Human intellect

“ Pure intellect seeks to construct from the facts brought to our consciousness by the senses, an accurately 20measured world of phenomena, uncoloured by the human equation in each of us. It seeks to create a point of view outside the human standpoint, one more stable and accurate, unaffected by the ever-changing current of human life. ”

“ No doubt it seemed to simplify the problem to suppose that the functioning of the intellect could be studied as a thing apart, and unrelated to the general context of the vital functions. Again, it was to simplify to assume that thought could be considered apart from the personality of the human thinker. ”

“ It is at all times agreeable to a philosophical mind, and an understanding which busies itself, not only with the surface and present state of things, but also with their substance and remote tendencies, to contemplate the exercise of human power, and the triumphs of human ingenuity, whether developed in physical or mental efforts, in the pursuit of objects which comprehend a mixture of both. ”

“ In the light of this higher understanding we can see that in just the proportion that our human nature rises towards the Universal Wisdom, our human perception becomes widened, until, at last, we include all the laws of higher living, thinking and being, and we bring from the hidden center within ourselves a profound knowledge. ”

“ It has accordingly and by many ways reached the conclusion that reality, lofty 16 though it be, and truth itself, which nourishes the mind and alone gives validity to human thought, are in life itself, in the development of the mind, in the growth of the human personality, and that this personality, though ideally beyond our grasp, is yet in the concrete always historical and actual, and realises itself in its immanent value. ”

“ How do we gain knowledge of a human being, that is to say of his motives? "By observing his actions in many different circumstances, especially in extremities of joy, sorrow, fear, temptation, and then by comparing his actions with what we, or others, have done in the same circumstances?" ”

“ If, then, we would establish a true science of man, there is no other course open to us than this, to abandon, in the first instance, every consideration of "the human mind," whether it be an hypothesis and a reality, together with all its phenomena, and then to confine our attention closely and devoutly to the examination of the great and anomalous fact of human consciousness. ”

“ The senses are well calculated to make discoveries of external objects and to communicate those notices, or simple images of things to the mind, with all the magnificent simplicity of nature, which opens an extensive field of contemplation to the understanding, enabling the mind to examine into the natural causes and consequences of things, and to investigate the knowledge of moral good and evil, from which, together with the power of agency, results the human conscience. ”

“ But, inasmuch as our observation must not be put forth vaguely or at random, but must be directed by some principle of method, the question comes to be, In what way are the true facts of man's being to be sought for and obtained? There is a science called the "science of the human mind," the object of which is to collect and systematise the phenomena of man's moral and intellectual nature. ”

“ Of Ethology, Or The Science Of The Formation Of Character.
§ 1. The laws of mind as characterized in the preceding chapter, compose the universal or abstract portion of the philosophy of human nature; and all the truths of common experience, constituting a practical knowledge of mankind, must, to the extent to which they are truths, be results or consequences of these. ”

“ This learned scholar held that the power of man's will was such that, under certain circumstances, it could be so far impressed upon those diffused forces of life about us as to materialize or concentrate them, and so render them cognizant to the human understanding, or, in other words, visible. ”

“ Not in the vast field of logic, of empirical psychology, in questions concerning the essence of bodies and their forces, in matters of mere history of philosophy; but in questions of views of the world and life, in metaphysics and ethics, it does. These, the highest questions, bearing on the direction and pursuit of human life, matters that most occupy the human mind, are at the same time subjects of revelation ”

“ And the range of topics is very wide; it embraces science and art, history and philosophy; above all, the knowledge of human nature that teaches how the mind he addresses is to be convinced and persuaded, and how a willing ear is to be won to his discourse. ”

“ Consciousness, evidence, and intellectual instinct or common sense, are the three means; to which correspond truths of consciousness, necessary truths, and common-sense truths. These are distinct, different, and in many cases unconnected with each other; and he, who seeks to acquire complete and accurate ideas upon matters relating to the first principle of human knowledge, must mark out their limits with great care. ”

“ Without Knowledge of the Human Nature. “Varied, according to character, are the demands made by heart and mind,” assures us a representative of modern philosophy, “corresponding to them is the image of the world to which the individual turns by inner necessity. ”

“ That only is true enlargement of mind which is the power of viewing many things at once as one whole, of referring them severally to their true place in the universal system, of understanding their respective values, and determining their mutual dependence. Thus is that form of universal knowledge, of which I have on a former occasion spoken, set up in the individual intellect, and constitutes its perfection. ”

“ Section I. The scheme of necessity is based on a false psychology. There are three great leading faculties or attributes of the human mind; namely, the intelligence, the sensibility, and the will. By means of these we think, we feel, and we act. Now, the phenomena of thinking, feeling, and acting, will be found, on examination, to possess different characteristics; of which we must form clear and fixed conceptions, if we would extricate the philosophy of the will from the obscurity and confusion in which it has been so long involved. ”

“ Likewise, impelled by the desire to know, the faculties of cognition and reason realize themselves in expression; and in expression each part of rational knowledge is clarified, completed, rendered accordant with the data of observation and the laws or necessities of the mind.
Human faculties form a correlated whole; and this composite human nature seeks to act, to function. Thus the whole man strives to realize the fullest actuality of his being, and satisfy or express the whole of him, and not alone his reason, nor yet his emotions, or his appetites. ”

