Circumstance

“ Circumstances mould our lives so strangely and capriciously, that we are ever doing things, which in after moments surprise ourselves those unplanned, unplotted, spontaneous deeds of ours that spring from the natural source of action, directly as it is influenced by some passing circumstance of moment! ”

“ If we could throw ourselves with the reality of circumstance as well as the vividness of feeling into the period in which she moved and governed, we should come to truer decisions on the points submitted to our view. ”

“ The circumstance of their actual occurrence, and the fact that the present reality diminishes, from many causes, our surprise at events, tend to make us think lightly of what is going on around us. And, besides this, we ordinarily see only the surface of society. ”

“ since it is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad. ”

“ A circumstance of chief significance, perhaps, is one which concerns the character of that about which the person is engaged in respect to its being calculated, under the conditions, to work injury to others. ”

“ And in this examination we shall see whether there is any custom, any action, any system, or practice, or habit, any general approval or disapproval on the part of mankind in general, from which circumstance some suspicion at times arises. ”

“ Whether the incidents, or the characters, are copied from life, is of little importance—The only question is, if the circumstances, and situations, are altogether improbable? If not—whether the consequences might not have followed from the circumstances?—This is a grand question, applicable to all the purposes of education, morals, and legislation—and on this I rest my moral—'Do men gather figs of thorns, or grapes of thistles?' asked a moralist and a reformer. ”

“ It is a common circumstance, both in physical, mental, and moral subjects, for the apparent to be the very opposite of the real. This general truth has been repeatedly illustrated in an incidental manner in this book, and need not be much further elucidated. ”

“ Again; we hear the complaint that not only men, but circumstances change. Why knit myself, people will ask, to one who to-morrow may be whirled away from me by some eddy of circumstances, and so go on his way, while I see him no more? ”

“ If these circumstances form, in reality, the whole of that necessity, which we conceive in matter, and if these circumstances be also universally acknowledged to take place in the operations of the mind, the dispute is at an end ”

“ Now, when we are inclined to complain of the trials and hardships of the present, it is sometimes the part of wisdom for us to recall for a moment the conditions and circumstances which surrounded us in the past. ”

“ Every event which actually transpires, has its appropriate relation and place in the vast complication of circumstances, of which the affairs of men consist; it owes its origin to the events which have preceded it, is intimately connected with all others which occur at the same time and place, and often with those of remote regions, and in its turn gives birth to numberless others which succeed. ”

“ Circumstances are compulsory, from the absence of a power to resist or control them: and if the absence likewise be the effect of circumstances.... the evil derives from the circumstances.... and such evil is not sin."* Do you say that you are independent of all circumstances, that you can control them, that you have a free will? ”

“ There are certain circumstances, which, at the time of their happening, are a kind of riddles, and as every riddle is to be followed by its answer, so those kind of circumstances will be followed by their events, and those events are always the true solution. ”

“ Circumstances determine who orders the charge and who charges, who lords over all and who the servants are, who rests atop pedestals and who shoulder their weight, who stands on the rostrum and who stand on the plains. ”

“ From these two circumstances—the serious deterioration of our position, and the prompt and efficacious remedy provided—an important conclusion may be drawn as to our means of effecting any required change in our relations. ”

“ When we point out, in the situation of a people, circumstances which, by determining their pursuits, regulate their habits, and their manner of life; and when, instead of referring to the supposed physical source of their dispositions, we assign their inducements to a determinate conduct ”

“ Still this is part of its meaning; if we regard an event as determined by a variety of circumstances, a man’s choice being among them, we say that he is responsible for just that choice which is left him by the other circumstances. ”

“ Steadiness of purpose under adverse or confusing circumstances is called persistence, courage, loyalty, or zeal, with {96} differences of meaning that reflect the nature either of the purpose or the circumstances. ”

“ This situation marks a definite stage in the release of man from precedent and usage, and a definite step forward towards the conscious and deliberate reconstruction of his circumstances to suit his needs and aims. ”

“ But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. ”

“ Whoever shall review his life will generally find, that the whole tenour of his conduct has been determined by some accident of no apparent moment, or by a combination of inconsiderable circumstances, acting when his imagination was unoccupied, and his judgment unsettled; ”

“ The choice that is finally made between the right, the expedient, and the wrong is determined by a variety of considerations—by conflicting emotions, by the balancing of probabilities and inclinations, by the degree or kind of temptation, by the presence or absence of witnesses, especially human, by other specialties of an animal's position, by the nature and extent of its moral training, by the character of the rewards and punishments offered on previous occasions. ”

“ Will you say, that when one event precedes another, the one which comes first is the effect, and the one which follows afterwards is the cause? This is not the way in which men reason on the ordinary affairs of life ”

