Philosophical society

“ Lastly, this belittling effect of ideas on everyday realities is seen when philosophy constructs for us the ideal type of human society, and of that confederacy of civilised states of which, now and again, it has had its dream. ”

“ The world is ruled by ideas, by abstract thought. Society, literature, art, politics, in any given age are what the prevailing system of philosophy makes them. We recognize this clearly in studying any past period. ”

“ This remarkable man, whose system of thought will long remain one of the landmarks in the history of philosophical speculation, does, in the treatise in question, lay down an universal first principle as the origin and ground of moral obligation ”

“ They incessantly boasted of the greatness of General Influence of the Philosophers. philosophy, and the obsolete character of Christianity. They believed that successive developments of human nature, without the aid of influences foreign to itself, would gradually raise society to a state of perfection. ”

“ How to avoid the rigid unchangeable framework of religious dogma, of eternal views on morality, .of The Book, of a single philosophy? Society cannot exist without a framework or frame of values. It cannot be value-free, Rigid insistence on following certain values can be different. ”

“ That this principle is the only right one is shown by our former observations, according to which, as society develops, more and more actions are the result of reflection. And in case a state of moral perfection is attainable, it can be arrived at only as each member of the society acts from perfect reflection, not from impulse or instinct. ”

“ My reader, does a philosophical system, such as I have just now described, appear to you to be honorable to common sense and its interests—a system which insists of common sense that it should be cured of its inborn blindness in the school of the philosopher, and should there get an artificial light to replace its own natural light? ”

“ The earlier conceptions of Universalism, emphasizing the good as something binding irrespective of the inclinations of the individual, issue in particular formulæ of virtue; later conceptions recognize the differences of individual cases while still insisting on the universal or authoritative character of morality. The problem receives its definite shape when the explanation of authority is sought, not in some categorical imperative, but in the very nature of society [Pg 229] itself, which, if a whole, is yet a whole made up of individuals. ”

“ But now observe the immensely important influence which the formation of ideals exercised upon the moral constitution. It was this which enabled men, amid the pressure and conflicts of life, to vindicate their primeval claims to themselves, and to establish an independent moral existence in the midst of society, as they had at first established an independent physical existence in the midst of the universe. ”

“ What, in short, are the laws or principles governing the moral world, and how do these principles find expression in the life of man? Closely related to psychology and ethics, and furnishing them with a large body of facts, are the social sciences, which consider the thoughts, feelings and volitions of social organisms, or man in society; the ends which such organisms serve, and the means with which such ends are reached. Society, unconsciously or consciously, aims to realize certain ends. ”

“ And, in general, what would be the consequence of the consistent following out of the principle that the true goal is conformity to reality? Assume that, for instance, a man in society is to regulate his actions solely according to the demands that society as a real power makes upon him, in view of his place in the social organism, and that morality thus expresses simply the requirements that the individual must meet if he is to remain a successful member of this social organism. Then, to get your moral code, you are to examine the facts of social life. ”

“ We have, at length, reached a point of view from which we may hope to understand ourselves. Law, order, continuity, in human action—the essential pre-conditions of a moral science—were beyond the reach of an individualistic theory. ”

“ The theological and metaphysical philosophies having failed, what remains? Nothing remains but the positive philosophy, which is the only agent able to reorganise society. The positive philosophy will regard social phenomena as it regards other phenomena, and will apply to the renovation of society the same scientific spirit found effective in other departments of human knowledge. It will bring to politics the conception of natural laws, and deal with delicate social questions on impartial scientific principles. ”

“ The progress has been represented by personifying the ideal and supposing the person to change with each new ideal. Again, "goodness consists, we saw, of a system of conduct in the individual himself or in society, and this system forms a series in time. ”

“ Involving, as it does, statements respecting the actual condition of human nature, and the world in which we live, some appeal to experience, and to the rational interpretation of life and Providence, is inevitable; and hence certain propositions, affecting to be of a philosophical character, are laid down as fundamental by the advocates of this system. ”

“ Philosophers, in philanthropic dreams, built up ideal structures in which mankind was to dwell, and nothing could exceed the irresistible pathos with which human rights were asserted, and the subtle nicety with which they were defined. ”

“ But unless a discipline and refinement of the natural impulses, through the operation of social institutions and arts, went on pari passu with the expression of the idea of perfection in such institutions and arts, the direction of the impulses of the individual by this idea, when in some form or other it has been consciously awakened in him, would be practically impossible. The moral progress of mankind has no reality except as resulting in the formation of more perfect individual characters ”

“ Every nation and every man instantly surround themselves with a material apparatus which exactly corresponds to their moral state, or their state of thought. Observe how every truth and every error, each a thought of some man’s mind, clothes itself with societies, houses, cities, language, ceremonies, newspapers. Observe the ideas of the present day,—orthodoxy, skepticism, missions, popular education, temperance, anti-masonry, anti-slavery; see how each of these abstractions has embodied itself in an imposing apparatus in the community ”

“ Without these, ideas remain in the air, abstract, intangible, appealing perhaps to the philosophic few, but high above the reach of the many, the simple. 'All human society is the receptacle, nursery, and dwelling-place of ideas, shaped and limited according to the nature of the society—ideas which live and act on it and in it ”

