Dependent

“ Or is it consistent with our ideal that there should be this body of people dependent for the most ordinary necessities of life on the gifts of another class? Rely upon it, if we foster this state of things it will continue to increase. ”

“ No one is dependent upon you—you have but yourself to provide for; but you must remember that such responsibilities will arrive in their natural course, and that if you form habits of rashness or obstinacy now they will cling to you through life. ”

“ I know what I am about, and nothing shall stop me from carrying out what I have fixed upon.’
‘Then if I cannot teach you common prudence, perhaps you will listen to some one else. Your life and your carcase are your own, and you can do what you like with them; but there are matters other than your own, and also people dependent on you, who ought to have some consideration. ”

“ The truth is that all did it—that each individual worker, whether he toiled with his hands or with his brain, was dependent upon all the others as all were dependent upon those who lived and labored in the ages that have gone before, as all are dependent at the last upon the forces of nature that through the ages have labored for all. ”

“ When I tell you that I have a little family dependent on me, and that I mean if possible to get a living for them out of the soil, I believe you are man enough both to fall in with my plan and to show a little friendly interest. ”

“ Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. ”

“ A young Heir soon knows the Title, Dignity and Estate he is born to possess; too soon does he know his Independence, and too apt is he to grow careless about his Learning on this very Account, but if to these Impediments be added imaginary Excellence and Knowledge, thro’ the daily Flattery of a Dependent, what is likely to be the Consequence? why, that he will remain ignorant his whole Life. ”

“ Therefore we consider as dependent on ourselves what we do without the constraint of circumstances, necessity, or violence of passions—that is, voluntarily, and without an obstacle to our will.167 Hence the following definition: We are responsible for that which depends on our will, which happens or which is omitted according to our volition.168 We indeed call voluntary what we unconstrainedly do and consciously.169 On us depends only that of which we are the masters to do or not to do. ”

“ You are young, and you should therefore take the lowest place, and rather retire than thrust yourselves forward into notice. You have much to learn, and you should therefore hear, instead of seeking to be heard. You are dependent, and you should therefore ask instead of demanding what you desire, and you should receive every thing from your parents as a favour, and not as a debt. ”

“ She is determined to earn her own living, he says, but it may be that her old associates have wounded her pride by unkind allusions to her dependent condition, and fairly driven her into asserting her independence,” thoughtfully. ”

“ The Amulet of Dependent Men.—He who is unavoidably dependent upon some master ought to possess something by which he can inspire his master with fear, and keep him in check: integrity, for example, or probity, or an evil tongue. ”

“ Thus is she dependent upon no one; and she procures her husband genuine independence, that which is interior and domestic: whatever he possesses, he beholds secured; what he earns, well employed: and thus he can direct his mind to lofty objects ”

“ Each thing existed in itself and for itself, and in large measure independent of all other things. We now look upon things and events as related and dependent. Each thing is dependent upon others, related to others. ”

“ Or, if, singularly independent, you deem that you are accountable only to yourself for your conduct, that notion, beyond any other, must shew you the high responsibility of all actions that are voluntary. ”

“ If this lot has perhaps fallen to your share, see that you do not complain and murmur against the providence of God, and indulge in discontent in regard to your lot; do not consider this dependence to be something degrading, unworthy of a human being, and therefore to be spoken of with contempt. You may, and you should, strive to raise yourself to an independent position, through industry, energy, perseverance, prayer, and the use of lawful means. ”

“ A being, independent of any other, has no rule to pursue, but such as he prescribes to himself; but a state of dependance will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him, on whom he depends, as the rule of his conduct: not indeed in every particular, but in all those points wherein his dependance consists. ”

“ Dependents they do not and ought not to consider themselves (for they are not such in any sense whatever) ; equals, their own perceptions show them they are not in any sense, but a political one; and they seem to me, in consequence, to be far less at their ease really in their intercourse with their employers or landlords than our own people, with their much more positive and definite sense of difference of condition and habits of life. ”

“ Because a characteristic of contingent beings is dependency, and this dependency is an essential necessity, therefore, there must be an independent being whose independence is essential.
In the same way it is understood from the man who is sick that there must be one who is in health ”

“ He apprehends a relation between his person and his property, which renders what he calls his own in a manner a part of himself, a constituent of his rank, his condition, and his character; in which, independent of any real enjoyment, he may be fortunate or unhappy ”

“ I perceived, that the word Necessity, as a name for the doctrine of Cause and Effect applied to human action, carried with it a misleading association; and that this association was the operative force in the depressing and paralysing influence which I had experienced: I saw that though our character is formed by circumstances, our own desires can do much to shape those circumstances; and that what is really inspiriting and ennobling in the doctrine of freewill, is the conviction that we have real power over the formation of our own character ”

“ In the ought the self is commanded, and that self is the sensuous self in me, which is ordered, and which, if I obey, is forced by the non-sensuous formal will which stands above the empirical element, and, equally with that, is myself. The ought is the command of the formal will, and duty is the obedience, or, more properly, the compulsion of the lower self by that will, or the realization of the form in and against the recalcitrant matter of the desires. ”

