Intellectual

“ (The intellectual world is divided into two classes—dilettanti on the one hand, and pedants on the other.) ”

“ Suppose, however, that the intellectual and vital principle differs in the most marked and essential manner from all other known substances; that they have all some resemblance between themselves which it in no degree participates. ”

“ The philosophic critic, at least, will value, even in works of imagination, seemingly the most intuitive, the power of the understanding in them, their logical process of construction, the spectacle of a supreme intellectual dexterity which they afford. ”

“ You should establish it as a practical truth in your mind, that, with a strong will, the intellectual powers may be turned into every imaginable direction, and lead to excellence in one as surely as in another. ”

“ To understand, we have analyzed the intellectual world into two classes, good and evil; and to discover the members of each class, we fix their qualities, not by the hypothetick, but the practical mode of reasoning. ”

“ The rational, spiritual, or even physical elements, which may enter and compose this, his summum bonum, represent those intellectual interests which may be termed ultimate, for the very reason, that they relate to what the thinker deems his beatitude. These ultimate intellectual interests possess an absolute sanction, for the lack of which whatever lies outside of them tends to adjudge itself vain. ”

“ The intellectual Power, through words and things,
Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way! ”

“ 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. ”

“ For my own part, without breach of truth or modesty, I may affirm, that my life has been, on the whole, the life of a philosopher: from my birth I was made an intellectual creature; and intellectual in the highest sense my pursuits and pleasures have been, even in my school-boy days. ”

“ For, in real life, we ever start with certain general intellectual-emotive schemes and critical principles, as so many draw-nets and receptacles for the capture and sorting out of reality and of our experience of it. ”

“ Next, it is seen that the mind is endowed with intellect, or the intellectual powers, by which it can perceive the nature and relative value of various kinds of enjoyment, compare the present with the future, and judge both of what is most valuable and of the proper modes of securing it. ”

“ By the side of the intellectual element, by which we estimate our thoughts and actions, there is feeling; that is, the sensibility which modifies the judgment and enlightens the deep thought determining our responsibility. ”

“ There must be, to begin with, a developing sense and feeling for truth and for duty as something distinct and occasionally conflicting with immediate impulse and desire, and there must be certain clear intellectual elements established already almost impregnably in the mind, certain primary distinctions and classifications. ”

“ Science is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon eternal truths. Art is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon things beautiful and immortal and ever-changing. To morals belong the lower and less intellectual spheres. ”

“ The objective mind, it will therefore be seen, is potentially selective, that is to say, the measure of its quality is its capacity to select at will intellectual nourishment from the whole range of humanity and nature, free from the oppression of its psychic environment. ”

“ And thus the intellectual satisfaction which at first comes to him without reflection, at last excites in him the conscious wish to find realized throughout the entire phenomenal world those rational continuities, uniformities, and necessities which are the fundamental element and guiding principle of his own thought. ”

“ The higher intellectual powers of man, such as those of ratiocination, abstraction, self-consciousness, etc., probably follow from the continued improvement and exercise of the other mental faculties. ”

“ A few individuals, by extraordinary genius, or by the accidental acquisition of a good set of intellectual habits, may work without principles in the same way, or nearly the same way, in which they would have worked if they had been in possession of principles. But the bulk of mankind require either to understand the theory of what they are doing, or to have rules laid down for them by those who have understood the theory. ”

“ He not only personally appreciates, but rates high in moral value, the creations of poets and artists in all departments, deeming them, by their mixed appeal to the sentiments and the understanding, admirably fitted to educate the feelings of abstract thinkers, and enlarge the intellectual horizon of people of the world. ”

“ for we say that some of the virtues are intellectual and others moral, philosophic wisdom and understanding and practical wisdom being intellectual, liberality and temperance moral. ”

“ Intellectually, they often possess in a very high degree, the faculties of imagination, of invention, and of expression, that is to say, the gifts of speech, the arts, and poetry; on the moral side, they possess a singular emotivity, or rather, sensibility. ”

“ The moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should always bear in mind that the activity of the mind in vividly recalling past impressions is one of the fundamental though secondary bases of conscience. This fact affords the strongest argument for educating and stimulating in all possible ways the intellectual faculties of every human being. ”

