Distinction

“ But though the decision of the one question decides the other; yet that we may the more easily discover the principles of human nature, from whence the decision arises, we shall carry along with us this distinction, and shall consider, whether it be the senses, reason, or the imagination, that produces the opinion of a continued or of a distinct existence. ”

“ If we describe this primary and fundamental distinction, as it appears in the action of the conscience, it will be found marked by the following characteristics. First, the distinction is perceived—a datum of the cognitive intellect. As discerned by the knowing faculty, its object, viz.: the distinction, exists. For knowing always involves that the thing known is. The distinction between right and wrong is real in the sphere of moral relations. Second, it is universal, marking the human mind's action everywhere and in all ages. ”

“ In examining the phenomena which fall under the senses, we find between them grave differences upon which it is useless here to insist, and which establish the distinction of primary qualities and of secondary qualities. ”

“ Our only object in setting down the various examples just given is to illustrate the general scholastic teaching on the doctrine of distinction. In themselves they are not beyond dispute, for the general doctrine of distinction is not easy of application in detail ”

“ 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. ”

“ Distinction may be joined with imperfection, as ignorance, or forgetfulness; and so it is in men:—and if this be called separation by a metaphor from bodies, then the conclusion would be that in the Supreme Mind there is distinction without imperfection; and then the question is, whence comes plurality of Persons? ”

“ If he wants a definition or a distinction on any subject, he generally protests first against the desire for definitions and distinctions, maintaining the superiority of healthy practical sense and feeling over mere theory ”

“ The distinctions between individual and individual, and even the greater distinctions between one group and another, become buried under the overwhelming mass-effect of their difference from ourselves. ”

“ That in which they agree, to that in which they differ, is as everything to nothing. Important distinctions, of various degrees of force, indeed, are to be established between them, if they were, as they may be, subjects of ethical and economical discussion ”

“ Although we may then, on the one hand, declare it as a principle of first importance that the distinctions which have been summarily indicated must appear with their differences emphasized, it is equally necessary on the other that they should be united in a whole. ”

“ We must mark, always by appropriate words, distinctions which we are obliged to acknowledge in fact. The inspirations or revelations of the common sense, in and through which the Almighty Power gives us an understanding of the life and world in which we find ourselves, inspirations in which all men are believed more or less to participate, require us to distinguish the solid and extended pin, as something public or outward, [69] in contrast to the private feeling of pain, of which no one except the person who feels it is conscious. ”

“ Like the character of the people by whom it is spoken, its principles are perpetually verging to extremes. There is either a redundancy of forms creating distinctions, not, in all cases, of very obvious utility, or an absolute want of them. And the inquirer is often led to wonder, how a people who require the nice distinctions in the one case, should be able to dispense with distinctions altogether in the other. ”

“ These distinctions, which seem simple and are simple when understood, and may be understood by every intelligent man, have led to tomes and libraries of discussion and disputation not always friendly and charitable. ”

“ Upon the above evidence, gathered from the Book of books and the writings of wise and scholarly men in recent days, we submit as a reasonable conclusion (1) THAT ALL MEN ARE BY CREATION EQUALLY ENDOWED ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our very theory insists that your internal meanings, your ideas viewed as internally significant, your selections and expressions, are typical instances of facts, and of precisely the facts of whose unity the world consists. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And every unity, every identity, every classification is rightly called fanciful unless it serves some other end than the mere satisfaction, emotion, or inspiration caught by momentarily believing in it. ”

“ What classes of things have a greater share of pure existence, in your judgment—those of which food and drink and condiments and all kinds of sustenance are examples, or the class which contains true opinion and knowledge and mind and all the different kinds of virtue? ”

“ Results in philosophy must needs lead to new problems. With this definition in mind of what it is to be, how shall we next undertake to describe that more special constitution of the world which our concept of Being involves? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The most fundamental division which rhetoric considers is the division made by the difference between two intentions men have in writing: instruction and delight—to convey the truth or to create beauty. ”

