Circumstances

“ You say you are chained by circumstances; you cry out for better opportunities, for a wider scope, for improved physical conditions, and perhaps you inwardly curse the fate that binds you hand and foot. ”

“ Habit, early training, easy circumstances, absence of temptation, a fortunate marriage, or the like, are the real circumstances which retain the great body of the human race of every rank in the right path. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Practical life is such a sum, in which your duty multiplied into your capacity, and divided by your circumstances, gives you the fourth term in the proportion, which is your deserts, with great accuracy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus much for the circumstances by which the effect of any exciting cause may be influenced, when applied upon any given occasion, at any given period. But besides these supervening incidents, there are other circumstances relative to a man, that may have their influence, and which are coeval to his birth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This fearful concatenation of circumstances puts him to an account. ”

“ And since I heard the story, I have repeatedly had the opportunity to think, “C’est aussi le bon Dieu de cet homme.” A single word which indicates how a man denotes a thing defines for us his nature, his character, and his circumstances. ”

“ Circumstances, however, are so complicated, thought is so deeply rooted, and the conditions of happiness vary so, vastly with individuals, that a man's entire soul-condition (although it may be known to himself) cannot be judged by another from the external aspect of his life alone. A man may be honest in certain directions, yet suffer privations; a man may be dishonest in certain directions, yet acquire wealth ”

“ I have a much greater respect for those that are honest and rich.”
“Your degree of respect for honesty, rich or poor, is precisely what I have no manner of concern with. I do not mean to be poor. Poverty is exactly what I have determined against. Honesty, in the something between, in the middle state of worldly circumstances, is all that I am anxious for your not looking down on.” ”

“ But apart from that altogether, let me just remind you, in half a dozen sentences, of the various limitations or fences which hedge up our lives on every side. There are the obligations which we owe, and the relations in which we stand, to the outer world, the laws of physical life, and all that touches the external and the material. There are the relations in which we stand, and the obligations which we owe, to ourselves. ”

“ WHEN one passes in review the individual causes that disturb and complicate our social life, by whatever names they are designated, and their list would be long, they all lead back to one general cause, which is this: the confusion of the secondary with the essential. Material comfort, education, liberty, the whole of civilization—these things constitute the frame of the picture ”

“ Now the sort of 'fact of experience' on which in my book I have proposed to compromise, is the so-called 'mental state,' in whose existence not only common men but philosophers have uniformly believed. ”

“ The direct experiences of the soul, as joy, grief, hope, fear, are purely subjective; the outward causes of these experiences, as prosperity, bereavement, disappointment, are objective. That which has independent existence or authority apart from our experience or thought is said to have objective existence or authority ”

“ And in the second division we may distinguish between the habitual tendency to be actuated by one motive, namely, the desire to do duty for duty’s sake, and all other motives, such as love, benevolence, etc. ”

“ Let those who would study well this social question, or who in public trusts are charged with its solution, be most careful here. Every motive in the minds of these people, whether of instinct, desire, or duty, must be addressed. ”

“ Every claim of duty, the employment of each minute, the daily vexations or trials we are called upon to bear, the momentary decisions that must be made, the casual interview, the contact with sin or sorrow in every-day dress—all, these and many others as small and as constant, are the real opportunities of life. These we are continually embracing or neglecting, and out of them we are forming a character that is fast consolidating into the shape we gave it for good or for evil. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a condition which confronts us, not a theory. ”

“ Such portraitures of human peculiarities, gauged by their moral or social desirability as examples to be followed or avoided, form an attractive compendium for the interpretation of men and their ways. Their consideration, ranging from gossip to philosophy, supplies the common touch of nature that makes the world of every time and clime akin, and presents graphically for our psychological contemplation the outward issues of disposition as shaped by opportunity and circumstance. ”

“ In circles highly civilised the great things, the real things, the hard, the cruel and even the tender things, the true elements of any tension and true facts of any crisis, have ever, for the outsider’s, for the critic’s use, to be translated into terms—terms in the distinguished name of which, terms for the right employment of which, more than one situation of the type I glance at had struck me as all irresistibly appealing. ”

“ It is our intention here to show how this inevitable result operates on civilized existence by its being one of the conditions of Man’s nature, and, consequently, of all arrangements of civilized society. ”

“ 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 condition of existence being what it is, a fallen condition, a state in which a proclivity to sin is the universal rule, how merciful is the appointment of a discipline which should directly minister blessing to the mass of mankind in several ways! ”

“ In these instances the set of conditions in which the individual is involved are not static, but dynamic; and the character of them, and the sweep of them, come out at their points of contact with individual lives, and are revealed in the way they touch the concerns of men and break in upon the personal fortunes of a few people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And therefore all the manifold relations of life,—the home, the market, the city, the state; all the multiform activities of life,—labour and speech and art and literature and {114} law; all the sentiments of life,—friendship and love and reverence and courage and hope,—all these are parts of a knowable whole; they are expressions of law; they are Reason realising itself through individuals, and in the same process realising them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our present condition, if considered in connection with the ordeal through which we have passed, shows that there is the presence of an element in our character which must eventually lead to important results. ”

“ It may be asked, upon what consideration the men of our own age and country, for example, at first 314 and before a habit is formed, perform moral acts? Or, it may be asked, upon what consideration did men originally perform moral acts? ”

“ Parenthetically, we agree that “such and such a condition of things” may alter with every instant and we declare ourselves ready to study the matter anew if the conditions change. We demand material, but relative truth. ”

“ Repetitions in the text seemed unavoidable for the reason, that at every phase of the subject I have continually to regard the Individual, and that aggregate called Society; the inner conscious life of one, and the associate elements and conditions regarding the many, and from different viewpoints. ”

“ In relation to our present position, the things with which we are surrounded, the prospects that lie before us, and our hopes, cares, and anxieties, these are things that operate upon our minds, or that ought to have some influence with us. ”

“ May we not welcome, as at least a step in the right direction, a change in our conventional habits, which may extend, though in ever so small a degree, the region of common thoughts and aims, common hopes and disappointments, common joys and common sorrows? ”

“ And on the other hand, our voluntary activities are never known to us except as referring to facts to which we attribute in one way or another an intellectually significant Being, — a reality other than what is present to us at the moment. ”

“ They meet the individual at the point of some crisis, some experience or breakdown calling for readjustment, but from this point they work backward into the history of the case and follow its development into the future. ”

“ In such a crisis, two facts are prominent: the unusual range of activity offered to the individual—may he not traverse the whole scale of experience?—and the dependence of the individual upon himself. ”

“ The two considerations just mentioned must be subordinated to the grand one,—the only general one,—of the relative amount of human happiness. Every element of social life derives its importance from this great consideration. ”

“ 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 ”