Comparison

“ In general we may observe, that, in all kinds of comparison, an object makes us always receive from another, to which it is compared, a sensation contrary to what arises from itself in its direct and immediate survey. ”

“ But the speaker who is arguing on the other side is bound to try and invalidate the comparison instituted, which he will do if he can show that that which is compared is different from that with which it is compared in kind, in nature, in effect, in importance, in time, in situation, in character, in the opinion entertained of it ”

“ So I say, let creatures compare with creatures; let them take superlative styles, in regard of others. Let some of them be called good, and some better, in the comparison among themselves; but God must not enter in the comparison. ”

“ The points of resemblance thus selected or abstracted from a number of particulars compose what we call an abstract or general idea, and from a comparison of such abstract or general ideas with each other we arrive at general conclusions, which define the relations of the ideas to each other. ”

“ Then we must remember that these external and internal evolutions of social life, take place often unconsciously, making comparisons and distinctions without reflecting on their nature or limits; we must remember that it is the business of reflective comparison, of the comparative method, to retrace this development consciously, and to seek the causes which have produced it. ”

“ It is evident, to begin with, that a scientific comparison of facts must be directed towards two aims—towards establishing and explaining similarity, and towards enumerating and explaining differences. ”

“ It will therefore be easy for us to discover these qualities by a comparison of the impressions, to which we attribute a distinct and continued existence, with those, which we regard as internal and perishing. ”

“ Undoubtedly, each is incomparably excellent in its way, and every general comparison made for such practical purposes as are contemplated, which gives a preference to the one, must be made with some unfairness to the other. ”

“ Here ending this general survey of the facts which justify the comparison of a society with a living body, let us look at them in detail. We shall find that the parallelism becomes the more marked the more closely it is examined. ”

“ Some character in the book you are reading.
(Which sentence gives the general impression and which sentences give the details? Are the details arranged with reference to their real space order? Should others be added? Can any be omitted? Will the reader form the mental image you wish him to form?)
+48. Development by Comparison.+—In Section 29 we found that comparison, whether literal or figurative, aided us in forming mental images of objects. In a similar way events and general principles may be explained by making suitable comparisons. We are continually comparing one thing with another. ”

“ Works of the intellect are great only by comparison with each other; ”

“ After a time such comparisons will come easy to them; they will be able to reflect on the causes for the peculiarities of different objects, and will have no difficulty in perceiving the various classes into which they naturally fall. ”

“ But this shall be illustrated by comparisons taken from things that are visible. In the whole man there are things general and particular, and the general things there include the particulars, and adjust themselves by such a connection that one thing is of another. ”

“ We know that we also put forth exertions for our share of good things; and on witnessing others, we are apt to be reminded of ourselves and to make comparisons with ourselves, which comparisons derive their interest from the substantial consequences. ”

“ If objects are compared in reference to the succession {107} of our conceptions or perceptions, we gain the ideas of such relations as are expressed by the terms firstly, secondly, and thirdly. If objects are compared in reference to the degree of any quality, we gain an idea of such relations as are expressed by the terms brighter, sweeter, harder, louder. If objects are compared in reference to proportion, we gain ideas of such relations as are expressed by the terms an eighth, a half. ”

“ When two men are discussing anything it is the conception and not the varying individual presentations of it that they aim at. The conception, then, is the standard of value for the individual presentations. ”

“ We allude to it when we refer to it in a delicate or slight way.
Argue, augur.—To argue is "to bring forward reasons;" to augur is "to foretell," "to forebode."
Compare with, compare to, contrast.—"Two things are compared in order to note the points of resemblance and difference between them; they are contrasted in order to note the points of difference only. When one thing is compared to another, it is to show that the first is like the second; when one thing is compared with another, it is to show either difference or similarity, especially difference." ”

“ Now, if we will annex a meaning to our words, and speak only of what we can conceive, I believe we shall acknowledge that an idea which, considered in itself, is particular, becomes general by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort. ”

“ It remains to note that such phrases as 'Being and Nothing are the same,' or 'The unity of Being and Nothing'—like all other such unities, that of subject and object, and others—give rise to reasonable objection. ”

“ But how do we human beings get at what we call natural truth? By observation—so men say—and by experience. But by whose experience? By the united, by the synthesized, by the revised, corrected, rationally criticized, above all by the common, experience of many individuals. ”

“ In the conception of a problem, in the manner of conducting an explanation and of employing examples, in the turn of the arguments, even in the tone of the discussion, we discover a striking resemblance, and by a singular chance the fundamental idea of this philosophy finds expression in passages which might be called mates. ”

“ In Reality, all Arguments from Experience are founded on the Similarity, which we discover among natural Objects, and by which we are induc'd to expect Effects similar to those, which we have found to follow from such Objects. ”

“ For us who deal, not with the various forms of animal life, but with the various products of human intelligence, the legitimacy of the Comparative Method rests on the well-ascertained similarity of the working of the human mind in all races of men. ”

