Problem

“ The question of questions for mankind—the problem which underlies all others, and is more deeply interesting than any other—is the ascertainment of the place which Man occupies in nature and of his relations to the universe of things. ”

“ Come, light the gas of your common sense! Recognize that your problem has no solution, none because it is not a true problem, but merely a fortuitous arrangement of circumstances which chances to bear a superficial resemblance to one. ”

“ But, still, we prefer to think of THE ALL as acting entirely FREE from any influence, internal as well as external. That is the problem which lies at the root of difficulty—and the difficulty that lies at the root of the problem. ”

“ Why must we act? So far as the coarse and immediate needs of the individual are concerned, it is easy to answer these questions, but the more we enter upon the more important and more subtle domains of action, the more does the problem become uncertain and the more arbitrary its solution. ”

“ The unspeakable difficulties in the way of the solution of this problem,—the difficulties which the radical bias in the individual human nature, even under its noblest forms, creates,—the difficulties which the ignorance, and stupidity, and passion of the multitude created then, and still create, appear here without any mitigation. ”

“ And if life be, as it surely is, a problem to me, I am no less a problem to life. ”

“ Part of the task which devolves on those who are subject to the duty is to define the problem. They are told only that something is the matter: that it behooves them to find out what it is, and how to correct it, and then to work out the cure. ”

“ We find, then, that the difficult problem we are considering, like other social problems, has a material aspect, that is a medical aspect, an intellectual aspect, and a spiritual aspect concerning the aims of life: and of these the last is the most fundamental; it is obviously also the most difficult. To attack the situation fully it would be necessary to change most of our contemporary life. ”

“ And I do it to show, in the second place, that when we insist on resolving a verbally-intelligible cause into its actual factors, we get not only a clear solution of the problem before us, but we find that the way is opened to solutions of sundry other problems. ”

“ Throughout the history of civilisation, wherever we can trace the feelings and ideas which have prevailed on this matter and the resultant conduct, the problem has existed, often to produce discord, conflict, and misery. ”

“ there is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong. ”

“ As for the main problem itself, we can best bring its nature home to ourselves by considering forthwith some aspects of an old and often neglected question, namely, the very question before referred to about the proper relation of one’s moral ideal to the reality that he may have recognized. ”

“ And so the critical problem is initially simplified, in two ways: there is no story of struggle for recognition, and the effects of that struggle on the workman; there is no story of evolution of inner forces. ”

“ I will now briefly sum up the argument of this book. The problem of truth is to discover the nature of the agreement between the things of the mind, our ideas, and the reality of which ideas are the knowledge. We call the agreement truth. ”

“ He should understand the clash of creeds and codes, follow the thoughts of Plato, of Bacon, of Emerson, and grasp the essence of the problems that now confront us. What dangers lie before us, what the great statesmen and reformers are aiming at, what are the meaning and use of our institutions, our government, our laws, our morals, our religion - here is a hint of the knowledge that every man who comes into the world should amass. ”

“ That is the great problem for which the others simply constitute a preparation. The problem is to interpret the true foundation of beings and of being, independently of numerical, logical, and even metaphysical relations. ”

“ There are many questions yet to solve, such as the nature and occupations of the future life, concerning which there are different views, and the problems may turn out to be insoluble; but the main problem seems on the way to be settled. ”

“ I have covered every point and met every objection. But the problems that we have been considering, great as they are, pass into problems greater yet—into the grandest problems with which the human mind can grapple. ”

“ This problem is the most difficult and the last to be solved by mankind. ”

“ The full ground of right, as the essential elements of the problem have made clearly apparent, must be regarded as twofold, embracing, first, the proximate or immediate ground, and secondly, the ultimate ground. ”

“ 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? ”

“ It is a vigorous expression of the philosophy of common sense. The plea is for more simplicity, for moderation in all things."
How to live and how to get the most out of life: Those are the problems that confront every one of us. ”

“ Can we educate your consciences so that you will [Pg 223] do certain things, not because it is the rule that they should be done, but because they should be done? These are the problems we must work out here. ”

“ So, if that’s the background, if that’s the moral proposition, if that’s the reason for believing that in the very daily texture of what we do, we can be making yet another difference, and that among the most important differences of all. What are the problems we do need to think about? ”

