Purpose

“ The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in everything. ”

“ What I say is that our present recognition of the concrete things in which we all believe is not a mere acceptance of any content of sense, but does include an intention to act, and does fulfil, as far as it goes, a purpose, and our own conscious purpose. ”

“ Thy purpose firm, is equal to the deed:
Who does the best his circumstance allows,
Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more. ”

“ The will is therefore no unit, but a sum total of things operating within the sphere of purpose. Purpose we have defined as arising from instinct and desire and intellectualized and socialized by intelligence, education, training, tradition, etc. ”

“ Some ruling motive—ambition, family cares, or the mere instinctive love of study—has gathered together and focused their vague thoughts and scattered powers; has brought about the habit of reflection, and turned their thoughts towards the great problem of life; has given to all a purpose, and a path to travel, and left them no time to mourn the vanished past. ”

“ Nor can we think otherwise than that the Being who gave these faculties, bestowed them for some purpose;—bestowed them for that purpose which alone is compatible with their nature:—the purpose, namely, of guiding and elevating man in his present career, and of preparing him for another state of being to which they irresistibly direct his hopes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And other philosophers have suggested that what we mean by "real" is—"connected in some way with a purpose—helping or hindering, or the object of a purpose." But if we look into their meaning, we find they mean—connected with a real purpose. ”

“ They represent unity of all purposes, and were framed by the co-operation and agreement of the greatest forces of each constructive purpose, to reach the consciousness of men in general terms of your plane.”
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[97]
I March 23d.
“All pure purpose is fearless, whether for good or evil, but few humans are pure purpose, and the first fight is in themselves. All this has been said before in effect, but based on other premises. This is the first time the original purpose has been defined and explained. For centuries men have sought the source of life. ”

“ The seventh, and final, "quality" is body or figure, by which he means the fundamental tendency or energy toward expression in actuality and concrete form. The final goal of intelligent purpose is the realization of wisdom, of idea, in actual Nature-forms and life-forms—the incarnation of the spirit. ”

“ Firmness of purpose and the Will to do and dare, will accomplish, I may say, almost anything. The Will is the key that opens the [383] door to every path, whether it be of Science or of Nature, and every one has it in his power to choose the road for himself. ”

“ For a Definite Purpose.—Of all human actions probably the least understood are those which are carried out for a definite purpose, because they have always been regarded as the most intelligible and commonplace to our intellect. ”

“ To listen to it, to obey it honestly and unreservedly, without fear or equivocation,—this is my true vocation, the whole end and purpose of my existence. My life ceases to be an empty play without truth or significance. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Steadiness of purpose under adverse or confusing circumstances is called persistence, courage, loyalty, or zeal, with {96} differences of meaning that reflect the nature either of the purpose or the circumstances. ”

“ The purpose and function of these faculties and qualities, are to subserve man's best interests, his proper unfolding, and the divine purpose—here; and, doubtless, when by death he shall be transported elsewhere, to meet a new destiny and act in a new drama, other qualities and faculties, adapted to his changed position, will be given him ”

“ From this it appears that the nature of the desire, or governing purpose of the mind, will in a great measure determine the nature and the succession of its conceptions. If a man has chosen to find his chief happiness in securing power and honor, then those conceptions will be the most interesting to his mind that best fall in with his object. ”

“ Action is here the executed will, which as such is at the same time recognized, recognized, that is, not merely in its origin and point of departure from the soul-life, but also in respect to its ultimate purpose. ”

“ The unity of purpose which is the main characteristic of any great mind, the close connexion of leading ideas which is the main interest of any great age, is grievously marred when we have to seek the disjointed fragments from different quarters, and take up over and over again the thread of the same interrupted story. ”

“ Between the purpose hinted at here, and the execution of that purpose contained in the succeeding pages, lies the broad line of separation which distinguishes between the will and the deed. How far I may fall short of another man’s standard, remains to be discovered. How far I have fallen short of my own, I know painfully well. ”

“ If the object is to accomplish some particular end, they would indicate the most intense, concentrated, energetic, and persistent efforts to that purpose, using every means, and bringing to bear every influence to reach the result in question. ”

