Inwardness

“ As far back as I can remember, I find that my dominant faculty, the one that has been present in every crisis of my life, great or small, and which is present to-day, has been the faculty, I mean the power and the need of duplication. There have always been in me, as it were, two distinct persons; one who went, came, acted, felt, and another who looked at the first go, come, act, and feel with an impassable curiosity. ”

“ Has he a nature to appreciate an organization so fine and subtle as mine? Will he understand that the fairy who endows us with our gifts at birth is reckoned to be munificent when she withholds only one high quality, and with me that one was courage? I mean the coarse, vulgar, combative sort of courage that makes men prizefighters and bargees; for as to the grander species of courage, I imagine it to be my distinguishing feature. ”

“ But apart from that altogether, let me just remind you, in half a dozen sentences, of the various limitations or fences which hedge up our lives on every side. There are the obligations which we owe, and the relations in which we stand, to the outer world, the laws of physical life, and all that touches the external and the material. There are the relations in which we stand, and the obligations which we owe, to ourselves. ”

“ In one class, outward action is seen to work profoundly upon the inward life, and the story shows us the workings of this influence in its final effect upon the inward man and his character. In another, an inward state is the basis, the premise, the initial force, in the story, and from that beginning the story goes on to show by a series of outward movements just how this great inward force operates in and upon conduct. ”

“ Induction infers a rule. Now, the belief of a rule is a habit. That a habit is a rule active in us, is evident. That every belief is of the nature of a habit, in so far as it is of a general character, has been shown in the earlier papers of this series. Induction, therefore, is the logical formula which expresses the physiological process of formation of a habit. Hypothesis substitutes, for a complicated tangle of predicates attached to one subject, a single conception. ”

“ Induction, then, is that operation of the mind, by which we infer that what we know to be true in a particular case or cases, will be true in all cases which resemble the former in certain assignable respects. In other words, Induction is the process by which we conclude that what is true of certain individuals of a class is true of the whole class, or that what is true at certain times will be true in similar circumstances at all times. ”

“ Shall the seen world or the unseen world be our chief sphere of adaptation? and must our means of adaptation in this seen world be aggressiveness or non-resistance?
The debate is serious. In some sense and to some degree both worlds must be acknowledged and taken account of; and in the seen world both aggressiveness and non-resistance are needful. It is a question of emphasis, of more or less. Is the saint's type or the strong-man's type the more ideal? ”

“ Au dedans et au dehors le cerveau est entretenu dans une sorte d’ébullition incessante. Les points de vue, les aspects des choses, les combinaisons, les possibilités, tant pour les individus que pour les collectivités, se succèdent si rapidement qu’il faut pour en tenir compte et les utilises au besoin se tenir toujours en éveil et comme en une mobilisation permanente. ”

“ All inverts do not give way to their instincts, since the strength of these instincts varies in different individuals, as does the degree of effeminacy, just as there are corresponding differences in normal individuals. Your author's is an extreme case of passive inversion. His case is also unusual because of the strange combination of appetencies in one individual: the instincts of the fairie, the thirst for knowledge of the savant, the yearning after God and holiness of life of the zealot, and the impulse toward altruism of the missionary. ”

“ The switch which thus sets active the play of forces I shall call circumstance. If it has been long delayed, I have the precedent of all the story of human life as my excuse. For we are the children of circumstance. We move each in our little circle by a stout hedge encompassed. ”

“ In Diversion, as in many other Particulars, the upper Part of Life is distinguished from the Lower. Let the Great therefore answer for the Employment of their Time, to themselves, or to their spiritual Governors. ”

“ Dost thou not understand that there are two distinct forces in us, that of the soul and that of the body—that is, a movement and a regulator? ”

“ In other words, there are phenomena subsequent to and arising from the characteristics of individual men, viz., the phenomena of the accommodation of volition to volition in every form of human contact. ”

“ Adherence to rigid order, and unconditional obedience to reasonable demands, and a mild discipline, with strict control, and a regular system by which one was set to watch another, were the means used for arousing to the utmost a spirit of emulation and giving a sharp spur to ambition. ”

“ For example, I may for a time absent myself from general society, and return to it again after a certain interval, having with me a child, whom I assert to be my very own, produced by my own inherent power, just as a tree produces a leaf which grows, matures, and falls. ”

“ So much and so plainly do I realise it that I even attribute everything done in the world to ‘influence.’ Each one of us is ‘influenced’ by something or some one. Even you, my dearest brother, share the common lot, though I dare say you do not quite perceive where your ruling force is generated, your own powers being so extraordinary. ”

“ To advance from one person to another, from one society to another, from one kingdom or heaven to another, interior changes of state must occur in the mind, which changes are accompanied by corresponding progressions of the spiritual body in the apparent space of the spiritual world. ”

“ If this is the effect of my interference on a small scale, I cannot hope for anything better were I to carry out the plans which we have so often discussed. The schemes of my life have all turned to nothing. ”

“ If you so fully conform to the Adjuster's mind that you see eye to eye, then your minds become one, and you receive the reinforcement of the Adjuster's mind. Subsequently, if your will orders and enforces the execution of the decisions of this new or combined mind, the Adjuster's prepersonal will attains to personality expression through your decision, and as far as that particular project is concerned, you and the Adjuster are one. Your mind has attained to divinity attunement, and the Adjuster's will has achieved personality expression. ”

“ Perhaps you will meet opposition to your entrance when you come to gain your chance. It is likely that some sentry in the outer office of your prospect, or the sentry of his own mind when you reach his presence, may halt you at the portal of opportunity with the challenge, "Who goes there?" ”