“ Little by little an idea crept into men’s minds, an idea which was the negation of all the limits within which the world had lived until then; an idea which was bound to upset the conception of social and moral life; the idea of liberty, applied to religion, culture, and politics. ”

“ Now if these philosophers had known human nature under any other type than that of their own age, and of the particular classes of society among whom they lived, it would have occurred to them, that wherever this habitual submission to law and government has been firmly and durably established, and yet the vigor and manliness of character which resisted its establishment have been in any degree preserved, certain requisites have existed, certain conditions have been fulfilled, of which the following may be regarded as the principal. ”

“ Those current abstractions, which make up all the morality and all the philosophy of most people, have been brought under suspicion. Mind and matter, duties and rights, morality and expediency, honour and interest, virtue and vice—all these words, which seemed once to express elementary and certain realities, now strike us as just the words which, thrown into the scientific crucible, might dissolve at once. It is thus not merely philosophy which is discredited, but just that homely and popular wisdom by which common life is guided. ”

“ The doctrine is as deep and pure as it is simple and true. It is eminently characteristic of a philosophy which, by virtue of its attribute of reality, subordinates all scientific conceptions to the social point of view, as the sole point from which they can be co-ordinated into a whole. ”

“ There must therefore exist a type of social organization which is so satisfying. It must have existed from eternity, and must be in essence identical with eternal good, identical with that oneness and spirituality, lacking which, nothing is important. This archetypal social organization whose essence is excellence, it is the congenital vocation of the philosopher to contemplate and to realize. Philosophers are hence the paragons among animals, lovers of truth, haters of falsehood and of multiplicity, spectators of all time and all existence. In them the power to govern should be vested. ”

“ And this is the first motive, a motive founded alike on moral and on intellectual considerations, for the separation of temporal from spiritual power in the final organization of society. The more vigorously we concentrate our efforts upon social progress, the more clearly shall we feel the impossibility of modifying social phenomena without knowledge of the laws that regulate them. ”

“ And when we speak thus we do not refer to any action of the idea otherwise than in the consciousness of men. It may be legitimate, as we have seen, to consider ideas as existing and acting otherwise, and perhaps, on thinking the matter out, we should find ourselves compelled to regard the idea of social good as a communication to the human consciousness, a consciousness developing itself in time, from an eternally complete consciousness. ”

“ But I may safely say that civilization is a certain cumulative succession of modifications or changes in the state and character of men—which indicates the conception quite distinctly enough, and excludes every matter of debate. In like manner I may avoid the disputations of the ethical schools, and yet set out a notion of morals that will serve every present purpose of thinking, if I say that moral philosophy has for its subject human conduct, considered with reference to whatever absolute qualities may be found in it. ”

“ What I mean is that, apart from the private whims and the non-essential accidents of each great philosopher, his doctrine will contain for the critical student an element of permanent truth about life, a truth which in its isolation may indeed contradict the view of his equally worthy co-workers, but which, in union, in synthesis, in vital connection with its very bitterest opposing doctrines, may turn out to be an organic portion of the genuine treasure of humanity. ”

“ The philosophical systems which formulate these problems record the main lineaments and difficulties of contemporary social practice. They bring to explicit consciousness what men have come to think, in virtue of the quality of their current experience, about nature, themselves, and the reality they conceive to include or to govern both. ”

“ If, on the other hand, we consider subjectivity, we find that subjective knowledge and will is thought. But by the very act of thoughtful cognition and volition, I will the universal object—the substance of absolute Reason. We observe, therefore, an essential union between the objective side—the Idea, and the subjective side—the personality that conceives and wills it. The objective existence of this union is the State, which is therefore the basis and centre of the other concrete elements of the life of a people—of art, of law, of morals, of religion, of science. ”

“ Complete philosophy must rest on a theory at once statical and dynamical. A full science of Ethic cannot be constituted by tabulating in a series the changes recorded in moral sentiment, whilst wholly ignoring the permanent instincts of the human heart, the qualities of the human will, the powers of the human intelligence, and the personal, domestic, tribal, and national institutions which cling round man under all conditions of development. ”

“ Such contemplations as these Materialism, and the popular philosophy of mind and matter, alike forbid: they are only consistent with the Intellectual System.... The view of Life presented by the most refined deductions of the Intellectual Philosophy is that of unity. Nothing exists but as it is perceived. ”

“ It is a bold philosophy that rejects, without ceremony, principles which irresistibly govern the belief and the conduct of all mankind in the common concerns of life; and to which the philosopher himself must yield, after he imagines he hath confuted them. Such principles are older, and of more authority, than philosophy: she rests upon them as her basis, not they upon her. ”

“ Their new thought, which gave foundation to their moral ideals, was the thought of the perfect equality of all men in the presence of the universal Reason, to which all alike ought to conform. Everyone, they said, ought to be rational; everyone ought to try to extend the empire of reason. ”

“ Philosophy and religion are, in a word, no less than art, social facts. They are responses to group situations without which they cannot be understood. Although analysis has shown them to be rooted in certain persistent motives and conditions of human nature by whose virtue they issue in definite contours and significances, they acquire individuality and specific importance only through interaction with the constantly varying social situations in which they arise, on which they operate, and by which they are in turn operated on. ”