Philosophy of life

“ You wish the philosophy of life explained to you, what men have said life is, what they have surmised of its origin, what they have forecasted its end to be, and what the philosophers from the beginning have said of this complex and interesting game we are playing. ”

“ Directly opposed to those arbitrary systems which compose the reigning philosophy of the day, the philosophy of life is a science of internal spiritual experience, which, as it proceeds from, so it every where rests on facts ”

“ The result is that the great problem of the philosophy of life to-day may be defined as the effort to see whether, and how, you can cling to a genuinely ideal and spiritual interpretation of your own nature and of your duty, while abandoning superstition, and while keeping in close touch with the results of modern knowledge about man and nature.
Let me briefly indicate what I mean by this problem of a modern philosophy of life. From the modern point of view great stress has been laid upon the fact that man, as we know man, appears to be subject to the laws of the natural world. ”

“ But, when consciousness is restored to its primitive harmony, the internal life of man is three-fold in mind, soul, and sense; and to expound and demonstrate this truth, was the purport and object of the Philosophy of Life, which I treated of in a former course of lectures. ”

“ I grant you that, since I am here concerned with philosophy and not with preaching, I, of course, prefer, for my present purpose, a formulation of the ideal of life in reflective, in thoughtful terms. But I cannot admit that plain men, in their religious moods, are not concerned with the ideal of life which I thus reflectively formulate. ”

“ Having myself long since recognized the three categories of an elevated consciousness—faith, hope, and love—to be also the essential elements and primary foundation of all higher thought and knowledge, so far at least as the latter, having life for its matter and subject, must take life for its starting-point and foundation, I have therefore publicly advanced this doctrine. ”

“ Or, at least, life is the source from which both the external object of material existence and the inner thought, life, or consciousness, alike take their rise—in this one common notion of life, that which exists and that which is conscious meet together and are fused into one. ”

“ Not private speculation, therefore, or famous philosophies of any kind, but the living spiritual man, and the totality of the living flow of sacred tradition on which he is borne, and with which he is encompassed, are the two grand sources of "the philosophy of life." ”

“ Now, the return from the mind, checked and limited in its operation by its existing divisions and discord, into a living triple or triune consciousness, is the very beginning of a truly vital philosophy, and, indeed, of a renovated and enhanced vitality. ”

“ What ideal of life results? These things we want to know; and we do not want to spend our time more than we shall be obliged to do in irrelevant descriptions of the mental states of this or that man. All mental states now interest us only in so far as we first see what logical bearing they may have upon our problem. We shall have to describe a good deal, but that work will have only its proper subordinate place. ”

“ The problem of the nature of life, of the principle of vitality, is almost as old as philosophy itself, and from the earliest times in which men began to ponder over the problem, the same antitheses have been apparent which we find to-day. ”

“ The more man “loses his life” in the pursuit of the ideals of truth, goodness, and beauty, the more surely will he “save it,” the more comprehensive, harmonious, and spiritual in nature will he become. ”

“ What is to be said of man’s higher faculties?
A. The faculties and achievements of the highest among mankind—in Art, in Science, in Philosophy, and in Religion—are not explicable as an outcome of a struggle for existence. Something more than mere life is possessed by us—something represented by the words “mind” and “soul” and “spirit.” On one side we are members of the animal kingdom; on another we are associates in a loftier type of existence, and are linked with the Divine. ”

“ Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. ”

“ The object of all true Philosophy is to frame a system which shall comprehend human life under every aspect, social as well as individual. It embraces, therefore, the three kinds of phenomena of which our life consists, Thoughts, Feelings, and Actions. ”

“ It expresses, therefore, the highest ascent of the rational intelligence, where, overlooking the whole realm of existence and relations known in other forms of knowledge, it sees, and through the emotional nature, feels, how to live as life ought to be lived. ”

“ Is it to obey one's nature at its best and most spiritual; or is it to vanquish one's nature? That is the deepest question. Is life essentially the education of the spirit and of the intelligence, or is it the education of the will? ”

“ This something—reason, consciousness, soul, call it what you will—unites us to the world; for everywhere in the world reason is at home, and gradually finds itself; it makes us aware of a great order in which we move; it breaks down the barriers of sense between us and the absolute consciousness, the eternal life—"not ourselves," yet in us and akin to us!—whence, if there is any validity in human logic, that order must spring. ”

“ Down below them, is another question which is included in them all and which sooner or later must be faced by each and every one of us: "Why am I here on earth? Has my life any purpose in the great, everlasting scheme of things? What is that purpose?" ”

“ and our lives may be made happy by philosophy.” ”

“ You interfered with the principle that made it what it was—you interfered with the principle of life. What is life? No man can tell you. "If I could but know what you are, little flower, root and all, and all in all," I would know what life is, what God is, what man is. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So from our own experience we may lay down the maxim that "To enjoy anything we must enter into the spirit of it," and if this be so, then, to enjoy the "Living Quality of Life" we must enter into the Spirit of Life itself. ”

“ Thy Life, as alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self-forming, self-manifesting Will:—this Life, clothed to the eye of the mortal with manifold sensuous forms, flows forth through me, and throughout the immeasurable universe of Nature. ”

