Particularity

“ And the unutterable,—feeling or sensation,—far from being the highest truth, is the most unimportant and untrue. If I say 'The individual,' 'This individual,' 'here,' 'now,' all these are universal terms. Everything and anything is an individual, a 'this,' and if it be sensible, is here and now. ”

“ It is just because all meanings, in the end, will prove to be internal meanings, that this which the internal meaning most loves, namely the presence of concrete fulfilment, of life, of pulsating and originative will, of freedom, and of individuality, will prove, for our view, to be of the very essence of the Absolute Meaning of the world. ”

“ Without Knowledge of the Human Nature. “Varied, according to character, are the demands made by heart and mind,” assures us a representative of modern philosophy, “corresponding to them is the image of the world to which the individual turns by inner necessity. ”

“ The whole individual life that expresses and presents the meaning of any single idea. But you will still properly be dissatisfied. You will say: “Are not the individuals as various as are all our various ideas? And how are these individuals of which you have so far spoken to be related to what we mean when we talk of individual men, of souls, of moral personalities, or of one man as different from any other man?” ”

“ All the secondary qualities, colours, sounds, tastes, smells, heat, hardness, everything, in short, which is an affection of sense, may be generalised at one sweep into our mere knowledge of things. But the primary qualities, which are usually restricted to extension and figure, and which constitute, it is said, the objective or real essence of things, and which are entirely independent of us, into what shall they be generalised? ”

“ Is it not indeed plain that, as we ourselves have often heretofore said, when we talk of Being, we are indeed seeking for what, if present, would satisfy or tend to satisfy our conscious needs and meanings? Let us take this very character as the sole basis of our definition of what it is to be. Let us first say that whenever we talk of Being we mean a definitely Possible Fact of experience, viewed just as something possible for us. ”

“ We have seen that the distinction of primary from secondary qualities has not taken us far. Let us, without regard to it, and once more directly turning to what meets us, examine another way of making that intelligible. We find the world’s contents grouped into things and their qualities. ”

“ Brain, character, soul—only as one sees more of life does one understand how distinct is each. ”

“ Now it is this selective character of every rational conscious process, a character as manifest to consciousness as it is ultimately significant for the constitution of all Being, — it is this character, I say, which to my mind is responsible above all for the Individuality which we have already characterized as belonging to the whole of Being, and which we shall now find as equally characistic of every region of finite Being. ”

“ We look on all that in ourselves with which we can discover a resemblance in others; and consider those resemblances as the materials of moral knowledge. It is in the differences that it actually consists. ”

“ As applied to individuals, the word Essence, we found, has no meaning, except in connection with the exploded tenets of the Realists; and what the schoolmen chose to call the essence of an individual, was simply the essence of the class to which that individual was most familiarly referred. ”

“ And how many of those slighter details, occurrences, projects, or intrigues, that link small matters with great—how many points of manner, conduct, temper, or peculiarity that make up the sum of human character, are thus lost, of which we would gladly be informed! ”

“ If I may venture a suggestion as to how it does confer peculiar strength to expressions, it is that it brings into especial prominence the idea of Personality; it directs all subjects of discourse by the notion of an individual, a living, personal unit. ”

“ Connected with the distinction just made between ‘object’ in the sense of the qualities actually before the mind and ‘object’ in the sense of the whole thing which possesses the qualities actually before the mind, is another distinction of the utmost importance for a correct analysis of the constituents necessary to a valuable whole. ”

“ The qualities being all that interests us in things, and the notion of an indeterminate substratum contradictory, we ought, it is argued, to identify the thing and the series of its states and qualities without more ado. ”

“ I concede to you conscientious motives in what you do. You are sustained by those around you, men of intellect, men of character. I respect them while I differ from them. I appeal, however, to a higher law, and that, I think, sustains me. ”

“ But when we speak of a man's habitual condition, we mean his constant and absolute completeness of mind or body, in some particular point—as for instance, his perception of virtue, or of some art, or else some science or other. ”

“ You must also be serious. You must forget yourself in your ideas. Your personal qualities—the vigour of your temperament, the manly independence of your nature, the tenderness of your heart—these facts are impertinent. ”

“ Let us resume our reflections upon men, their characters, their manners, in a word, our reflections upon the world. They may help you to form yourself, and to know others; a knowledge very useful at all ages, very rare at yours. ”

“ Of all these wider, more potential selves, the potential social Me is the most interesting, by reason of certain apparent paradoxes to which it leads in conduct, and by reason of its connection with our moral and religious life. ”

“ We are brought acquainted with an infinite variety of characters—all a little more amusing, and, for the greater part, more true to general nature than those which we meet with in actual life—and have our moral impressions far more frequently called out, and our moral judgments exercised, than in the busiest career of existence. ”