“ Therefore, our purposes have the first right; they represent the fundamental reality; the value of causal connections and thus of all scientific and psychological explanation, depends on the value of the purpose. ”

“ "What right have we to believe Nature under any obligation to do her work by means of complete minds only? She may find an incomplete mind a more suitable instrument for a particular purpose. ”

“ But the process of coming to consciousness as to what we can rationally desire, mean, and believe, as the fulfilment of our highest purposes, is a process in which private desires must be subordinated. ”

“ The motives that lead us to conceive Reality as a Well-Ordered Series, and as a realm of Appreciation, that is of values, of Selfhood, of life other than the life that is directly revealed to us, by our present conscious purposes, and so as a realm of various Selves. These twofold motives correspond to our own twofold limitations as finite beings. ”

“ Every such opinion then, whether true or false, is an effort to adjust your will and your conduct to the intents of a supreme will which decides values, establishes the rule of life, estimates purposes in the light of complete insight. ”

“ Though something which we have been performing all day long, we and all our ancestors, no one of us has succeeded in getting a good sight of what actually takes place. Our purposes are prepared as I have described, and then those purposes—something altogether mental—change on a sudden to material motions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is the end we aim at, the object we strive for, the ideal we set before us, that gives value to what we do, and to what has been done by us and others. Now our ends, our objects, and our ideals are matters of the will, on which the will is set, and not merely matters of which we have intellectual apprehension. ”

“ You will hear, that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. 'What is this Truth you seek? what is this Beauty?' men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. ”

“ And where we act, as we say, with a motive, where we have in our minds a reason, an aim, an object beyond the act, which the act subserves, there these motives, these thoughts of ends or objects to be realized, are of very different kinds. ”

“ But, above pleasure and utility, there is another aim, a higher aim, the real object of human life. This higher and final aim is what we call, according to circumstances, the good, the honest, and the just. ”

“ Thou art the main-spring, the vital secret, the fountain-source, of our existence. What is life but a genial current of joy and grace that wells up incessantly from Thy centred self? Thou art the life, the inner vitality, of our senses. ”

“ To these four sections, the four operations of the soul correspond,—conjecture, faith, understanding, reason. As every pool reflects the image of the sun, so every thought and thing restores us an image and creature of the supreme Good. ”

“ Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. ”

“ Good dispositions in the domains of will, sentiment, judgment, imagination, perseverance, duty, accuracy, self-control, the faculty of thinking logically and distinguishing the true from the false, the faculty of combining æsthetic thoughts and sensations, all constitute human values which are much superior to the faculty of rapid assimilation or receptivity, and a good memory for words and phrases. ”

“ I have observed in considering the nature of ambition, that the great feel a double pleasure in authority from the comparison of their own condition with that of their slaves; and that this comparison has a double influence, because it is natural, and presented by the subject. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every act is preceded and given birth to by a thought, the act repeated forms the habit, the habit determines the character, and character determines the life, the destiny,—a most significant, a most tremendous truth: thought on the one hand, life, destiny, on the other. ”

“ The direct experiences of the soul, as joy, grief, hope, fear, are purely subjective; the outward causes of these experiences, as prosperity, bereavement, disappointment, are objective. That which has independent existence or authority apart from our experience or thought is said to have objective existence or authority ”

“ This learned scholar held that the power of man's will was such that, under certain circumstances, it could be so far impressed upon those diffused forces of life about us as to materialize or concentrate them, and so render them cognizant to the human understanding, or, in other words, visible. ”

“ But the distant hope of being one day useful or eminent, ought not to mislead us too far from that study which is equally requisite to the great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites, and of conciliating or retaining the favour of mankind. ”

“ There sits before you a form of exquisite proportions, with reference to the mode of life it has to pursue—the wants of the Soul for which it has to care, and which it has to guard, under the direction of that Soul, its owner and master. ”

“ Now, so far as we can judge of His motives of action, as exhibited in His Word and in His Works, do we see a desire manifested to promote His own glory, or to do good to His creatures, and make them happy? ”

“ These interests are, in fact, the eternal and universal forces of spiritual existence, the essential cravings of the human heart, the spontaneous and inevitable objects of human action, justifiable and rational in virtue of their own character, and consequently the very universal powers to which we have referred. ”