Maxims

“ I have read, in the golden verses of Pythagoras, or in some other collection of wise apophthegms of the ancients, that a man of business may talk of philosophy, a man who has none may practise it. What do you think of this maxim? Is it exact? I have a strange distrust of maxims. We make as many observations as our time, our knowledge, and the other means we have, give us the opportunity of making on a physical matter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 as custom and practice have brought to light all these principles, and have settled the just value of every thing; this must certainly contribute to the easy production of the passions, and guide us, by means of general established maxims, in the proportions we ought to observe in preferring one object to another. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Epigrammatic moral maxims, scraps of biography, nodules of a sort of political economy, bits of history, rules of etiquette, and a great variety of other subjects, are commingled without plan, symmetry, or progress of thought. ”

“ 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. ”

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

“ Maxims," is full of faults. ↑ Notwithstanding their popularity, and Voltaire's assertion that they are known by heart, the " Maxims" have been most unblushingly pillaged on almost all sides; indeed there is hardly any modern collection of thoughts or aphorisms which is not indebted to this work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whenever we judge that a thing is ‘good as a means,’ we are making a judgment with regard to its causal relations: we judge both that it will have a particular kind of effect, and that that effect will be good in itself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Taking, as our limits necessarily oblige us to take, a broad survey of the principle, and the results of the principle disclosed by experience, we cheerfully pronounce both to be positively and undeniably good. ”

“ But though the good is the universal of will—a universal determined in itself,—and thus including in it particularity,—still so far as this particularity is in the first instance still abstract, there is no principle at hand to determine it. ”

“ What our estimate of the world, of life and of our civilization will be must depend, of course, upon our values, upon our standards, upon our ideal, upon what we really prize. Hence, in order to understand our philosopher and his iconoclasm, we must understand his fundamental proposition, his basal thought, his ideal, the standard with which he approaches things. ”

“ In the first place, the fact that the supporters of the maxim,—that we must be able to understand everything which we ought to admit as true,—do nevertheless constantly accept many things which neither they nor their opponents understand, is a manifest contradiction of the maxim itself ”

“ But, on the other hand, there are certain things we feel to be too strange and absurd to be believed; and that feeling we come to especially, when we have endeavored to cultivate our Common-Sense in the manner which I described to you in my last lecture. The higher our common-sense—that is, the general resultant of the whole character and discipline of our minds—the more valuable is the direct judgment that we form by the use of it. ”

“ Is it not indubitable that we possess practical concepts, that is, concepts of classes of action or of supreme guides to action, concepts of things good, of ideals, of ends, and that we effect judgments of value by the application of those concepts to the image of given actions? ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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? ”

“ The truth of these particularities and the concrete unity of their formalism is the content of the universal, essential and actual, will,—the law and underlying essence of every phase of volition, the essential and actual good. It is thus the absolute final aim of the world, and duty for the agent who ought [pg 116] to have insight into the good, make it his intention and bring it about by his activity. ”

“ In all our knowledge of general principles, what actually happens is that first of all we realise some particular application of the principle, and then we realise that the particularity is irrelevant, and that there is a generality which may equally truly be affirmed. ”

“ Consequently, the good work which they take in hand, instead of producing that general concurrence and conviction that it otherwise might, gives rise rather to fresh doubts and objections. The best solution of all such doubts—the most satisfactory answer to all such or similar questions or questioning feelings—lies in the final cause of the present constitution of things, considered as a whole and in general, and judged of from a regard to its triple character and triple destination. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But in considering the degree of a real change for the better in intrinsic value, there is certainly danger of confusion between the degree in which the actual lives lived are really intrinsically better, and the degree in which there is improvement merely in the means for living a good life. ”

“ At all events the question ‘What is the best state of things which we could possibly bring about?’ is quite distinct from the question ‘What would be the best state of things conceivable?’ But, thirdly, we may mean by calling a state of things ‘ideal’ merely (3) that it is good in itself in a high degree. ”

“ If we clearly and distinctly understand this, the part of us which is determined by intelligence—that is to say, the better part of us—will be entirely satisfied therewith, and in that satisfaction will endeavour to persevere; for, in so far as we understand, we cannot desire anything excepting what is necessary, nor absolutely can we be satisfied with anything but the truth. Therefore, in so far as we understand these things properly will the efforts of the better part of us agree with the whole order of nature.' Eth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The history of the practical struggle which has evolved us and our minds seems to offer but slender guarantees that our faculties should have been fitted for, and our energies directed towards, those aspects of reality which are of the greatest theoretic importance, [2] and hence arguments from practical or moral necessity, universal desires, and the like, do not perhaps yield the safest approach to the ultimate reality of things. ”

“ How is the conversion of common sense into philosophy to be brought about? We answer, by accepting completely and faithfully the facts and expressions of common sense as given in their primitive obscurity, and then by construing them without violence, without addition, and without diminution into clearer and more intelligible forms. ”

“ This last principle, which we may call the axiom of constant result, holds good throughout all our mental operations, not only when we compare, but when we add, divide, class, or infer a given matter in any conceivable way. ”

“ Since the faculties of knowing, feeling and thinking, together with desiring, willing and the appetites generally, as also locomotion, growth, maturity and decay, are properties of the Vital Principle, let us inquire whether or not each of those properties is imparted to us by the Vital Principle as a whole—that is, does each of those faculties emanate from the Vital Principle as a whole? do we think, feel, act and suffer by it as a whole, or are different offices assigned to different parts? ”

“ What is common-sense but the power of seeing the fundamentals of any practical question, and of disengaging them from the accidental and transient features that may overlie these fundamentals—the power, to use a familiar expression, of getting down to bed rock? ”

“ Our First Principle interprets it as the reason of humanity organizing and instituting its needs and ideals in its onward stumbling to and fro between its own true character and its passing caricature. ”

“ And the same reason ought to determine us to make a choice even among the senses, and to give the precedence, not to the noblest, or most useful, but to the simplest, and that whose objects are least in danger of being mistaken for other things. ”

“ And the real, although common sense thus often opposes it to the merely desirable, remains to the end that which, if present, would, as we say, satisfy reason, and thereby give us the greatest fulfilment possible to our type of consciousness. ”

“ This, then, is the external basis of our synthesis, which includes the moral and practical faculties, as well as the speculative. It rests at every point upon the unchangeable Order of the world. The right understanding of this order is the principal subject of our thoughts; its preponderating influence determines the general course of our feelings; its gradual improvement is the constant object of our actions. ”

“ Results in philosophy must needs lead to new problems. With this definition in mind of what it is to be, how shall we next undertake to describe that more special constitution of the world which our concept of Being involves? ”