“ Your own thoughts, desires, and aspirations comprise your world, and, to you, all that there is in the universe of beauty and joy and bliss, or of ugliness and sorrow and pain, is contained within yourself.
By your own thoughts you make or mar your life, your world, your universe, As you build within by the power of thought, so will your outward life and circumstances shape themselves accordingly. ”

“ The right apprehension of these and the active response to them constitute the true exercise of our own nature; and it is through that exercise that we know Life,—the one Life,—and know it to be divine. ”

“ In the Idea, the future Good and the present Want are both present, and the two together make the continuous flow of action—the élan vital or will to live—which constitutes the life of Self. And the analogy must be extended to the life of Nature. ”

“ All the ideas, cogitations, and labors of man are circumscribed by and incorporated in this great principle of life.
When we duly reflect upon the cogitations of our own minds, when we look upon the people called Latter-day Saints, upon the earth on which we stand, and upon the mighty universe around us, by the light of the Spirit of truth in our minds, we marvel with astonishment. ”

“ Thus it is that ideals are a living, vital agency in unfolding the latent virtues of man and so shaping his character.
Hence we may perceive that in these three addresses we have, if I may use the ambitious expression, a full chart of our life — its right methods, its favourable circumstances and its ultimate realisation. Cultivate your self, sparing no pains. Seek and imbibe lofty ideals, drawing no invidious distinction between one and another. And realise that character in which alone lies the justification of human life and the gurantee of human continuity. ”

“ Now indeed you know yourself as one Self, as a person. For, first, you know your empirical self as the Seeker, meaning, intending, aiming at, that life-ideal; and here you have a contrast of real and ideal self. And, secondly, since your ideal is this ideal, the expression of the meaning of your unique experience, you can rightly contrast yourself with all the rest of the world’s life. ”

“ At any rate, it would be life—life rich, and worthy of a rational being—who is not content simply to vegetate nor to gloat over pleasures, but who must run over the whole scale of thought, of feeling, and of action. ”

“ The question has constantly arisen, Which is the more important for life—what we receive or what we create? Accordingly two contrasted conceptions of life have appeared—a naturalistic and an idealistic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And therefore, mark this well again, there is but one true, real, and right life for rational beings, one only life worth living, and worth living in this world or in any other life, past, present, or to come. ”

“ And nevertheless, your future and your past, your aspect of individuality, and of freedom, and the various aspects wherein you are dependent upon the rest of the world, your whole life of deeds, and your attainment of your individual goal through your deeds, — all these manifold facts that are yours and that constitute you, are present at once to the Absolute, — as facts in the world, as temporal contents eternally viewed, — as a process eternally finished, — but eternally finished precisely by virtue of the temporal sequence of your deeds. ”

“ The highest object of life we take to be, to form a manly character, and to work out the best development possible, of body and spirit—of mind, conscience, heart, and soul. This is the end: all else ought to be regarded but as the means. ”

“ You are this; for all these ideas, upon analysis, prove to possess an essential positive meaning, such as the Absolute Life inevitably fulfils. Moreover, whatever you do and intend as your act in a moral world really accomplishes what it morally ought to accomplish. So far, then, your life is real, and not illusory. ”

“ If you will think it out with a little care, you will find that the standard of all moral action may be summed up in the one word "life." Life, first, as continuance; second, to use a philosophical term, content, that which it includes. Life, this is the standard of right and wrong. ”

“ The Theory of Being requires us to view every fact of nature, and of man’s life, as a fragmentary glimpse of the Absolute life, as a revelation, however mysterious and to us men now in detail illegible, of the unity of the perfect Whole. Why we hold this to be a true theory, we have set forth at length in the foregoing series of lectures; and the detailed proof of the general thesis concerns us here no longer. ”

“ As life, that is, implies a body and living principle, so knowledge implies faculties and mind; and health the liability to sickness; but as Vital Principle is said to be the cause of life and feeling, it is, as such, a creative energy, and cannot, therefore, be matter and subject. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Abstract considerations about the soul and the reality of a moral order will not do in a year what the glimpse into a world of new phenomenal possibilities enveloping those of the present life, afforded by an extension of our insight into the order of nature, would do in an instant. ”

“ You see here the origin of the division of the One Life of Reason into individual life, and the ground of the necessity which there is, for all who have not raised themselves by Knowledge above mere Earthly and Finite perception, to continue in the faith of this personal existence. ”

“ The living, the serving, the giving, the doing, the absorption in life's work, the contact with men, with the great majority the sheer struggle for existence—these take the greater thought and time of us all. They seem to be the great business of life even to those of us who thoroughly believe in the inner life.
But when the real eyes open, the inner eyes that see the unseen, the change of perspective is first ludicrous, then terrific, then pathetic. ”

“ We are to assert that just what the internal meaning already imperfectly but consciously is, namely, purpose relatively fulfilled, just that, and nothing else, the apparently external meaning when truly comprehended also proves to be, namely, the entire expression of the very Will that is fragmentarily embodied in the life of the flying conscious idea, — the fulfilment of the very aim that is hinted in the instant. ”

“ Step by step men have learned to know the condition, the history, the natural laws of the material world in which they live and the social world of which they are a part. The bearing of this growing knowledge on the conception of the spiritual life has been various,—seeming for a while to lie wholly apart from it ”