“ A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual All in All! ”

“ 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. ”

“ If considered as a mere receptacle for Latin and Greek, Mathematics and Metaphysics, Science and Literature, we may, without moral turpitude or virtue, abstractly considered, follow our own inclinations; but the Understanding will all the time be growing either stronger or weaker, wiser or more foolish, whether we study them or whether we let them alone. This action of the Understanding cannot go on without influencing the Affections. ”

“ No less admirable are, on the one hand, his synthetic skill and the logic of his arguments, and, on the other, his subtle and discriminating analyses, which weigh the finest shades of thought and dissect each subject with all the accuracy of science. ”

“ Trained by tradition, reason is called common sense. Trained by personal experience to the knowledge of principles, reason is called science. Trained by the contemplation of principles to the perfection of the intellect, reason is called wisdom. ”

“ The success of that charming series of biographies, the English Men of Letters—nay, of the little shilling Literature Primers—is a sign of it. And the same thing, too, is being done with regard to Philosophy; but, so far, the men of Science have the lead, and they deserve it; for, as I have said, theirs has been the most complete singleness of heart and soul with which Truth has been sought out, they have the most thoroughly applied the secret of the purpose and system of Culture. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A cultivated mind—I do not mean that of a philosopher, but any mind to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its faculties—finds sources of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it; in the objects of nature, the achievements of art, the imaginations of poetry, the incidents of history, the ways of mankind past and present, and their prospects in the future. ”

“ Those Things that relate to Science, and Discipline, such as the Ideas of the Mind, Virtues, Vices, Manners, and the like, are illustrated by being explained; but no one will say, that by being explained they are imitated. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To what a degree this loose mode of classing and denominating objects has rendered the vocabulary of mental and moral philosophy unfit for the purposes of accurate thinking, is best known to whoever has most meditated on the present condition of those branches of knowledge. ”

“ This, then, it seems, is Culture—knowing the best that has been thought and known in the world—not only knowledge, but right tact and justness of judgment, forming themselves by and with judgment—reading, but reading with a purpose to guide it, and with system. ”

“ And we hope that the thoughtful readers of these pages will see in our intention, an earnest, honest purpose and belief, and that, without affectation of science or pretense of superior knowledge, we base all our efforts upon nature and common sense. ”

“ For the rest, how it is necessary to distinguish between discourse and intellect, and science and art, and prudence and wisdom, belongs rather partly to the physical, and partly to the ethical theory. ”

“ I am convinced that such among you as may intend to hereafter prosecute your speculative researches in a profound and zealous spirit, and to study philosophy both in itself and in its history,—I am convinced that you must build your labours upon the distinction now brought before you. ”

“ Are they not rife with all the useful reasoning—the philosophic intelligence—the happiness of application, that cultivated man could devise for the assistance of untutored intellect?
From the logic of the sage we learn, by a spirit of imitation natural to human beings, to quicken our own powers of reasoning. The perspicuity of arrangement and expression, so admirable in our master, becomes gradually a part of our own style. ”

“ 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? ”

“ These are the physical and the mental, or, as they are sometimes called, the moral sciences. The proper subjects of the first are the properties of matter; those of the second are the sensations, faculties, and habits of the human mind. ”

“ Is this man in a condition to exert himself for the cultivation of his faculties, and apply to the study of history, of science, or of poetry? The first thing is to put him into such a condition that his mind can have free and fair play ”

“ But what the interested learners ask of idealistic teachers to-day is, as you are all aware, a more explicit statement as to just how Thought and Purpose, Idea and Will, and above all finite thought and will, and absolute thought and will, are, by any idealist, to be conceived as related to each other. ”

“ The biography of philosophy, hence, reveals it to have the same possibilities and the same fate that all other ideas have. Today ideas are the patent of our humanity, the stuff and form of intelligence, the differentiæ between us and the beasts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To this nobler purpose the man of understanding will devote the energies of his life. And in the first place, he will honor studies which impress these qualities on his soul, and will disregard others? ”

“ 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. ”