Principle (philosophy)

“ It does not denote a philosophy, the principle of which is narrow and to be distinguished from others. On the contrary, a genuine philosophy makes it a principle to include every particular principle. ”

“ In other words: it is believed that what you need in philosophy is one fundamental idea which will serve as a key to all the important issues as well as all the minor questions. This belief caused the great thinkers of the past to build up their philosophies in the form of a system, which means a coherent whole in which all the single truths are based on and held together by, one fundamental principle. ”

“ Starting with the common beliefs of daily life, we can be driven back from point to point, until we come to some general principle, or some instance of a general principle, which seems luminously evident, and is not itself capable of being deduced from anything more evident. ”

“ But, as regards both principles, the human train of thought is nearly similar in its first rise, and grows in definiteness and expansion by a nearly similar process. A true Man sets each principle to work, and from its working gathers its real value and verification. ”

“ In art, religion, science, philosophy, politics, the minds that organize are organic minds, not mechanical understandings.
The principle we have indicated, applies to all matters of human concern, the simplest as well as the most complicated. Let us first take a familiar instance from ordinary life. In the common intercourse of society we are all painfully conscious of the dominion of the mechanical, prescribing manner, proscribing nature. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ If it is the first principle, other principles grow out of it. We cannot create principle, we can only discover it. If you were to discover a new principle, you would err in saying that you had created a principle, that you had brought one into existence. ”

“ Take any formula that has been proposed as a starting-point for ethics—the proposition that we ought to be reasonable, or that we ought to lead a unified life, or that we ought to work for the general good. Of each of these, as purely intellectual propositions, it is legitimate to ask the question, Why ought we? We reach no resting place till we get hold of something that is not a rational intuition, or a principle, but a fact. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I propose then to ask in what general form reason can be applied to the ethical life, as a source of principles to guide us in the search for our best good. A principle, we should note, is something more than a mere generalization, fact, or truth. Every principle rests indeed upon a foundation of fact ”

“ But we have now won the philosophical right, and have become subject to the practical obligation, not only thus to follow out our theoretical interests, but also to show how the philosophy set forth in our earlier lectures stands related to the more immediate problems of life. ”

“ There is, then, a philosophia prima peculiar to Art, as there is one which belongs to Science. There are not only first principles of Knowledge, but first principles of Conduct. There must be some standard by which to determine the goodness or badness, absolute and comparative, of ends, or objects of desire. And whatever that standard is, there can be but one; for if there were several ultimate principles of conduct, the same conduct might be approved by one of those principles and condemned by another; and there would be needed some more general principle, as umpire between them. ”

“ But what can be less consistent than what they say, namely, that when they have obtained the knowledge of the chief good they then return to nature, in order to seek in it the principle of action, that is to say, of duty? For it is not the principle of action or duty which impels them to desire those things which are according to nature ”

“ Hence our principle, as we ourselves have expressed it in all its rigour,—it and nothing else,—is our meaning, against which it is, and always will be, impossible to bring forward any essential objection. ”

“ IT is the intent of this chapter to shew, that altho’ common language ascribes a variety of faculties and principles to the soul, imputing this action to the blindness of our passions, that to the inconstancy of our tempers; one thing to the heat of our imagination, another to the coolness of our reason; yet, in strictness of truth, every thing that is done by us, is the action and operation of our reason, and is to be ascribed to it, as the sole principle from whence it proceeded, and by which it is governed and effected. ”

“ As all beautiful and all true things refer themselves, these to a Unity which is absolute TRUTH, and those to a Unity which is absolute BEAUTY, so all the moral principles centre in a single principle, which is THE GOOD. Thus we arrive at the conception of THE GOOD in itself, the ABSOLUTE Good, superior to all particular duties, and determinate in those duties. ”

“ Now, if I am but ripe for that abstraction, that is, if I take it from out myself, and do not accept it traditionally, then that one principle can only be thought as a for itself existing and working principle, but not as a mere quality or predicate, inherent to some substance or another. ”

“ If the Mind be not engag'd by Argument to make this Step, it must be induc'd by some other Principle of equal Weight and Authority; and that Principle will preserve its Influence as long as human Nature remains the same. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The practice of asking what things are virtues or duties, without distinguishing what these terms mean; the practice of asking what ought to be here and now, without distinguishing whether as means or end—for its own sake or for that of its results; the search for one single criterion of right and wrong, without the recognition that in order to discover a criterion we must first know what things are right and wrong; and the neglect of the principle of ‘organic unities’—these sources of error have hitherto been almost universally prevalent in Ethics. ”

