Maxim

“ I have often thought how ill-natured a maxim it was which on many occasions I have heard from people of good understanding, ‘That as to what related to private conduct no one was ever the better for advice.' But upon further examination I have resolved with myself that the maxim might be admitted without any violent prejudice to mankind. ”

“ Thus interpreted, the maxim loses much of its vitality and significance: it becomes irrelevant, and indeed misleading: it turns the footsteps of inquirers off into a wrong path. For the proper question is not, What is the strength or the weakness, the extent or the limitations, of man's capacities? ”

“ His doctrine, that mind was the supreme principle, that there was nothing higher, was converted by an easy transition into the maxim that man, the mind of man, is the measure of all things; that is, the mind of man shapes and determines the truth. ”

“ This dogma is the saying, that "man is the measure of the universe;" a maxim attributed to Protagoras, but which may be accepted as the watchword and common principle of all the Sophists.
7. The meaning of this saying is, that truth, morality, and beauty are altogether relative, that there is nothing absolute or unchangeable in their nature. The maxim is, indeed, under one point of view, a condensed expression for the whole philosophy of the relative. Whatever a man holds to be true is true for him; whatever he holds to be right and good is right and good for him ”

“ If a boy associates with bad company, we may offer the maxim, "Birds of a feather flock together," in proof that he is probably bad too. Such maxims or proverbs are brief statements of principles generally believed, and the use of them in an argument is in effect the presentation of a general theory in a form which appeals to the mind of the hearer and causes him to believe our proposition. ”

“ Nor do I approve the maxim ‘Nothing in excess,’ for one cannot hate the wicked too much.”
Further, maxims are of great assistance to speakers, first, because of the vulgarity of the hearers, who are pleased if an orator, speaking generally, hits upon the opinions which they specially hold. What I mean will be clear from the following, and also how one should hunt for maxims. The maxim, as we have said, is a statement of the general; accordingly, the hearers are pleased to hear stated in general terms the opinion which they have already specially formed. ”

“ Wise maxims, some of the garnered grains of our fathers' experiences, are scattered through the books we read, and daily fall from the lips of teachers and friends; maxims which, if observed, would lead us to honor and happiness. ”

“ Here nothing else can help us but an imperative maxim which, independent of reflection, at once controls it: that maxim is, in all doubtful cases to adhere to the first opinion and not to give it up till a clear conviction forces us to do so. ”

“ The commonest understanding can distinguish without instruction what form of maxim is adapted for universal legislation, and what is not. Suppose, for example, that I have made it my maxim to increase my fortune by every safe means. ”

“ Each maxim is supposed to define a duty. Of course it also tells us how to win some special good or how to avoid some particular evil. But what this special duty has to do with winning any one highest good is not thus made explicit. ”

“ And if we carry our observation outward, we also find that light and darkness, sound and silence, motion and quiescence, equality and inequality, preceding and following, succession and simultaneousness, any positive phenomenon whatever and its negative, are distinct phenomena, pointedly contrasted, and the one always absent where the other is present. I consider the maxim in question to be a generalization from all these facts. ”

“ The maxims derived from this study may be called maxims of abstract or absolute right; they are not absolutely universal, ‘eternal and immutable,’ but they are independent of the individual, and practically universal for the present condition of the human species. ”

“ It is simply the carrying out of the fundamental maxim that the Universal cannot act on the plane of the Particular except through the Particular; only this philosophical axiom develops into a warm living intercourse. ”

“ The supreme maxim in scientific philosophising is this:
Wherever possible, logical constructions are to be substituted for inferred entities. ”

“ Since we act from ideas, maxims may serve practically for many concrete cases. This is especially true if the full meaning of a maxim has been presented. Next to maxims, and greater in importance, are the events and characters of history and biography. Embodied virtues and vices, real events that show the movements and reveal the motives of a people, appeal strongly to the interest. Yet, being remote in time and place, they allow the freest discussion and may be made permanent types for the instruction and improvement of mankind. ”

“ But each of the maxims can be taken to the heart and conscience of the individual, to become a principle of each man’s own character and conduct, and then to reappear, retranslated into social action, according to the wisdom of the time or the wisdom of the man or the wisdom of the Church. ”

“ It will be remembered that a maxim is a general principle and universally approved leading truth; therefore, even the most elementary student cannot do better than store away in his memory some of the more important of these rules as a foundation for future study. ”

“ The Maxims are in no respect mere deductions from or applications of any such general theory. They are on the contrary independent judgments on different relations of life, different affections of the human mind, and so forth, from which, taken together, the general view may be deduced or rather composed. ”

“ I do not, therefore, need any far-reaching penetration to discern what I have to do in order that my will may be morally good. Inexperienced in the course of the world, incapable of being prepared for all its contingencies, I only ask myself: Canst thou also will that thy maxim should be a universal law? ”

“ The first condition of a profitable use of maxims being a thorough mastery of the rule proposed, with its limits, the next condition is an accurate self-knowledge. Know yourself, your weaknesses, your aptitudes, your exposures, your gifts and strength, in order that you may know what to seek or avoid, what to cherish or spurn, what to spur or curb, what to fortify or assail. ”

