Major key

“ In each step of induction, our Table enumerates the particular facts, and states the general theoretical truth which includes these and which these constitute. The special act of attention by which we satisfy ourselves that the facts are so included,—that the general truth is so constituted,—then affords little room for errour, with moderate attention and clearness of thought. ”

“ The causes of every social phenomenon which we are particularly interested about, security, wealth, freedom, good government, public virtue, general intelligence, or their opposites, are infinitely numerous, especially the external or remote causes, which alone are, for the most part, accessible to direct observation. No one cause suffices of itself to produce any of these phenomena ”

“ Simple as it seems, it was a great discovery that the key of knowledge could turn both ways, that it could open, as well as lock, the door of power to the many. ”

“ By the consideration of the individual, concrete object, however, the mind can form an idea, a concept, a general notion—"triangle," "orange"—which does not specify this or that individual object, but "fits to any individual triangle or orange past, present, or future, and even the possible oranges that never shall be grown." [A] In other words Intelligence can rise from consideration of the particular to the general. ”

“ Deductive Reasoning.+—When once a general principle has been established, we may demonstrate the truth of a specific proposition by showing that the general principle applies to it. We see a gold ring and say, "This ring is valuable," because we believe the general proposition, "All articles made of gold are valuable." ”

“ We are slowly beginning to recognize that there may be a science of History, a science of Language, a science of Religion, and, in fact, that all knowledge may be systematized on a common method. The facts of the External Order, which yield a cosmology, are supplemented by the facts of the Internal Order, which yield a psychology, and the facts of the Social Order, which yield a sociology. ”

“ The [2] power of vividly realising and portraying men, or societies or modes of thought that have long since passed away; the power of arranging and combining great multitudes of various facts; the power of judging with discrimination, accuracy, and impartiality conflicting arguments or evidence; the power of tracing through the long course of events the true chain of cause and effect, selecting the facts that are most valuable and significant and explaining the relation between general causes and particular effects, are all very different and belong to different types of mind. ”

“ In each century we shall see a great widening of the horizon of human thought, a great increase of precision in each branch of human knowledge, a great improvement in the conditions of human life, as enlightenment and precision come to be controlling factors in human action. ”

“ To such a degree has this spirit permeated all our modes of thinking, that with respect to every branch of knowledge, no less than with respect to every institution and every form of human activity, we almost instinctively ask, not merely what is its existing condition, but what were its earliest discoverable germs, and what has been the course of its development.—Ingram, History of Political Economy, 2. ”

“ A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones. ”

“ The search [48] for objective truth, the extension of the realm of law and regularity, the expansion and organization of the army of facts constantly marshaled and reviewed and made ready for service, the ever widening development of principles and the furthering of a deeper insight into their significance,—these are ideals for the advancement of science, far easier of expression than of execution, but the clear and accepted formulation of which itself attests a highly developed stage of accurate thought. ”

“ It is manifest, therefore, that, if we are to attempt to ascend to the Supreme Cause—if we are to try to frame an idea of the Cause of all these subordinate causes;—we must conceive it as more different from any of them, than the most diverse are from each other;—more elevated above the highest, than the highest is above the lowest. ”

“ Now, in whatever science there are systematic differences of opinion—which is as much as to say, in all the moral or mental sciences, and in Political Economy among the rest; in whatever science there exist, among those who have attended to the subject, what are commonly called differences of principle, as distinguished from differences of matter-of-fact or detail,—the cause will be found to be, a difference in their conceptions of the philosophic method of the science. ”

“ If we could so understand true philosophy as to understand our own creation, and what it is for—what design and intent the Supreme Ruler had in organizing matter and bringing it forth in the capacity that I behold you here today, we could comprehend that matter cannot be destroyed—that it is subject to organization and disorganization; and could understand that matter can be organized and brought forth into intelligence, and to possess more intelligence and to continue to increase in that intelligence ”

“ By entering the four principal accounts in a book or books, the whole may be made linear, and a single glance of the eye suffices to any man who has resolution enough to know the state of his affairs at setting out, or to get it done for him, and to form a judgment of what he can and what he cannot afford to expend. ”

“ If the symbols of our system stand for entities for which the axioms hold, then all the propositions of the system will be true of those entities. Or, in other words: If entities can be found which satisfy the axioms of the system, then the system will be science of these entities. ”

“ From this he singles out the principles and distinctions which are of general applicability, and employs the powers and resources of a most precise and analytic mind to give to those principles and distinctions a philosophic basis, grounded in the universal reason of mankind, and not in mere technical convenience. ”

“ And it will be derived from the divisions of honour and usefulness, concerning which we will give rules when we lay down a system of deliberations. And if we compare the definition given by our adversaries with our own definition, and prove our own to be true, and honourable, and useful, and theirs to be entirely different. But we shall seek out things like them in an affair of either greater, or less, or equal importance, from which our description will be proved. ”

“ The principal point in which we fall short of our northern brethren, and of most European nations, is in our want of system in our employments, and attention to the small things of business. Now the Classics demand constant attention to the most minute marks and letters, together with the exercise of judgment, patience, memory, classification—all of which are component parts of system. ”

“ Of all truths relating to phenomena, the most valuable to us are those which relate to the order of their succession. On a knowledge of these is founded every reasonable anticipation of future facts, and whatever power we possess of influencing those facts to our advantage. ”

