Necessity

“ We shall meet on our way still other necessities, all of which will disappear, like the others, before greater necessities, until shall come at last the general equation, the supreme necessity, the triumphant fact, which must establish the kingdom of labor forever. ”

“ Necessity gives a point of view which has important bearings upon our sentiments and behaviour. When we look upon events as necessary, our situation seems at first sight to lack freedom completely. In the creed of the ancients, as we know, necessity figured as Destiny. ”

“ Transformation of duties.—When duty ceases to be a burden, when, after long practice, it becomes a delight and a necessity, then the rights of others to whom our duties, now our inclinations, refer, change into occasions for pleasant sensations. ”

“ The idea of necessity is obtained by our experience of the connection between objects, the uniformity of the operations of nature, the constant conjunction of similar events, and the consequent inference of one from the other. Mankind are therefore agreed in the admission of necessity, if they admit that these two circumstances take place in voluntary action. Motive is to voluntary action in the human mind what cause is to effect in the material universe. ”

“ That which we bestow on fortune, the duties of a charge, the good offices expected from our station, the care of the body, and attention to dress; that which we give to friendship, society, recreation, and custom, all appear essential and indispensable: we even dare not encroach upon or limit these; we carry them beyond the bounds even of reason and necessity; and as life is too short, and our days too rapid to suffice for all, whatever we retrench is from the cares of our salvation: in the multiplicity of our occupations we are sure to sacrifice those which we ought to bestow on eternity. ”

“ Whatever necessity determines to the pursuit of real bliss, the same necessity, with the same force, establishes suspense, deliberation, and scrutiny of each successive desire, whether the satisfaction of it does not interfere with our true happiness, and mislead us from it. ”

“ She must lie here on mere necessity.
BEROWNE. Necessity will make us all forsworn
Three thousand times within this three years' space;
For every man with his affects is born,
Not by might mast'red, but by special grace. ”

“ But, alas! a hard necessity renders it unavoidable; a necessity of two kinds—that of making a living under the circumstances in which they find themselves placed, and the impossibility of enforcing their laws among themselves. ”

“ Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation. ”

“ Necessity is the most powerful divinity the world knows, and necessity is the resultant of physical forces set in operation by ethical forces. ”

“ Which is merely another way of stating the conclusion previously reached—viz. that the only necessity which can be proved to govern our volitions is the necessity which is imposed by our own considerations of reason and morality. ”

“ But I perceive that the time has come when you may choose, and that your will is strong enough to make the choice and hold to it. You may be a benefactor or a beneficiary—a man, aware of manhood, or a victim of the lower senses, bound to the wheel of necessity. ”

“ Duties relating to the acquisition of external things.—Work.—The necessity of procuring the things needful to life imposes on us a fundamental obligation, which continues even when the want is met: it is the obligation of work. ”

“ An immediate necessity, connected with the support of life, was the main and direct inducement to these undertakings, and there could hardly exist more than the hope of a successful imitation of institutions with which they were already acquainted, and of holding an equality with their neighbors in the course of improvement. ”

“ In the midst of the grave perplexities and transient disorders that accompany great crises of thought, it seems more difficult than ever to escape with any simple principles. Yet necessity itself comes to our aid, as it has done for the men of all times. ”

“ Now necessity, in both these senses, has universally, tho' tacitely, in the schools, in the pulpit, and in common life, been allow'd to belong to the will of man, and no one has ever pretended to deny, that we can draw inferences concerning human actions, and that those inferences are founded on the experience'd union of like actions with like motives and circumstances. ”

“ Section III. The scheme of necessity is supported by false logic. One reason why the advocates of necessity deceive themselves, as well as others, is, that there is great want of precision and distinctness in their views and definitions. We are told by them that the will is always determined by the strongest motive; that this is invariably the cause of volition. ”

“ C. When the free will is the substantial will, made actual in the subject and conformable to its concept and rendered a totality of necessity,—it is the ethics of actual life in family, civil society, and state. ”

“ Necessity may be defined two ways, conformably to the two definitions of cause, of which it makes an essential part. It consists either in the constant conjunction of like objects, or in the inference of the understanding from one object to another. ”

“ Such epithets are often regarded with favour and freely used, as seeming to obviate the necessity for that kind of labour to which most people are most averse,—the labour of sustained and accurate thinking. ”

“ The necessity of labour may, indeed, be regarded as the main root and spring of all that we call progress in individuals, and civilization in nations; ”

“ I have adopted this division because causes seem to be divisible into nature, necessity, chance, and moreover intellect, and all human powers.
And as man in general deliberates about what man in general can effect, so individuals do about such practical things as can be effected through their own instrumentality. ”

“ Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best. ”

“ Under such circumstances, life is largely spent in instrumental or imperative pursuits. Action is fixed by necessity. It is controlled with immediate and urgent Page 333 reference to the business of keeping alive. ”

“ This truth of necessity, therefore, is Freedom: and the truth of substance is the Notion,—an independence which, though self-repulsive into distinct independent elements, yet in that repulsion is self-identical, and in the movement of reciprocity still at home and conversant only with itself.
Necessity is often called hard, and rightly so, if we keep only to necessity as such, i.e. ”

“ Then might I exemplify how an influence, beyond our control, lays its strong hand on every deed which we do, and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity. ”

“ In his eyes freedom is the recognition of necessity. ”

“ Fact I know; and Law I know; but what is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own mind's throwing? ”

“ Our present state, like his, is God's appointment, and only for a season; and the discipline of sorrow and conflict may be no less needful for us than it was for him, and the result no less a blessing.
How much worldly good is necessary for any of us? how much wealth, honor, happiness? Most of our wants are artificial and unreal. We create them, or imagine them, and then complain that they are not supplied. Our first needs—our only absolute needs—are food and raiment ”

“ But grant him riches, your demand is o'er;
'No—shall the good want health, the good want power?'
Add health, and power, and every earthly thing.
'Why bounded power? why private? why no king?'
Nay, why external for internal given?
Why is not man a god, and earth a Heaven?
Who ask and reason thus, will scarce conceive
God gives enough, while he has more to give:
Immense the power, immense were the demand;
Say, at what part of nature will they stand?
What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy,
Is virtue's prize: A better would you fix? ”

“ For the world needs at this moment a thousand things before it can be made tolerable again; and all of those can be summed up into one paramount need, which is for men and women who will observe faithfully the laws of their being. ”

“ Thus we meet with a fundamental philosophy of life in which it is not the satisfaction of needs, appetites, and desires, but the opposite theory which is thought to lead to welfare. Renounce what you want; do what you do not want to do; pursue what is repugnant ”

“ We answer, the claim of need. We do not even say, of want, which is conscious need, but of need; the mere absence of that which we have to enjoy, the mere contrast of their want with our plenty, that of itself is, perhaps, the greatest of all claims. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One way of conduct toward these objects, which we have called duty; one attitude of mind and will toward them which we have called virtue, leads to those completions and fulfillments of ourselves which we have called rewards. Duty then to self; duty in its most comprehensive aspect, is the obligation which the existence of capacity within and material without imposes on us to bring the two together in harmonious relations, so as to realize the capacities and powers of ourselves and of others, and promote society's well being. ”

“ Yet need is the controlling thing, too, but not the need as we see it, but as He sees it, who sees all, and feels most deeply. The need is best met, the service best given, the sacrifice most healing in its power, as each grows out of obedience. ”

“ That which, when we become capable of reflection, we term conscience, consists in pleasure in forms of action furthering the welfare of society—forms gradually moulded to habit with the development of social relations,—and in a corresponding pain at the realization of having failed of such action; the knowledge of the demand, by society as a whole or by a part of society, of action in accord with the general welfare, and the sense of the justice of this demand, constituting the feeling of obligation and duty. ”

“ These requirements are for each individual his needs. The next question we have to ask is this: Does our present society guarantee to every member of it his needs? If it does not, it must be condemned. ”

“ Step by step, as the human race has advanced in civilization, its needs have become more numerous and more varied. Purely material requirements being satisfied, other and higher demands arise. The spiritual and social aspirations make their appearance. ”

“ The most universal and most widely recognized right or need is in its quality no more rightful, better, or valuable than the most insignificant right of the moment, than the momentary need of some individual. ”

“ Whatever difference there might be in the things to be undertaken for supplying your respective needs, you would conduct yourselves in the same free and happy way as when you first set out. And the fruits of your toil and skill, and of your way of life, would soon be comfort for all such as the few have by the woe of the many now. ”

“ Let those who would study well this social question, or who in public trusts are charged with its solution, be most careful here. Every motive in the minds of these people, whether of instinct, desire, or duty, must be addressed. ”

“ If it be true that there are, as part of the universal human experience, however overlaid and stifled, these necessities of which I have been speaking, the very existence of the necessities affords a presumption, before all evidence, that, somehow and somewhere, they shall be supplied. ”

“ This is the universal motor, which philosophy is searching for, which religion strengthens, which egotism supplants, and whose place pure reason never can fill. Duty and right are born of need, which, when considered in connection with others, is a right, and when considered in connection with ourselves, a duty. ”