“ But ’twas a maxim he had often tried, That right was right, and there he would abide; ”

“ Finally, in order to fortify moral decisions, we must avail ourselves of the assistance derived from the logical cultivation of maxims, from the systematic unification of the same, and from their constant application in life. ”

“ But, besides that the ordinary course of nature may convince us, that almost everything is regulated by principles and maxims very different from ours; besides this, I say, it must evidently appear contrary to all rules of analogy to reason, from the intentions and projects of men, to those of a Being so different, and so much superior. ”

“ I believe that, in point of fact, when drawing inferences from our personal experience, and not from maxims handed down to us by books or tradition, we much oftener conclude from particulars to particulars directly, than through the intermediate agency of any general proposition. We are constantly reasoning from ourselves to other people, or from one person to another, without giving ourselves the trouble to erect our observations into general maxims of human or external nature. ”

“ No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one have not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better. ”

“ A great French philosopher once truly said: "All law, all philosophy, all wisdom, depend upon the practice of these principles. Moderate thyself. Instruct thyself. Live for thy fellow creatures that they may live for thee." He is the best business man who abides by this teaching. ”

“ "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. ”

“ And in spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations. ”

“ It is the aim of this work to discover truth to the reader, unvarnished and unembellished, and, at the same time, as far as possible, to avoid personalities. Wherever practicable, philosophic generalizations have been tied down to actualities, based upon experiential knowledge and innate common-sense of the eternal fitness of things. ”

“ Maxim or any other of the Officers are selling anything or have anything in mind except the building up of an efficient relay association, and in spite of a conservatism produced by noting the careers of other projects, I think they deserve the hearty support of every sincere amateur in the country. ”

“ Maxim placed especial emphasis upon one stipulation—that we did not want a girl under twenty or a woman over thirty-five, for the reason that a girl under twenty is very apt to lack the necessary experience and serious-minded [196] ness for such a position, while a woman around and above forty is apt to be set in her ways, and to lack the necessary flexibility of mind and nature readily to adapt herself to anything to which she has not always been accustomed, and is, furthermore, likely to be unable to learn anything new with the facility of a younger person. ”

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“ ANNOUNCEMENT
¶ Q S T is published by and at the expense of Hiram Percy Maxim and Clarence D. Tuska.
¶ Its object is to help maintain the organization of the American Radio Relay League and to keep the Amateur Wireless Operators of the country in constant touch with each other.
¶ Every Amateur will help himself and help his fellows by sending in 25 cents for a three months' trial subscription.
THE PUBLISHERS OF Q S T
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1928. ”

“ And, as we have already seen, and in the present lecture shall further illustrate, the relation of partial and total meaning is, at the same time, the relation of any finite will to the expression of the complete intent of that same will. Without contradiction, therefore, you are unable to assert the real Being of any world, unless you conceive that world as the expressed will whose partial momentary embodiment you even now observe, whenever you get any rational idea before your mind. ”

“ Sometimes, dynamite will work all right for such a purpose, but it is notional stuff and can not be depended upon merely to burn. It was during one of these intervals of independability that Jeopardy went.
[59]
THE INVOLUNTARY ATTACK
Soon after the invention of the Maxim automatic machine gun, I took the American agency for the introduction of the weapon to the United States Government. Among the tests that were conducted with the gun at Sandy Hook was one known as the sand test, sand being sifted into the mechanism of the gun, which was then loaded and fired. ”

“ Let us now proceed to determine the second fundamental form of the manifestation of life—the individual form—by applying the same principle.
I. The contemplation of the one and universal power exists in the individuals as such. The totality of the power, or nature, is contemplated through them as the focus of knowledge; and by each of them, of course, in the same manner, for in regard to the contents of that contemplation they are not individual, but are the one and universal life itself. ”

“ THE FORGOTTEN BIT OF FULMINATE
In experimenting with high explosives and in their manufacture, a little absent-mindedness, a very slight lack of exact caution, a seemingly insignificant inadvertence for a moment, may cost one a limb or his life. The incident that cost me my left hand is a case in point.
On the day preceding that accident, I had had a gold cap put on a tooth. In consequence, the tooth ached and kept me awake the greater part of the night. Next morning I rose early and went down to my factory at Maxim, New Jersey. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Without attempting in this place to justify my opinion, or even to define the kind of justification which it admits of, I merely declare my conviction, that the general principle to which all rules of practice ought to conform, and the test by which they should be tried, is that of conduciveness to the happiness of mankind, or rather, of all sentient beings ”

“ It is true that, in ordinary life, we learn to make a very sharp distinction between the wished for and the real. And this distinction is, indeed, in the world of common sense, a very unconquerable one. ”

“ Common sense first asserts that, when my will gets expressed, I individually am active. Common sense also, in the second place, asserts that when my will gets inwardly expressed in my choice, I individually am free. Now into the endless discussions as to the causal relations of this or that aspect of the human will we have declined in this discussion to go. We have declined, because we have said that all causation, whatever it is, is but a special instance of Being, and never can explain any of the ultimate problems about Being. ”