Impassibility

“ Alas! why do we all seek by instinct for a God, a supersensual, but because we feel the insufficiency, the unsubstantiality of all forms, and formal being for itself. And shall we explain a by x and then x by a—give a soul to the body, and then a body to the soul—ergo, a body to the body—feel the weakness of the weak, and call in the strengthener, and then make the very weakness the substratum of the strength? ”

“ As if this capacity or incapacity is not as much the result of intention as every other capacity and incapacity in nature! If we translate this ability by facultas, that is facilitas, we need not for that reason assume in man a faculty, or as the Horseherd calls it, a phantom, but the thing remains the same. We can speak, and an animal cannot; we can think, and an animal cannot. ”

“ How wrong the world is in connecting so closely as it does the capacity for feeling and the capacity for expression,—in thinking that capacity for the one implies capacity for the other, or incapacity for the one incapacity also for the other ”

“ Where the knowledge is relative, that knowledge is certainly more or less conditioned by our impotence. And hence, through that impotence, the impossibility may be more or less weakened and made conditional. ”

“ Sorely as I have struggled, I have yet to encounter that common myth of weak men, an insurmountable barrier. The imperfection of our lives— what is it but the imperfection of our planning and doing? Shattered ideals—what hand shatters them but one's own? ”

“ The state of determination in a thing is thus a state and expression of mere passivity; and a state of mere passivity is in itself an incomplete existence. Such passivity itself demands an activity to which it may be referred, by which it can be explained, and through which it first becomes conceivable;—or, as it is usually expressed,—which contains within it the ground of this passivity. ”

“ I have such a sense of vacuum in life, that I am in danger of leaning upon any one who will let me lean upon him; and my sense of impaired powers is so constant and oppressive, that I need to be driven to action, rather than spared it, to rouse my energies. ”

“ The mind of the strong blind creature must be so sensible of the injury that has been done to him! The impotency, combined with his strength, or rather the impotency with the memory of former strength and former aspirations, is so essentially tragic! ”

“ How seldom do human wishes flow smoothly towards their object; for a while they may steal imperceptibly on, unstopped, though often checked; winding round, or perseveringly surmounting impediments. Or obstacles still more mighty present themselves, and then our wishes gather power;—they swell, and dash down all impediments, and take an impetuous course. ”

“ The sad side of impecuniosity is, unfortunately, so vast a subject that it would require an entire volume, instead of part of a chapter, to properly record the miseries of mind and body endured by those in past ages, who, not unknown to fame, have been permitted to pine and die in despair. ”

“ The Obstructed Will.—In striking contrast with the cases in which inhibition is insufficient or impulsion in excess are those in which impulsion is insufficient or inhibition in excess. We all know the condition described on p. 218, in which the mind for a few moments seems to lose its focussing power and to be unable to rally its attention to any determinate thing. At such times we sit blankly staring and do nothing. The objects of consciousness fail to touch the quick or break the skin. ”

“ In the one case, it is forces, external and invisible to me, that put an end to my state of indecision, and limit my activity as well as my immediate consciousness of it—that is, my will—to one point, just as the indeterminate activity of the plant is limited;—in the other, it is I myself, independent, and free from the influence of all outward forces, who put an end to my state of indecision, and determine my own course, according to the knowledge I have freely attained of what is best. ”

“ It is frequently averred nowadays that much that is written bears evidence of being of a non-practical character, and under these circumstances, I felt I should take a pardonable pride in being able to point to one volume in the English language to which this stigma could not be applied; for I flatter myself the subject of Impecuniosity is one with which I have long—too long—been practically familiar. ”

“ The cause of our present inability is the body with which our soul is united, the grossness of whose present condition hinders us from rising to the complete apprehension of the invisible and immaterial. ”

“ If we admit such a process, the sensible being will not be one, but infinite; the difficulties encountered with only two parts, A and B, will be multiplied even to infinity, and so the sensible being will be not one but infinite, and every sensation infinite.
15. Here we find a very serious difficulty. If matter be incapable of perceiving, the soul of brutes is not material; if immaterial, it is a spirit, which cannot be admitted. ”

“ The most subtle fallacy about causation consists in mistaking it for another property, either as force on the one hand or as thought on the other. Force, cause, and conception—or motion, space, and judgment—are disparate properties but concomitant in every particle and body of the universe. ”

“ But is it certain, on the other hand, that the mere intellect can be self-satisfied, if other elements of our nature remain not contented? Or must we not think rather that indirectly any partial discontent will bring unrest and imperfection into the intellect itself? If this is so, then to suppose any imperfection in the Absolute is inadmissible. ”

“ How much the imperfection of accurately discriminating ideas one from another lies either in the dulness or faults of the organs of sense, or want of acuteness, exercise, or attention in the understanding, or hastiness and precipitancy natural to some tempers, I will not here examine: it suffices to take notice that this is one of the operations that the mind may reflect on and observe in itself. ”

“ The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; — the key to all ages is — Imbecility; imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and, even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity, custom, and fear. This gives force to the strong, — that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action. ”

“ I count not myself to have apprehended.' So then a leading characteristic of this true Christian perfection is a constant consciousness of imperfection. In all fields of effort, whether intellectual, moral, or mechanical, as faculty grows, consciousness of insufficiency grows with it. The farther we get up the hill, the more we see how far it is to the horizon. The more we know, the more we know our ignorance. The better we can do, the more we discern how much we cannot do. ”

“ That immutability, which constitutes the perfection of what we (from the poverty of language) term the divine mind, would inevitably be the bane of creatures liable to error; it is of the constancy, rather than of the fickleness, of human beings, that we have reason to complain. ”