“ But above and beyond all the separate instances, such a person,—the object only to a few, perhaps, of love and reverence, but to those few the object of those feelings in the most unreserved and unequivocal form,—is something far more than a source of any number of particular benefits. ”

“ And hence, being imbued with the opinion that all existence is particular, they made it their aim to determine, or at least to announce, what particular kind or character of existence the mind, or ego, had. ”

“ In short, if we study ourselves, and reflect what our station, character, or nature is, we shall best discern what the virtues are, and in what manner to be expressed, which sit most properly and gracefully upon us. ”

“ There must be therefore a unity of character underlying the multiplicity of characteristics, one single and commanding principle at work in the formation of life of which every possible virtue is the expression. ”

“ If you would form a wise judgment of the future of a nation, observe carefully whether these qualities are increasing or decaying. Observe especially what qualities [42] count for most in public life. Is character becoming of greater or less importance? ”

“ A knowledge of the characters of men, as they appear varied in different situations and countries;—the study of human nature indeed in all its forms and modifications, is highly interesting to the mind, and worthy the attention of the greatest man. ”

“ In general our character is the result of three factors, namely, of our Nature, both that which is human, and which we have as men in common with all mankind, and that which is individual, and which we have as Sarah or George, in distinction from all men ”

“ Now the sort of 'fact of experience' on which in my book I have proposed to compromise, is the so-called 'mental state,' in whose existence not only common men but philosophers have uniformly believed. ”

“ All I have to say in answer is, that if the observations I have been able to make on the human character are well founded, there are certain considerations which never entirely lose their influence on the minds of men, even when they are in the height of passion. ”

“ Without an Acquaintance with the World, and a perfect Knowledge of Mankind, 'tis impossible to attain to this Point. 'Tis difficult to distinguish the different Forms, and, as one may say, the internal Motives of different Characters. ”

“ We shall analyse that complication of mental qualities which form what, in common life, we call personal merit: We shall consider every attribute of the mind, which renders a man an object either of esteem and affection, or of hatred and contempt ”

“ Exactly that in which the characteristic quality of the world and of life is found, the individual personalities, the single generations, the concrete events—these lose, in this view, their own particular worth. ”

“ But there may be in a life some general direction, some continuous thread, due to a few dominant ideas and a few strong feelings, that explain the life and are characteristic of a human personality. Of my life, which has not been easy on the whole, I have described the general course and the essential features, and I trust that my story gives an understanding of the state of mind in which I have lived and worked. ”

“ And in that day shall be discovered every inward working of every human soul: every appetite, passion, inclination, affection, with the various combinations of them, with every temper and disposition that constitute the whole complex character of each individual. ”

“ I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pester’d the world ever convince me to the contrary. ”

“ His character and the physical expression of it were unique, and yet made up of the most complex elements;—simple, yet incomprehensible; strong, yet gentle; inflexible, yet conciliating; human, yet most rare ”

“ He will show to us that a true and perfected character—a character molded after that of the divine Exemplar—must have also, and with equal emphasis, the sweet and feminine passive graces of life as an essential element. ”

“ In the just training of Character, if we first learn to understand the capacities and relations of Affection, Thought, and Life, and look within our own natures until we learn to comprehend how everything pertaining to our being belongs to one of these departments, we shall better appreciate the difficulties to be overcome before we shall be willing to make everything that we do the honest outbirth of everything that we are. ”

“ Manners are the most external manifestation by which men display their individual peculiarities of mind and heart; and unless used artificially to conceal the true Character, they form a transparent medium through which it is exhibited. ”

“ It is for individuals in all their multiplicity of influence that we contract likings or affections; and, according as the charm of sense, and especially the color-sense, is strong in us, we are averse to the classing or generalizing operation. ”

“ Perhaps in every face, whether it has beauty of line or the homely ruggedness graved by generations of positive character, the dominant feature is a certain poise of mind: these men would think, and then judge ”

“ Here, then, we have in one volume three aspects of human life as seen within the limits of one personality: the biographical facts, the supernal vision, and the ordered conclusions drawn from those facts and that vision, for the instruction of other men. ”

“ The recognition by {18} psychology of respect for personality as one of the three or four most fundamental conditions—if not the most essential of all—of happiness, of character, and of influence, is explicit confirmation of the truth of this element of the social consciousness. ”

“ The truth is, that even trifling circumstances are the occasions for bringing out the predominant traits of character. They are tests of the nature and quality of the man rather than the causes of future success or failure. ”

“ Desires and Interests.—These complexes of thinking, feeling, and willing make up the conscious desires and interests that mould the individual life. Through the processes of attention to the stimuli that act upon human nature, discrimination between them, association of [346] impressions and ideas that come from present and past experience, and deliberate judgments of value, the mind moves to action for the satisfaction of personal desires and interests. ”