Independent thought

“ His conviction of the universality of this obligation and his perception that it necessitates the independent exercise of individual powers encouraged in him a remarkable admiration for individuality, for the unhampered exercise of thought and unquestioned obedience to motive in which the richness of individual life consists. ”

“ I am, indeed, conscious of myself as an independent, and, in many occurrences of my life, a free being; but this consciousness may easily be explained on the principles already laid down, and may be thoroughly reconciled with the conclusions which have been drawn. ”

“ In this realm it does, then, in the long run, make a difference to all objects, divine or material, whether they are known or not, by any being. That a relative independence, and that both individuality and freedom have their concrete meaning in this truer realm, we shall indeed in due season learn. But what we now learn is that any definition of absolutely independent beings, beings that could change or vanish without any result whatever for their fellows, is, in all regions of the universe, natural or spiritual, a hopeless contradiction. There are no such mutually indifferent beings. ”

“ Even our own sense of the mind's living unity naturally protests against any attempt to break it up into different faculties, forces, or, what comes to the same thing, activities, conceived as independent of each other. ”

“ But the voice of my conscience cries to me: "Whatever these beings may be in and for themselves, thou shalt treat them as subsisting for themselves, as free, self-existing beings, entirely independent of thyself. ”

“ The hope of becoming more and more rational, of making ourselves more and more independent of external things, nay, of ourselves, we could not give up. The word freedom sounds so beautiful, that we cannot do without it, even though it designates an error. ”

“ This explains also why those persons who, when they hear knowledge spoken of as independent life, cannot understand it otherwise than as self-consciousness and can never penetrate, owing to the necessary laws of thinking itself, beyond individuality to the thinking of life in its unity. ”

“ Men say to themselves and to one another, "Yes, I shall be freer to act, I shall be nobler in my action, but I shall certainly enchain mind and spirit, I shall certainty bind myself to think, away from the rich freedom of thought in which I have been inclined to live." ”

“ But whilst the man is startled by this closer inspection of the laws of matter, his attention is called to the independent action of the mind,—its strange suggestions and laws,—a certain tyranny which springs up in his own thoughts, which have an order, method, and beliefs of their own, very different from the order which this common-sense uses. ”

“ Here, too, from the purely material point of view, the ideal, as in the animal organism, is complete loss of independent life—the complete merging of the individual independence into the common life of society—the identification of individual life with social function. ”

“ We must have faith in this impulse to independence, which is the very innermost secret of our nature. Thought is not supreme, but is founded on our striving energies. Unhesitating acceptance of our vocation and of the conditions implied in it—through this only has life reality for us. ”

“ All that the opponents of freedom, as a class, have ever claimed is the assertion of a causal connection between the acts of the will and influences independent of the will. True, propositions of this sort can be expressed in a variety of ways connoting an endless number of more or less objectionable ideas, but this is the substance of the matter. ”

“ This is the problem to which the theory of isolated and independent conscious minds gave rise: Given feelings, ideas, desires, which have nothing to do with one another, how can actions proceeding from them be controlled in a social or public interest? Given an egoistic consciousness, how can action which has regard for others take place? ”

“ But we also find it socially convenient to view the common objects of our human and social knowledge as independent both of my fellow and myself, even while we still view these objects as the same for both of us, and for all other actual and possible human observers. ”

“ Under the other aspect, the entire action which sets forth the relations of all the characters involved, of their several courses of experience as elements in the working out of the joint result, has its unity in the constitution of the universe,—the impersonal order, that structure of being itself, which is independent of man's will, which is imposed upon him as a condition of existence, and which he must accept without appeal. ”

“ And apart from such conscious selection, apart from such ideal predetermination of the object on the part of the idea, apart from such free voluntary submission of the idea to its self-imposed task, the object itself, the fact world, in its independence, can do nothing either to confirm or refute the idea. ”

“ Yet the independence which Realism has in mind as characterizing the ultimate Being of things, must be something of a very fundamental and exact meaning and consequence. For it defines just what gives to things their whole Reality. Nevertheless realistic systems usually find it very much easier to assert or tacitly to assume the general definition of independent being just stated, than to give any precise account of the logical consequences to which the definition leads. ”

“ But the judgment of the notion proceeds, as free, to discharge the objective or bodily nature as an independent totality from itself; and the negative relation of the living thing to itself makes, as immediate individuality, the pre-supposition of an inorganic nature confronting it. ”

“ For in conceiving of all that is as a single whole, as the life, the meaning, and the consciousness of a single Self, we are not limited to merely universal considerations. Human thought has long been conscious of some aspects of the unity of Being. The world of ordinary experience, of common sense, and of science, has already its provisional unity, which our own idealism must view as a genuine, if fragmentary, hint of the final unity. ”

“ That I am an individual self-conscious person, to whom something other than, and independent of, my individual self is presented in my senses—so independent of me [134] individually that it can inform me of the existence of other persons whose conscious life is numerically different from mine; that the free agency of a person is the only sort of power that we are obliged to recognise, persons being revealed as responsible powers in and through our moral nature ”

“ That which thus captivates our reasons, and leads men blindfold from common sense, will, when examined, be found to be what we are speaking of. Some independent ideas of no alliance to one another, are, by education, custom, and the constant din of their party, so coupled in their minds, that they always appear there together; and they can no more separate them in their thoughts, than if there were but one idea ”