“ Such again was a note of these high existences—that made one content to ask of them no whit of other consistency than that of carrying off the particular occasion, whatever it might be, in a dazzle of amiability and felicity and leaving that as a sufficient trace of their passage. Sought and achieved consistency was but an angular, a secondary motion; compared with the air of complete freedom it might have an effect of deformity. ”

“ The physical weakness which enables us to realize the uncertain tenure by which we are connected with this world is gradually changed into strength, and the power to act brings with it the desire;—and who shall easily set bounds to this desire? ”

“ The now unclogged mind grasps with vigor any subject presented to it, the spirits are exuberant and the physical frame buoyant. But, is the trouble cured, is it permanently eradicated from the system? ”

“ The hand that built can topple it down much faster. Better than the hand, and nimbler, was the invisible thought which wrought through it; and thus ever, behind the coarse effect, is a fine cause, which, being narrowly seen, is itself the effect of a finer cause. Every thing looks permanent until its secret is known. ”

“ Either I see all the hidden weakness that's in men's natures, and bring it to the surface in their figures, or else I put my own weakness into them. Either way, it's a drawback to their presenting a truly manly appearance. ”

“ Incommunicability or impenetrability represents the lowest degree of existence; natural existence, the existence of forces as yet blind and fatal, maintains by their mutual antagonism an equilibrium in a state of inertia and torpor ... The greater one’s self-appropriation by intelligence, the greater one’s power of taking possession of other beings by thought; the being that best knows itself best knows other beings ... ”

“ Such insufficiency is caused by various obstacles, presented by the self-same nature of man, and the objects that surround him, and which prevent reason from exercising an absolute dominion over the heart, and naturally weaken its influence on human actions. ”

“ But this consideration forces us still further, and we feel compelled to ask ourselves, whether, with our minds constituted as they are, we can believe in, or understand any thing wholly immaterial? Whether we can imagine the existence, for, example, of "force" without matter?—a shape which is formless?—a form visible to the eye, yet wholly immaterial? ”

“ Could blind chance constitute order and decorum, and consequently a providence? That wisdom, order, and design should be the production of nonentity, or of chaos, confusion, and old night, is too absurd to deserve a serious confutation, for it supposeth that there may be effects without a cause, viz.: produced by nonentity, or that chaos and confusion could produce the effects of power, wisdom, and goodness. Such absurdities as these we must assent to, or subscribe to the doctrine of a self-existent and providential being. ”

“ When the matter does not end in this mere acceptance of the Incomprehensible generally,—so that it might be left to each man to determine for himself what is incomprehensible to him;—but when besides this, as might be expected from the dogmatic Spirit of the Age, a specific and defined formula of the Incomprehensible is set forth and proposed for our acceptance ”

“ It would require an alteration of the position in which the intellect stands, and a transformation of its whole connection with the remaining aspects of experience. We need not to cast about for arguments to disprove our omniscience, for at every turn through these pages our weakness has been confessed. ”

“ Inconsistency is shown by words without deeds, which Scientific consistency are like clouds without rain. If our words fail to express our deeds, God will redeem that weakness, and out of the mouth of babes He will perfect praise. ”

“ I cannot but wonder that so much stress should be laid on the circumstance of inconceivableness, when there is ample experience to show that our capacity or incapacity of conceiving a thing has very little to do with the possibility of the thing in itself ”

“ If, therefore, the notions of the mind (which are as it were the soul of words, and the basis of this whole structure and fabric) are badly and hastily abstracted from things, and vague, or not sufficiently defined and limited, or, in short, faulty (as they may be) in many other respects, the whole falls to the ground. ”

“ This contravention of the natural order has produced, as such contravention always must produce, a certain confusion and false movement, of which we are now beginning to feel, in almost every direction, the inconvenience. In all directions our habitual causes of action seem to be losing efficaciousness, credit, and control, both with others and even with ourselves. Everywhere we see the beginnings of confusion, and we want a clue to some sound order and authority. ”

“ We are at once about to take to our legs, when, turning round, we see something under a middle-sized man, looking over our head. On this we feel our safety, and triumph in the glory of five feet one. Something must always be allowed for weakness—something for vanity; which, indeed, philosophers denominate the greatest weakness. ”

“ Of these hallucinations the most grotesque is that the weak can come together, can pass a law to curb the strong, can set one of their number to enforce it, may then disperse with no occasion further to trouble about the strong. ”

“ This imperfection which we observe in ourselves, is an imperfection that cleaves in some degree to creatures of the highest capacities, as they are creatures, that is, beings of finite and limited natures. ”

“ But abstracting from these cases, wandering thoughts, in the latter sense of the word, that is, thoughts wherein our understanding wanders, from the point it has in view, are no more sinful than the motion of the blood in our veins, or of the spirits in our brain. If they arise from an infirm constitution, or from some accidental weakness or distemper, they are as innocent as it is to have a weak constitution, or a distempered body. ”

“ And how he sets my brain going when he says, because there is imperfection, there must be perfection; completeness must come of incompleteness; failure is an evidence of triumph for the fulness of the days. Yes, discord is, that harmony may be; pain destroys, that health may renew; perhaps I am deaf and blind that others likewise afflicted may see and hear with a more perfect sense! ”

“ We find a class of persons who labour under an obvious natural inaptitude for whatever they aspire to. Their manner of setting about it is a virtual disqualification. The simple affirmation—“What this man has said, I will do,”—is not always considered as the proper test of capacity. ”

“ The other properties of matter, such as mobility, impenetrability, and divisibility, relate to extension, or to a particular impression caused on our senses. The difficulties that may be raised on these points are solved by the preceding paragraphs.
Inertness, or indifference to rest or motion, is a purely negative property. It is the incapacity of all action, the absence of an internal principle productive of change, the purely passive disposition to receive all that is communicated to it. ”