“ As regards philosophy in its proper and genuine sense, we find put forward without any hesitation, as an entirely sufficient equivalent for the long course of mental discipline—for that profound and fruitful process through which the human spirit attains to knowledge—the direct revelation of the divine and the healthy common sense of mankind, unconcerned with and undisciplined by any other knowledge or by proper philosophical reflection. ”

“ But doubtless the reasoning faculty, the mind, is the leading and characteristic attribute of the human race. By the exercise of this, man arrives at the knowledge of the properties of natural bodies. This is science, properly and emphatically so called. ”

“ It may be said to comprehend every thing which we perceive, and remember, and imagine, and compare, and admire, all those mysterious processes of thought, which, in the happy efforts of the philosopher and the poet, are concerned in the production of their noblest results, and which are not less deserving of our regard, as they are every moment exercised by all, in the humble intellectual functions of common life. ”

“ And as I have often thought over the cause of this fault, it seems to me that we must conclude that the spirit which directs and governs everybody is that which forms our intellect, or rather, it is our intellect itself. ”

“ For I thought, that the first step towards satisfying several inquiries, the mind of man was very apt to run into, was to take a survey of our own understandings, examine our own powers, and see to what things they were adapted. ”

“ And the excellence and wisdom of human minds consist in the clearness with which they perceive, and receive into themselves, and thereby become assimilated to, the eternal ideas; and thus come to be lifted into a world of spiritual reality, above the temporary influences of the physical world. ”

“ But Knowledge—the department of human interest to which I now turn—is differently placed. The values with which we shall be concerned are mainly rational; and intellectual curiosity is the only emotion with which they are associated. ”

“ But if such diversities are found only in limited degree, on marginal ground and in complex situations, we are simply in the presence of a fact of great similarity of the conscience with all the rest of the finite and fallible faculties of the human mind. Upon a hundred points of practical morals the intelligent conscience would be likely to agree quite as well as the judgments of men in any other sphere of practical knowledge and life. ”

“ To take a view at once distinct and comprehensive of human life, with all its intricacies of combination, and varities of connexion, is beyond the power of mortal intelligences. Of the state with which practice has not acquainted us we snatch a glimpse, we discern a point, and [302] regulate the rest by passion, and by fancy. ”

“ Now, to render in any degree complete that characteristic of the human mind which it has been our object or endeavor in the previous Lectures to sketch in detail, we were obliged to take in also those higher elements which by many are called in question, and by some positively denied to exist. And herein lay the natural ground and the occasion for our introducing the mention of them, at least as facts of consciousness generally acknowledged by the common-sense of mankind. ”

“ It appears then to be an undeniable fact, that from thought or sensation, all mankind, constantly and invariably, from the first dawning of reflection, do infer a power or faculty of thinking, and a permanent being or mind to which that faculty belongs ”

“ And the great mental value of these comprehensive ideas to mankind, consists largely in relieving the memory and diminishing mental confusion, by co-ordinating a large number of different facts and apparently inconsistent phenomena by means of a general conception which embraces the whole of them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ How readily all the intellectual states of mind, which are commonly ascribed to a variety of powers, may be reduced to those two, will appear more clearly, after we have considered and illustrated the phenomena of each set. ”

“ It follows that when, for general purposes, we study, not the psychology, but, as at present, the total significance of our conscious life, we are much less interested in the separation between knowledge and will than in that unity which psychology already recognizes, and which philosophy finds of still more organic importance. ”

“ That human knowledge is confined to the range furnished by human experience, and cannot be used to transcend that experience, is an opinion widely represented in all modern discussion, and especially in the most recent times. My own account of the insight which I refer to the reason depends not upon simply ignoring this general doctrine about the limitations of our human knowledge, but upon an effort to get a rational view of what it is that we mean by human experience. ”

“ But that which par excellence is termed knowledge, bears the impress of judgment and reason, in the exercise of which there will be rational cognitions alone, applying purely to objects of thought, and resulting from the bare energy of the soul. ”

“ Upon the basis of the general theory of human knowledge thus broadly sketched, we shall next pass to a study of the questions offered to our scrutiny by Nature, when viewed in its relation to Man. Here our main purpose shall be to apply our general idealistic doctrine, concerning what is meant by Reality in general, to the problem as to the sense in which Nature and Man are real. ”

“ Ah, but what, we must ask ourselves, of the great brain that conceived the idea, the foresight which told the exact moment when to put it into action, the cool courage which seized the moment—what of the grasp of affairs, the knowledge of men? ”

“ Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered; and the diffusion of knowledge, so astonishing in the last half-century, has rendered innumerable minds, variously gifted by nature, competent to be competitors or fellow-workers on the theatre of intellectual operation. ”

“ The reason as here exercised organizes man's experience in this great tract of emotion, will, and meditation, and so possesses man of true knowledge of himself, just as in the realm of science it possesses him of true knowledge of the physical world, or, in psychology and metaphysics, of the constitution and processes of the mind itself. Such knowledge is, without need of argument, of the highest consequence to mankind. ”

“ From the Lord God of Hosts, and you derived your intelligence from the same source. Where did any man that exists or breathes the breath of life throughout this whole universe get any intelligence he has? ”