“ In science we accept our subject-matter as it is presented in unanalysed experience; in philosophy we examine the first principles and ultimate questions that concern conscious experience itself. The problem of truth is a problem of philosophy. It is not a problem of merely historical interest, but a present problem—a living controversy, the issue of which is undecided. Its present interest may be said to centre round the doctrine of pragmatism, which some fifteen years ago began to challenge the generally accepted principles of philosophy. ”

“ They omit some considerations which are relevant in any concrete case; and the facts which they describe are so complex that, even when we look at them consistently and follow the right clue, we cannot solve the complicated problems which occur. ”

“ At the end of the explanation do not most of the puzzling problems of scope, freedom, and selection remain, existing now as problems about the nature and working of attention instead of, as formerly, problems about the emergence of the intention into outward nature? ”

“ They should be shown, wherever possible, how the conclusions of men on some of the most important problems that have been studied have changed from time to time. They can at times be made to realize the folly of overhasty generalization. ”

“ It must be evident that in any problems dealing with laws and principles the mental states involved must be definite, clear cut, logically sound, and their implications thoroughly appreciated and understood. ”

“ The impudent levity with which the most unwieldy problems are spoken of here (life, the world, God, the purpose of life) , as if they were not problems at all, but the most simple things which these little bigots know all about. ”

“ What they lack, more or less completely, is good judgment, the moral sense, and especially continuity or logical consecutiveness, a unity of direction in intellectual production and the actions of life. ”

“ Whether the incidents, or the characters, are copied from life, is of little importance—The only question is, if the circumstances, and situations, are altogether improbable? If not—whether the consequences might not have followed from the circumstances?—This is a grand question, applicable to all the purposes of education, morals, and legislation—and on this I rest my moral—'Do men gather figs of thorns, or grapes of thistles?' asked a moralist and a reformer. ”

“ WHEN one passes in review the individual causes that disturb and complicate our social life, by whatever names they are designated, and their list would be long, they all lead back to one general cause, which is this: the confusion of the secondary with the essential. Material comfort, education, liberty, the whole of civilization—these things constitute the frame of the picture ”

“ What strikes one in his criticisms of life even more than their penetration is their sanity and completeness. Many a controversial victory he has won in discussions about letters or life, or sometimes even in politics, by attending to the one question, What are the actual and complete facts of the case? He takes human nature all round, and sees how far a proposed remedy answers to all its needs. ”

“ It is true that, in ordinary life, we learn to make a very sharp distinction between the wished for and the real. And this distinction is, indeed, in the world of common sense, a very unconquerable one. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The history of the practical struggle which has evolved us and our minds seems to offer but slender guarantees that our faculties should have been fitted for, and our energies directed towards, those aspects of reality which are of the greatest theoretic importance, [2] and hence arguments from practical or moral necessity, universal desires, and the like, do not perhaps yield the safest approach to the ultimate reality of things. ”

“ We are permitted to obtain a few occasional glimpses of the one, as well as of the other—and they should satisfy us of the reality of the sublime and awful system which is in existence around us. What know we of the ultimate scope and end of His working? What seeming good shall we be sure will not produce evil? ”

“ The difficulty of course lies in ascertaining the laws which are binding on all intelligence—the points which reason, considered simply as reason, and not as this or that particular reason—has in common. ”

“ Such difficulties of thought regarding moral distinctions, motives good and bad, conflicts of conscience, the justice and expediency of laws and governments, as usually arise as people begin to reflect seriously upon the ways of the better social life, have been considered, besides many practical questions regarding self-control, elevation of feeling and thought, and the part of wisdom in every-day affairs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I apprehend that it ought to include all that part which concerns only the life, whether inward or outward, of the individual, and does not affect the interests of others, or affects them only through the moral influence of example. ”

“ They arrived,—though failing, as has been said, to give adequate practical satisfaction to the claims of man's moral side,—at the idea of a comprehensive adjustment of the claims of both the sides in man, the moral as well as the intellectual, of a full estimate of both, and of a reconciliation of both; an idea which is philosophically of the greatest value, and the best of lessons for us moderns. ”

“ Moreover, our features are constantly varying; and if our moral and intellectual faculties are to be inferred from these changes, how are we to establish or follow up any fixed principle, amid such a labyrinth of confusion? ”

“ However ridiculous and pernicious we must admit the vulgar accessories of this creed to be, there is a certain analogy, not wholly absurd, between the consequences resulting to an individual during life from the virtuous or vicious, prudent or imprudent, conduct of his external actions, to those consequences which are conjectured to ensue from the discipline and order of his internal thoughts, as affecting his condition in a future state. ”