“ But in order to know what state will best suit our end, we must reflect. We must interrogate the experience of our past falls, the causes of our sins, the nature of our aptitudes, the excellences, the advantages, the dangers, of the several states of life. ”

“ The process by which principles are discovered and appropriated is other than that by which, in practice, they are applied; and our most sacred and disinterested convictions ought to take shape in the tranquil regions of the air, above the tumult and the tempest of active life. ”

“ In the development of time into causation, persistence becomes state and change becomes event. In the development of judgment into conception, consciousness becomes recollection and choice becomes inference. ”

“ Who make the laws? The people in theory now, and some day they will do it in fact. As the spirit of the time changes, the interpretation of the law will change, and the spirit is changing all the time. ”

“ When we have marked the characteristics which form the general points of coincidence; when we have pursued them to their consequences in the several modes of legislation, execution, and judicature, in the establishments which relate to police, commerce, religion, or domestic life; we have made an acquisition of knowledge, which, though it does not supersede the necessity of experience, may serve to direct our inquiries, and, in the midst of affairs, give an order and a method for the arrangement of particulars that occur to our observation. ”

“ We see what the effect has been, and must be, when the affairs of life, in courts of law and the relations of society, or the conduct or feelings of individuals, are suffered to be under the control of fanciful or mystical notions. ”

“ Our deeds, judged in the light of a reasonable survey of life--a survey of life such as that to which, when we form our opinions, and when we act on our opinions, we intend to appeal--are, for a determinate purpose, either hits or misses. If the issues of life in question when we act are definite enough, our deeds, under the rules of the game of life, cannot avoid this character of being the right deeds or the wrong deeds for the purpose in question and in view of their actual place in real life. ”

“ To compare a possible sequence of events with the real course of history, to estimate the good lost and evil got through events which at the time seemed to vindicate the moral governance of the world, is no idle exercise of the imagination. ”

“ The expression "human events" I submit to the taste of the cultivated reader. Affairs, may be human or inhuman; divine or diabolical. An "event" may be great or small, &c. But can humanity or inhumanity be predicated of "events?" To be sure, human beings are actors frequently, in the scenes which when completed we call "events." Does that fact however, make them human? A pestilence—famine—the rise and fall of empires and wars are events. ”

“ The omissions, which, in the period of fervour for duty and religion, would have excited in you the warmest compunctions, are now no longer regarded even as faults. The principles, the judgment, the light of the mind, are all changed. ”

“ When we look back upon events that have happened, we stand in a different position; we behold with a clearer vision as we embrace within our glance the beginning and the end, the act and the consequences. But the man who is doing the act may contemplate a very different result. ”

“ Paradox and confusion have been created by the historical treatment of one event as if it were the other, and by the treatment of the necessary conditions for one event as if they were necessary conditions for the other. ”

“ Now our very power to make the whole of Being our problem, already implies that the object of our inquiry, whatever it proves to contain, has as the fulfilment of one idea, the constitution of a single life of concrete fulfilment. ”

“ All the former vigor remains, or appears to be intact; judgment and reason display vigor and clearness in criminal acts and conduct. Motives and purposes of life have changed, although the form and semblance of the past conduct remain. ”

“ Foresight of possible consequences leads to more careful and extensive observation of the nature and performances of the things he had to do with, and to laying out a plan—that is, of a certain order in the acts to be performed. ”

“ Clearly only the contact, or immediate proximity of the two occurrences. If any sequence could in fact be more wonderful than another, it should rather seem to be for the consequent to impart grandeur to the precedent—the effect to the cause,—than for the cause to impart grandeur to the effect. ”

“ It presents in every branch a regularly developed series of causes and consequences, and abounds in examples of that continuity of life, the realization of which is necessary to give the reader a personal hold on the past and a right judgment of the present. ”

“ His fourth cause, and that the strongest, is drawn from the regularity of the motion and revolution of the heavens, the distinctness, variety, beauty, and order of the sun, moon, and all the stars, the appearance only of which is sufficient to convince us they are not the effects of chance; as when we enter into a house, or school, or court, and observe the exact order, discipline, and method of it, we cannot suppose that it is so regulated without a cause, but must conclude that there is some one who commands, and to whom obedience is paid. ”

“ In life, again, we have ends to attain. And with regard to these we ponder which is the best way to secure them. The end here represents the universal or governing principle: and we have means and instruments whose action we regulate in conformity to the end. ”

“ What do you mean by the words 'the good cause?' We are defending at this moment, in England, five or six causes, which does not prevent every one from considering his own not only as the good cause, but as the best. ”

“ As a rule, writers nowadays care little about incident, and in this respect the public resembles them. Given a life of average duration and condition, and we know its inseparable incidents—incidents which are the general property and experience of the human family. ”

“ When the action of each and all is the necessary and sufficient cause of the whole damage. This condition is fulfilled when one commands or counsels an unjust act and another in consequence performs it. ”