“ "Our ingress into the world Was naked and bare; Our progress through the world Is trouble and care; Our egress from the world Will be nobody knows where; But if we do well here We shall do well there; ”

“ With regard to its term, movement is divided into two kinds—that is, movement to a place, motus ad ubi, and movement towards a certain degree of perfection or intensity of power, motus virtutis. [160] The first is called local movement, of which we will speak presently. The second is subdivided into intension, remission, and alteration. Intension and remission are the acquisition or loss of some degree of perfection or of intensity with regard to power and qualities; alteration is the passage from one kind of quality or property to another. ”

“ In countless forms that strange, drawing power lays hold of you, and you must follow or reject. It may be a call to you to yield your reverence, your support, your participation to some benevolent or religious movement. ”

“ After my first transport, I found myself grow serious, reflecting upon the vigilance of Providence over us poor creatures, and the various instances wherein it interposes to save or relieve us in cases of the deepest distress, where our own foresight, wisdom, and power have utterly failed, and when, looking all around, we could discover no means of deliverance. ”

“ Observe how 'walk before Me' is dovetailed, as it were, between the revelation 'I am the Almighty God' and the injunction 'Be thou perfect.' The realisation of that presence of the Almighty which is implied in the expression 'Walk before Me,' the assurance that we are in His sight, will lead straight to the fulfilment of the injunction that bears upon the moral conduct. ”

“ If we are to attribute to man the possession of a governing attribute not possessed by other parts of the animal creation, where are we to draw the boundary line, and say "here the ego— the will—the reason—emerges"? ”

“ Dividually.—Here must thou be, O Man!
Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here;
Here keepest thou in singleness thy state:
No other can divide with thee this work:
No secondary hand can intervene
To fashion this ability; 'tis thine,
The prime and vital principle is thine
In the recesses of thy nature, far
From any reach of outward fellowship,
Else is not thine at all. ”

“ Them also we accepted blindly as such or such or such, and it was not until we had turned back upon those guides and companions of our spiritual pilgrimage, after their power of leadership had been tested by the agony of the first hard stages, that we realised how they were to appear to us for the large remainder of the way. That same realisation came at that same period with regard also to others beside the older ones. ”

“ The stranger listened with emotion: she had evidently received illumination at the same school.
“You have no home nor family,” continued he; “let me be everything to you, or rather let us be everything to one another. If form is necessary, form shall be observed—there is my hand. ”

“ Knowing the trials and hardships which are before us, and feeling the necessity of union, harmony, and discipline, we have determined to abide faithfully by the expedition and our sick comrades, and to do all that we can, as true men, to advance the objects in view. ”

“ If I or you touch a man or woman with a finger, or clasp their hand, or embrace them more completely, the tendency is at once set up, and the force seeks to flow, and, according to certain conditions, does flow, from one to another, evermore seeking to find a common level,—always, that is, in the direction of the greater need, or the greater capacity. ”

“ This seemingly mysterious agency, has given me relief when other human aid was hopeless, and I believe it is destined, when calmly investigated, to be, under Providence, a great remedial agent for mankind. ”

“ Now permit me to illustrate the principle of induction. You understand, when electric conditions are produced, that there is such a thing as causing them by induction. You understand that negative attracts positive, and that positive attracts negative—that where these opposite conditions prevail there is a tendency to bring them together. ”

“ Experience taught us that when we embraced one opportunity, one responsibility, the acceptance of it invariably led to another, and so the servant who had five talents, five opportunities, gained ten. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It had taught him that this example of eminence was but a parallel of human position, and, if that man who stands at the top must be dwarfed and beaten and exposed to every gale as this tree was, mayhap the fellow-men further down were in as good position, all things considered, as they should wish to be. ”

“ The chief, for instance, will imprint five spots on the sand, and round them trace an interminable line which just misses each spot in turn. The five spots signify the vain ambitions of man, and the line is man’s vain effort ever to reach them. ”

“ And in this I saw verily that the inward part is master and sovereign to the outward, and doth not charge itself with, nor take heed to, the will of that: but all the intent and will is set to be oned unto our Lord Jesus. That the outward part should draw the inward to assent was not shewed to me; but that the inward draweth the outward by grace, and both shall be oned in bliss without end, by the virtue of Christ,—this was shewed. ”

“ Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction are forces supposed to be material: but they are qualities of mind; they belong to Principle, and support the equipoise of thought that launches the earth into its orbit, and says to the proud wave, “Hither and no farther.” We tread on forces. ”

“ My brother and his wife afford an instructive and encouraging example of what can be done by a father and a mother having united aims, and trust in God and in their own efforts. To vanquish evil fortune, they called in the aid of resignation, courage, employment, and perseverance, and joined to those qualities, fore-sight, economy, and natural, or acquired, aptitude. ”

“ Let us, then, labor for an inward stillness,— An inward stillness and an inward healing; ”

“ We have, therefore, the warrant of a rigid induction for considering it probable, in a degree undistinguishable from certainty, that the known conditions requisite for the sun’s rising will exist to-morrow. ”

“ All that seems essentially of importance is, that the endowments given him by nature, should have been so well exercised, that when brought to bear on the real, manly business of life, they may act with effect. ”

“ These phrases, if they have any meaning at all, can mean one thing only—the emancipation of the average man, endowed with average capacities, from the control, from the guidance, or, in other words, from the help, of any man or men whose capacities are above the average—whose speculative abilities are exceptionally keen, whose inventive abilities are exceptionally great, whose judgments are exceptionally sound, and whose powers of will, enterprise, and initiative are exceptionally strong. ”