“ But the infinite variety of circumstance which is formed in this externality by the light of the essence shining in it,—all this infinite material, with its regulations,—is not the object of philosophy.... To comprehend what is, is the task of philosophy: for what is is reason. ”

“ The object, on the other hand, of the philosopher is truth, and his duty is to push every principle which he believes to be true to its legitimate consequences, regardless of the results that may follow. ”

“ For if there are many laudable things in us, and one is the principle or first cause of them all, reason requires each to be reduced to that first cause, which comprehends more things; and this ought more reasonably to be called the principle of those things than that which comprehends in itself less of their principle. ”

“ In short, they want a common principle to cement, and motive to spirit them: for, the bare acting upon a principle from the dictates of a good conscience, or prospect of serving the publick, will not go very far under the present dispositions of mankind. ”

“ Thus their principle is interest or pleasure; and when they say that they act from principle, how can we believe them, unless we see that they do it against interest? A proof which they rarely give us! ”

“ Very early, at least in the known history of mankind, did Philosophy (under the humble names of Religion and Common Sense) see most immutable, and even eternal, laws, in the complex action of human life, even the laws of right and wrong ”

“ To satisfy these two wants is the problem of the philosophy of our time.—Universal and necessary principles.—Examples of different kinds of such principles.—Distinction between universal and necessary principles and general principles.—Experience alone is incapable of explaining universal and necessary principles, and also incapable of dispensing with them in order to arrive at the knowledge of the sensible world.—Reason as being that faculty of ours which discovers to us these principles.—The study of universal and necessary principles introduces us to the highest parts of philosophy. ”

“ And that each of these principles (has boundless powers ... everything which you perceive by your mind or which you pass over for lack of thought) [23] is formed by nature to become [each of the principles] as in the human soul every art is to be learned. ”

“ The theoretic philosopher might interpose just here, and insist that as one can be moral only in a real world, the philosopher has a theoretical right and duty to point out, first of all, wherein consists the reality of the world and whereon is based our assurance of this reality. ”

“ This is the general notion—not that principles derive their goodness from actions, but that actions derive their goodness from the principles whence they proceed; so that the act of choosing what is good is no further virtuous, than it proceeds from a good principle, or virtuous disposition of mind; which supposes that a virtuous disposition of mind may be before a virtuous act of choice ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ But in the case of such doctrines as the human intelligence may perceive, it is equally just that philosophy should make use of its own method, principles, and arguments-not, indeed, in such fashion as to seem rashly to withdraw from the divine authority. ”

“ Which must be distinguished from a principle: no original bent obtains the latter appellation, but what belongs to the whole species. A principle makes part of the common nature of man: a disposition makes part of the nature of this or that man. A propensity comprehends both ”

“ Therefore the great truth of moral principle should be regarded above the smaller truths of material facts and mental logic—and many of the inhabitants of your world, if I know mortal nature, will agree with me. ”

“ An admitted postulate—say of truthfulness, of love, or whatever inborn original principle you please,—may be worked out as the world advances into ever new and more noble practical applications, which shall be as unconditionally right as the original diving force out of which they grew. ”

“ She saw clearly that principle, as the world conceives it, was not involved. Affection recognizes no such principle—only virtuous longing and desire which is a principle in itself—the fulfillment of creation's grandest purpose ”

“ 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. ”

“ I may here, in passing, and for the sake of illustration merely, express the fundamental principle of morality in the following formula: “So act that thou mayest look upon the dictate of thy will as an eternal law to thyself.”
The ultimate vocation of every finite, rational being is thus absolute unity, constant identity, perfect harmony with himself. ”

“ The Principles which all mankind allow for true, are innate; those that men of right Reason admit, are the Principles allowed by all mankind; we and those of our mind, are men of right Reason; therefore we agreeing, our Principles are innate ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is but one Principle and its idea, hence, the oneness of God and Soul, and the brotherhood of man; this idea is named man, it has infinite expressions, all of which are members of the body of Christ, Truth, the Intelligence outside of matter. Principle is expressed in one entirety or full idea. ”