is one which possesses the double function of signifying a subject as well as an attribute. It may be observed here that an attribute of a notion is any mark, property or characteristic of that notion. Attribute, then, represents quality, relation or quantity. By a subject is meant anything which possesses attributes. Most subjects stand for objects and most attributes are qualities ”

“ It follows from what has been said that we have every reason to suppose that a cognition of material qualities, and even their existence, is an essential constituent of the Ideal or Summum Bonum: there is only a bare possibility that they are not included in it. ”

“ The positive attributes, although not peculiar to one thing, describe a portion of what we desire to know, either some part of its essence or some of its accidents; the negative attributes, on the other hand, do not, as regards the essence of the thing which we desire to know, in any way tell us what it is, except it be indirectly, as has been shown in the instance given by us. ”

“ Then, as we are rational, and philosophy being rational, we have some affinity with it. Now an aptitude is a movement towards virtue, not virtue itself. All, then, as I said, are naturally constituted for the acquisition of virtue. ”

“ For the ideal character is not merely to be portrayed in its relation to all that satisfies material wants, but as itself a focus of spiritual interests. It is certainly true that all that is truly substantive, divine, and essentially necessary in all these relations is fundamentally an envisagement of one reality. ”

“ Thus the ideal, in this superior degree, is the manifestation of moral powers and of the ideas of spirit, of the grand movements of the soul, and of the characters which appear and are revealed in the development of the representation. ”

“ A philosophy, less systematic, by conforming itself to facts, carries through common sense to better results. By distinguishing between the passive phenomenon of desire and the power of freely determining self, it restores the true activity that characterizes human personality. ”

“ Thus it is that ideals are a living, vital agency in unfolding the latent virtues of man and so shaping his character.
Hence we may perceive that in these three addresses we have, if I may use the ambitious expression, a full chart of our life — its right methods, its favourable circumstances and its ultimate realisation. Cultivate your self, sparing no pains. Seek and imbibe lofty ideals, drawing no invidious distinction between one and another. And realise that character in which alone lies the justification of human life and the gurantee of human continuity. ”

“ If every fundamental trait of character, which lies beneath every act, and which finds expression in every act, were recognized by the individual as his fundamental trait of character, this individual would be driven to regard every moment of his existence in general, triumphantly as good. ”

“ This is an ultimate fact in our analysis; and its importance will be realized when we come to apply the notions we have been explaining to the study of change.
[pg 059] The notion of grades of perfection in things is one with which everyone is familiar. We naturally conceive some beings as higher upon the scale of reality than others; as having “more” reality, so to speak—not necessarily, of course, in the literal sense of size or quantity—than others; as being more perfect, nobler, of greater worth, value, dignity, excellence, than others. ”

“ There must be therefore a unity of character underlying the multiplicity of characteristics, one single and commanding principle at work in the formation of life of which every possible virtue is the expression. ”

“ But these may be predicated in senses which are only analogous to each other of the composite essence, of its distinct parts, soul and body, of the attributes or essential qualities of man, and of the accidents of individual men. For instance, the human essence is essentially good; the soul and body are good each in its own order; rationality is good; learning, valor, amiability, moral virtue, sanctity, are good; but there is analogy only, not identity, in these various kinds of good. The same is true of being. ”

“ The first point is that the character of every person contains contrary elements.63 Let the two kinds of qualities be called the fair and foul, or more simply still the plus and minus traits. The bright qualities, the plus traits, are undoubtedly more predominant in some, the dark or minus traits in others. But potential plus qualities exist in the worst characters, and potential minus traits may be surmised, and on scrutiny will be found, in those whom the world most admires. ”

“ As applied to individuals, the word Essence, we found, has no meaning, except in connection with the exploded tenets of the Realists; and what the schoolmen chose to call the essence of an individual, was simply the essence of the class to which that individual was most familiarly referred. ”

“ And this is just that which creates the interest we feel in a character, namely, that a totality such as that we have above described emerges from it, and the character, while reposing on its abundance, nevertheless persists in perfect equality with itself, as one secure and self-excluding subject. ”

“ Our attitude in life depends upon our character, and the basic elements of character are the product of the circumstances that gave birth to our being. Our character enters unconsciously or consciously in the formulation of our standards of value which we will find to be the most significant factors of our destinies. Now the question arises, Is the standard of value which we set up, each one of us according to his character, purely subjective or is there any objective criterion of its worth? ”

“ Are they not rife with all the useful reasoning—the philosophic intelligence—the happiness of application, that cultivated man could devise for the assistance of untutored intellect?
From the logic of the sage we learn, by a spirit of imitation natural to human beings, to quicken our own powers of reasoning. The perspicuity of arrangement and expression, so admirable in our master, becomes gradually a part of our own style. ”

“ The ideal is imaginary, and ordinarily unattainable; the standard is concrete, and ordinarily attainable, being a measure to which all else of its kind must conform; as, the standard of weights and measures, of corn, or of cotton. The idea of virtue is the mental concept or image of virtue in general; the ideal of virtue is the mental concept or image of virtue in its highest conceivable perfection. ”

“ The character itself should be, to the individual, a paramount end, simply because the existence of this ideal nobleness of character, or of a near approach to it, in any abundance, would go farther than all things else toward making human life happy, [pg 659] both in the comparatively humble sense of pleasure and freedom from pain, and in the higher meaning, of rendering life, not what it now is almost universally, puerile and insignificant, but such as human beings with highly developed faculties can care to have. ”

“ By what rational title—even granting for the sake of argument that they are the genuine postulates of categorical and of conditional syllogizing—can this Subject and this Object, these correlate factors in the Self, rank as Ideas with the Idea of their conditioning Whole—the Self, that in its still unaltered identity fulfills, in Practical Reason, the high rôle of Person? ”

“ The influence of our ideals is perceived to affect not only our character but also our place and degree of success in life. We grow [Pg 69] to be that of which we have held ideals. If we create an ideal, either of general qualities or else these qualities as manifested by some person living or dead, and keep that ideal ever before us, we cannot help developing traits and qualities corresponding to those of our ideal. Careful thought will show that character depends greatly upon the nature of our ideals; therefore we see the effect of the imagination in character building. ”

“ Absolute perfection of moral character can not be described by a definition; but, as we know that a measurable goodness which we can describe exists, wherein consists the failure or lapse of a thinkable relation, when we reason from that which exists in a measurable degree to that which transcends all degree? We are all the while thinking of goodness or virtue, whether we think of it as limited and imperfect, or as unlimited and perfect. Take another quality—power. We know that there is such a quality as power, wielded by human beings, and guided by their will. ”