“ Our preference, however, for the objects of sense, for the pen, and the sun, as typical instances of objects of ideas, arises from the fact that in case of just these objects, it is especially easy, by observing, from without, the acts of the person who has these ideas, to form confident and, for common-sense purposes, relatively exact notions of the selection to which the internal meaning of the ideas has bound the maker of any given judgment about objects. ”

“ It is evident, therefore, from this last explanation, that there is a second direction of variation among men: variation in their sense of the truth and value of their own thoughts, and with them of the thoughts of others. ”

“ In actuality there is, from the very beginning onward, nothing but just these individually limited and definite qualities, from which only we, by our comparative thinking, subsequently form the abstraction of a universal, unmoulded ‘Quality.’ And it is precisely the aforesaid limited qualities that are the things themselves. ”

“ Of course common-sense, after all, must be trusted on such themes to draw the line not only between opinions and theories, but even in the statement and interpretation of facts, as they come from romancers, sentimentalists, idealists, and philanthropists, or from literal, practical, matter-of-fact persons, speaking from experience. ”

“ We frequently correct our first opinion by a review and reflection; and pronounce those objects to be equal, which at first we esteemed unequal; and regard an object as less, though before it appeared greater than another. ”

“ At bottom the process is one of conception, and is everywhere, even in the sphere of simple sensible qualities, the same as that by which we are usually understood to attain to the notions of abstract goodness, perfect felicity, absolute power, and the like: the direct perception of a difference between compounds, and the imaginary prolongation of the direction of the difference to an ideal terminus, the notion of which we fix and keep as one of our permanent subjects of discourse. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is a splendidly constructed sentence, and contains more information than many paragraphs made up of numerous sentences. It is because of the masterly arrangement of contrasts that so much is stated in so small a space.
How are the contrasts to be brought out? By means of inflection and emphasis. The single contrast requires that when both members are positive the first should be given the rising inflection and the second the falling; as,
The human mind is the brightest display of the power and skill of the Infinite mind with which we are acquainted. ”

“ Likenesses and differences are not recognized by us as aspects of the world existent wholly apart from any of our specific purposes, but as correlative to certain tendencies of our will, i.e. to certain interests, which are fulfilled in recognizing these specific sorts of likenesses and differences which we come to observe. In the concrete, then, we must say, our intelligent experience involves at every step an interest in regarding facts as like or as different. ”

“ In reality, however, this common concept is but the sum of the elements which it is requisite for the purposes of discourse that people should agree with one another in including in the complex idea which they associate with a class name. ”

“ And now, finally, after surveying all these so various types of beings, we have to recall the comment often already made in these lectures, and to assert that not only these different kinds of realities, but also the concrete experiences whereby we come to observe, and the ideas whereby we ourselves define, describe, and in general undertake to know these very objects, are themselves also in their own measure real, and are as truly real as are the various finite objects of common sense that we know. ”

“ I say these things after all with the sense, so founded on past experience, that, in closer quarters and the intimacy of composition, pre-noted arrangements, proportions and relations, do most uncommonly insist on making themselves different by shifts and variations, always improving, which impose themselves as one goes and keep the door open always to something more right and more related. ”

“ Thus we may say that a word embodies a vague idea when its effects are appropriate to an individual, but are the same for various similar individuals, while a word embodies a general idea when its effects are different from those appropriate to individuals. ”

“ To elucidate the matter, let us take the most familiar case in which the indirect judgments of Reason correct the direct judgments of Common Sense. The direct judgment of Common Sense is that the Sun moves round the Earth. ”

“ Having established the worth of the principles of consciousness, of evidence, and of contradiction, in relation to the dignity of fundamental, we will now examine the intrinsic value of the different criteria. ”

“ To arrive at the general it is necessary that we should be able to contrast it with a number of relatively precise images or words for particular occurrences; so long as all our images and words are vague, we cannot arrive at the contrast by which the general is defined. ”

“ Thus, then, a judgment, an opinion, if it means anything concrete, is always an appeal to more or less accessible human experience--and is not, as I have been asserting, an appeal to an overarching higher insight. When you make any significant assertion, you appeal to whatever concrete human observations, experiments, or other findings of data, actual or possible, can furnish the test that the opinion calls for. ”

“ The common quality of all states of mind would be the quality designated by the word "mental"; and besides this we should have to suppose that each separate person's states of mind have some common characteristic distinguishing them from the states of mind of other people. ”

“ Such an abstract general statement of the results of our definition of what it is to be, may well be illustrated, however, through an approach to the whole matter of the unity of Being from another side, namely, from the more empirical side. ”

“ The uniform experience, therefore, of the inhabitants of the known world, agreeing in a common result, without one known instance of deviation from that result, is not always sufficient to establish a general conclusion. ”

“ The doctrines of Uniformity and Determinism are supposed to be based upon experience. But experience includes experience of the actions of human beings; and some of them certainly appear to be of a capricious and undetermined character. ”

“ In the elaboration of each separate idea, a compensating mutual relation with some other cognate idea is found, which brings a fresh agency to bear upon, assimilate or clash with it; such attrition, different from that which wastes and diminishes physical bodies, serving to sharpen and refine the mind, correct, enlarge or perfect the idea. ”