“ II. When a Man, at any Time, deliberates concerning his own Conduct, (as, whether he had better, in a particular Emergence, assist a Brother or a Benefactor) he must consider these separate Relations, with the whole Circumstances and Situation of the Persons, in order to determine his superior Duty and Obligation: And in order to determine the Proportion of Lines in any Triangle, 'tis necessary to examine the Nature of that Figure, and the Relations, which its several Parts bear to each other. ”

“ My father looks, I fear, to wealth and social standing, more than to qualities of mind. As I said before, his consent is, for the present, indispensable. The will of another may prevent an external union, although it cannot prevent an union of our hearts. If your regard for me is deeply based; if you can have patience to wait long in hope of more favoring circumstances, then the light you speak of need not go out in your mind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Should he give himself over? Should he make over his own life and body to the control of something which he knew was inferior, in spirit, to his own self? Should he commit himself into the power of an inferior control? ”

“ Now, according to this equality wherein God hath placed all mankind with relation to Himself, you will observe that in all the relations between man and man there is a mutual dependence, whereby the one cannot subsist without the other. Thus no man can be a prince without subjects, nor a master without servants, nor a father without children. And this both explains and confirms the doctrine of the text; for where there is a mutual dependence there must be a mutual duty, and consequently a mutual subjection. ”

“ But this sense of dependency, which results from experience and reasoning on the facts, which every day cannot fail to produce, has uniformly established the knowledge of our dependence to every individual of the species who are rational, which necessarily involves, or contains in it, the idea of a ruling power, or that there is a God, which ideas are synonymous. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is understood that in accepting your life you agree to the conditions, and this understanding will be as binding on you to do us no harm—if, as I say, you get the chance—as though you had put hand and seal to a bond. ”

“ Oh, the rebellious pride of choosing our own self-will, and our own way, when the privilege may be ours of becoming the obedient and loving children of God—of receiving from Him the willing and the obedient heart which we may offer up to Him again, and which He will accept! ”

“ It is obvious that the question of obligation presents considerable difficulty to the hedonistic school. If the end of conduct is pleasure, as the satisfaction of desire, why should not each desire be satisfied, if possible, as it arises, and thus pleasure secured? What meaning is there in the term 'duty' or 'obligation' if the moral end or good coincides wholly with the natural end of the inclinations themselves? ”

“ But if any one wishes to consider them in a more separate manner, he may divide them into the intention, and the person of the doer, and extraneous circumstances. The virtue of the mind is that concerning the parts of which we have lately spoken; the virtues of the body are health, dignity, strength, swiftness. Extraneous circumstances are honour, money, relationship, family, friends, country, power, and other things which are understood to be of a similar kind. ”

“ It is therefore absurd to imagine, that, without affection, the same reason alone would be more effectual to engage us to perform the duties we owe to our fellow-creatures. One of this make would be as defective, as much wanting, considered with respect to society, as one of the former make would be defective, or wanting, considered as an individual, or in his private capacity. ”

“ What the function of man is, what the power, what the dignity have been well paraphrased in these words:
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"'Neither a fixed abode, nor a form in thine own likeness, nor any gift peculiar to thyself alone, have we given thee, O Adam, in order that what abode, what likeness, what gifts thou shalt choose may be thine to have and to possess. The nature allotted to all other creatures, within laws appointed by ourselves, restrains them. ”

“ Who is to be the judge of this sort of necessity? By what measure is the comparative value of lives to be measured? Is it to be strength, or intellect, or what? It is plain that the principle leaves to him who is to profit by it to determine the necessity which will justify him in deliberately taking another's life to save his own. ”

“ I believe you to possess a large fund of good sense and discretion, and the advice I shall give you as to the conduct to pursue in future will not only be received with confidence as meant for your future good, but listened to attentively and acted upon. The world, my dear boy, and by that I mean Society in general, condemns the practices we have lately been indulging in with you. ”

“ But I perceive that the time has come when you may choose, and that your will is strong enough to make the choice and hold to it. You may be a benefactor or a beneficiary—a man, aware of manhood, or a victim of the lower senses, bound to the wheel of necessity. ”

“ But suppose he not only brings you no advantage, but you even incur loss of property for his sake, and have to undertake labours, and to encounter danger of your life; will you not, even then, show some regard for yourself, and recollect that every one is born for himself and for his own pleasures? ”

“ In order to judge how he will act under the variety of desires and aversions which are concurrently operating upon him, we must know how he would act under the exclusive influence of each one in particular. ”

“ I apprehend that it ought to include all that part which concerns only the life, whether inward or outward, of the individual, and does not affect the interests of others, or affects them only through the moral influence of example. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Beyond all question, as thus witnessed in the universal moral consciousness, these relations from the most general, that of man to man, down through all special connections, as between parents and children, husband and wife, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, rulers and citizens, employer and employé, rich and poor, capable and helpless, and all the other human interrelations in their thousands of diversified forms, do determine and impose both general and specific duties. ”

“ For the present purpose, therefore, we consider the word Dignity, as expressing all that, in, and about, a man, which is calculated to procure him the services of others, without the immediate application either of reward, or of fear.
Wealth, and Power, are the grand constituents of Dignity; and procure a man services beyond the immediate sphere, either of the good, or the evil, he can dispense. ”