“ The abstract questions as to equality and identity may be quickly dismissed. The advocates of the "common" principle—those who hold what may be called the humane theory—altogether disclaim any ambition to assert either. ”

“ Herewith, however, we come to a point in the theory of our consciousness of likeness and difference which is, in my opinion, of critical importance for our whole doctrine about the particular facts of the world, and for our final interpretation of the problem of the individual. The likenesses and differences that we observe in facts are not merely thrust upon us without our consent or connivance. They are the objects of our attentive Interest. ”

“ Moreover, our features are constantly varying; and if our moral and intellectual faculties are to be inferred from these changes, how are we to establish or follow up any fixed principle, amid such a labyrinth of confusion? ”

“ Their new thought, which gave foundation to their moral ideals, was the thought of the perfect equality of all men in the presence of the universal Reason, to which all alike ought to conform. Everyone, they said, ought to be rational; everyone ought to try to extend the empire of reason. ”

“ To state the object, which I have in view, I shall observe at once, that men are divided in opinion as to the lawfulness, or expediency, or wholesomeness of many of the customs, fashions, and accomplishments of the world. ”

“ We look on all that in ourselves with which we can discover a resemblance in others; and consider those resemblances as the materials of moral knowledge. It is in the differences that it actually consists. ”

“ If our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And the same reason ought to determine us to make a choice even among the senses, and to give the precedence, not to the noblest, or most useful, but to the simplest, and that whose objects are least in danger of being mistaken for other things. ”

“ And it will be derived from the divisions of honour and usefulness, concerning which we will give rules when we lay down a system of deliberations. And if we compare the definition given by our adversaries with our own definition, and prove our own to be true, and honourable, and useful, and theirs to be entirely different. But we shall seek out things like them in an affair of either greater, or less, or equal importance, from which our description will be proved. ”

“ Substance, and everything else considered absolutely, founds the relations of unity and plurality. Action and passion found the relations of causality and dependence. Quality founds the relations of likeness or unlikeness. Quantity founds the relations of equality or inequality. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Suppose A and B to be in so far predetermined by the system of the absolute ideas, that some moral relationship — that of equal, of fellow-citizen, of friend, of enemy, of lover, of questioner and answerer, or of any other moral nature, vague or exact — is to exist between them, at any point in their lives. ”

“ Take human nature, as that particular division of Universal Nature which we must consider in this discussion. There are elements, properties, qualities and capabilities essential to the constitution of a human being. ”

“ Take another line and divide it into two parts, one representing our ideas, the ordinary occupants of our minds, such as whiteness, equality, and the other representing our true knowledge, which is of eternal principles, such as beauty, goodness. ”

“ Preserve the integrity of the relationship, choose your individual embodiment of one of its terms, and you are still free to choose one of several, often of many, — in some cases an infinite number of individual embodiments of the other terms. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But human nature, when placed in a conspicuous point of view, gives us every argument for appeasing the mind, and, to make this the more distinct, the laws and conditions of life should be explained in our discourse. ”

“ How natural the transition from the theory which assigns 'to the one the supremacy of the head, to the other that of the heart'—to that further division which attributes to the one Reason, to the other Faith. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul: seeing that the individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles, the division may, I think, furnish a new demonstration. ”

“ It is just because all meanings, in the end, will prove to be internal meanings, that this which the internal meaning most loves, namely the presence of concrete fulfilment, of life, of pulsating and originative will, of freedom, and of individuality, will prove, for our view, to be of the very essence of the Absolute Meaning of the world. ”

“ This view conceives the mind to be directed toward individual things, rather than toward general ideas, toward distinct situations of fact rather than toward some significance in human affairs that these situations may share. ”

“ On the contrary, the higher, over-individual ends, as they are sometimes called, — politics, industry, science, literature, art — imply a differentiation among men that in spite of its significance would defy classification. ”

“ The ever more and more common form of the ideal: first men, then institutions, finally tendencies, purposes, or the want of them. The highest form: the conquest of the ideal by a backward movement from tendencies to institutions, and from institutions to men. ”