“ It is needless to multiply examples. The important point is that, in all that differentiates between a good life and a bad one, the world is a unity, and the man who pretends to live independently is a conscious or unconscious parasite. ”

“ As little is reason really anything apart from a self-conscious subject, or as other than an idea of perfection to be realised in and by such a subject. The determination of will by reason, then, which constitutes moral freedom or autonomy, must mean its determination by an object which a person willing, in virtue of his reason, presents to himself, that object consisting in the realisation of an idea of perfection in and by himself. ”

“ They (the individuals) are aware in themselves that they possess this individual independent being because of the sacrifice of their individuality, because the universal substance is their soul and essence: and, on the other side, this universal is their individual action, the work that they as individuals have produced. ”

“ Now if, with this fact in mind, I look back on the world which I attempted thus to describe, I find that the limitation which experience often seems to set to my postulates about the discrimination of facts, may well be founded in the deepest nature of things. The true world, the World of Values or of Appreciation, as rightly viewed by an absolute insight, would be a world of Selves, forming in the unity of their systems One Self. ”

“ The ground common to all self-determined thinkers is that of independency of opinion, known as free thought, which though but an impulse of intellectual courage in the search for truth, or an impulse of aggression against hurtful or irritating error, or the caprice of a restless mind, is to be encouraged. ”

“ Take it for granted that they are capable of proposing to themselves aims independently of thee, by their own power. Never disturb the execution of these, their designs, but further them rather, with all thy might. Respect their liberty. Embrace with love their objects as thine own." So must I act. And to such action shall, will, and must all my thinking be directed, if I have but formed the purpose to obey the voice of my conscience. Accordingly, I shall ever consider those beings as beings subsisting for themselves, and forming and accomplishing aims independently of me. ”

“ It inspires self-reliance, disciplines the mind to think for itself, accustoms it to express its own conclusions in its own chosen language, leads to clear and comprehensive forms of expression, gives decision and confidence, and tends to produce individuality of thought and character. ”

“ Should he meet with what I call real men—men of independent minds and sterling principles, with enlarged ideas of life and its aims—intercourse with such persons will doubtless elevate his own character and widen his views. ”

“ So much then for independent beings of the material sort. You see, Their independence implies that these beings are out of all mind, and yet can become common objects for many minds at once.
The commentator then indicates, what he elsewhere developes more at length, namely, the features that the souls, as real beings, have in common even with their extreme opposite, matter. They too, he points out, are eternal; they are independent ”

“ In this lecture, then, I shall henceforth take the realistic type of independence literally, and as a total independence. How alone a modified Realism can be stated, we shall see in connection with our Third Conception of Being. For the time, our realist shall be supposed to say, as many do, “Knowledge makes no difference to its real outer Object.” ”

“ In enquiring about any one individual we must ask how other individuals enter ‘objectively’ into the unity of its own experience. This unity of its own experience is that individual existing formally. ”

“ In the former case thought has by itself directly taken hold of our self, and made it into itself; and through this reality of thought for us, arising in this way, we obtain insight into its necessity. As we have just said, no freedom can forcibly bring about the latter consequence, which must be produced of itself, and thought itself must take hold of us and form us according to itself. ”

“ But what is this intellectual individuality, which determines man, and prescribes to him, in every individual case, his mode of action with such force that there remains for him but a minute space for free choice? ”

“ We saw above that the mere sensuous individuality, even without any appearance of the moral law in consciousness, makes actual acting completely possible, and real freedom, the possibility of determining one's self to do a specific act, in every way perfectible. ”

“ In my judgment, every human being should take a road of his own. Every mind should be true to itself—should think, investigate and conclude for itself. This is a duty alike incumbent upon pauper and prince. ”

“ As will, the mind is aware that it is the author of its own conclusions, the origin of its self-fulfilment. Thus fulfilled, this independency or individuality form the side of existence or of reality for the Idea of mind. ”

“ By a consciously self-realising principle is meant a principle that is determined to action by the conception of its own perfection, or by the idea of giving reality to possibilities which are involved in it and of which it is conscious as so involved; or, more precisely, a principle which at each stage of its existence is conscious of a more perfect form of existence as possible for itself, and is moved to action by that consciousness. ”

“ I content myself now with claiming for the developed, rational human self a measure of freedom to the extent which I have just defined—that it is the real cause of its own actions. It is capable of self-determination. ”

“ In many important instances his actions bear the stamp of individuality in so plain a manner that while we cannot predict what he will do, once it is done we recognize by the peculiar nature of the action that it must have been done by him and by none other. ”

“ And this formal will is now seen to be the true expression for all the foregoing characteristics, of universality, freedom, and autonomy. In formality we see they are all one. I am autonomous only because I am free, free only because I am universal, universal only because not particular, and not particular only when formal. ”

“ And the shock of having to transvalue all the accepted values, of having, in a world organized on the basis of fear, to conceive of a world organized on the basis of good will, made him a thinker in his own right. ”

“ We must silence all human utterance respecting all first grounds;—our own individuality;—and every object of reason which becomes inconceivable, when we attempt to define it by the processes of ordinary logic. ”

“ By the self-life, however, as a term thus used, is to be understood, not our individuality, nor the distinctive recognition of our free agency as rational beings, nor the necessity of self protection, support and effort, but life for the sake of self. ”