“ There are certain broad and general principles which describe very crudely and roughly and inadequately certain phases of certain processes that mind undergoes in organizing experience—perception, apperception, conception, induction, deduction, inference, generalization, and the like. ”

“ And as the false and imperfect keys, which turn up to the decypherer in his researches, prepare the way for the discovery of the true and complete one, so any hypothesis that has so much plausibility as to explain a considerable number of facts, helps us to digest these facts in proper order, to bring new ones to light, and to make experimenta crucis for the sake of future inquirers. ”

“ By considering what is the real import of our acquisitions, where they are certain and definite, we may learn something respecting the difference between true knowledge and its precarious or illusory semblances; by examining the steps by which such acquisitions have been made, we may discover the conditions under which truth is to be obtained; by tracing the boundary-line between our knowledge and our ignorance, we may ascertain in some measure the extent of the powers of man’s understanding. ”

“ All the institutions of society, all the fields of research, every occupation, art, and trade—every one of them contributes an element of diversity of meaning to the words at its command. Not only that, but, as we have seen, a protean spirit is manifest wherever circumstances demand change. ”

“ But with the enlargement of mind and its more perfect organization, there arises a new method of appraising values, and so a new type of value altogether. I mean of course the so-called absolute values. Absolute values are never absolute in the sense of absolute completeness; they are relative to two things—to external reality and to our mental powers and organization. [48] They are abstractions; we generalize the value in our minds, and at the same time raise it to the highest pitch of intensity we can. ”

“ What therefore is the foundation of your philosophy?”
“The foundation,” replied my friend, “consists in the distinguishing of things in our power from things not in our power. The things that are needful are in our power, viz. justice, temperance, truthfulness, courage and the like; but the things that are not in our power are not needful, such as wealth, beauty, reputation, health, pleasure, life and the rest. ”

“ The Two Principles of the New Life.—First Principle: to arrange one's life on the most secure and tangible basis, not as hitherto upon the most distant, undetermined, and cloudy foundation. Second Principle: to establish the rank of the nearest and nearer things, and of the more and less secure, before one arranges one's life and directs it to a final end. ”

“ We have completed the survey of the human mind; we have created a foundation, upon which a scientific system, as the correct representation of the original system in man, may be built. In conclusion, let us take a glance at the whole. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the subject of Induction, the task to be performed was that of generalizing the modes of investigating truth and estimating evidence, by which so many important and recondite laws of nature have, in the various sciences, been aggregated to the stock of human knowledge. ”

“ These, which are states of the person's mind, are the real antecedent in the sequence, the real cause in the causation, asserted by the proposition. But these are also the real ground, or foundation, of the attribute Prudence; since wherever these states of mind exist we may predicate prudence, even before we know whether any conduct has followed. And in this manner every assertion respecting an attribute, may be transformed into an assertion exactly equivalent respecting the fact or phenomenon which is the ground of the attribute. ”

“ For to bring in the will, or reason, as causes of their own cause, that is, as at once causes and effects, can satisfy those only who, in their pretended evidences of a God, having first demanded organization, as the sole cause and ground of intellect, will then coolly demand the pre-existence of intellect, as the cause and ground-work of organization. ”

“ Once more the attention of the reader is called to the relations which exist between the five essentials and which are then found in the five properties, then found in the five categories, then found in the five properties of change, then in the five properties of life, then in the five properties of mind. Kinds are not alone classified, but forms, forces, qualities, and concepts are classified. ”

“ Personal distinction, success, depend, not on the average bulk of knowledge, power, and skill, but on that margin that extends a little beyond the reach of one’s fellows, a margin gained by some extra devotion, by sacrifice and work, by ideals a little more advanced or more clearly seen. ”

“ Moreover, for aught that appears, the volitions of exceptional persons, or the opinions and purposes of the individuals who at some particular time compose a government, may be indispensable links in the chain of causation by which even the general causes produce their effects ”

“ It is finding a mode of so symbolizing the unknown activities, subjective and objective, and so operating with our symbols, that all our acts may be rightly guided—guided, that is, in such ways that we can anticipate, when, where, and in what quantity some one of our symbols, or some combination of our symbols, will be found. ”

“ If the demonstration is placed with the fact, and their tendencies are examined, it may be fair to conclude that what they may next lead to, may be in a measure predicated. The chief value, then, of an intimate knowledge of the past is, that from it the future may be foreseen, and that the lesson it teaches may assist in the formation of aids to the natural order of things. ”

“ There is, indeed, an interaction between matter and mind. In this interaction the geo-economic conditions are the legislative, the mind is the executive; the material factors precede, the mind follows, interprets, transforms external facts into logical truths and ethical maxims, and the into motives of the actions of man. ”

“ In order to do this, we must reconsider, in a more definite and precise shape, the doctrine which has already been laid down;—that our Knowledge consists 29 in applying Ideas to Facts; and that the conditions of real knowledge are that the ideas be distinct and appropriate, and exactly applied to clear and certain facts. The steps by which our knowledge is advanced are those by which one or the other of these two processes is rendered more complete;—by which Conceptions are made more clear in themselves, or by which the Conceptions more strictly bind together the Facts. ”