Question

“ It is not so easy to say what the people mean by their ordinary words, for this reason, that the question is not answered until it is asked; that asking is reflection, and that we reflect in general not to find the facts, but to prove our theories at the expense of them. ”

“ Taking it for granted, as any sensible man in the circumstances would, that something should be done, he puts the question, “What shall I do?” A right question, addressed to the proper person, himself. ”

“ But the real and substantial question is not what the word means, but, what is that thing which we all agree is bad or good; where does the bad begin and the good end; how are we to discern the difference; and how are we to avoid the one and embrace the other. ”

“ And they show their importance sometimes in a remarkable and embarrassing way, when, after a long debate, their presence at the bottom of everything, unnoticed and perhaps unallowed for, is at length disclosed by some obvious and decisive question, which some person had been too careless to think of, and another too shy to ask. ”

“ The questions which this gentleman asked me, and similar kinds of questions, are being asked over and over again by people all over the country. The question can be answered only by our putting our consciences into our work, and by our being entirely unselfish in it. ”

“ "I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any question—simple curiosity. ”

“ Some one aspect of the question fills his mind, and it is his prejudices and prepossessions which determine which aspect will win his attention; then he enacts something from the standpoint which he has adopted, and does wrong to all other interests. ”

“ If you answer to a question, stating with great seeming earnestness, viewing the question of importance in the mind of him who states it, you would not only expect, but you might really need to be informed what effect your reply was allowed to have in the mind of your opponent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I shall confine myself to the third, therefore, which I call the social aspect; looking at the subject as a question of the day, the truth about which we are as much interested in solving as any other political or social question, but the investigation of which need not make us get excited and angry and call one another bad names. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet, as one may still insist, the question is not answered, Why do the facts often seem as foreign as they do? Why is their explicit conformity to our purpose, as defined by the Ought, joined with aspects of such hostility to all our purposes? ”

“ I would ask of my friends or foes, no matter which—I mean those who do not believe as I do—those who look upon us as a set of fanatics, I would ask a few questions of the world of mankind, of the greatest philosophers, of the greatest geniuses, and of the men of the most profound knowledge on the face of the earth, Can you tell me where you get your knowledge? ”

“ Which part is the more important, or more highly to be esteemed, is a question whose solution will vary according to the point of view which in any case may be adopted as fundamental, or to the different relations under which the whole shall be considered. ”

“ Any question of philosophy, on the other hand, which is so OBSCURE and UNCERTAIN, that human reason can reach no fixed determination with regard to it; if it should be treated at all, seems to lead us naturally into the style of dialogue and conversation. ”

“ But your hypotheses about particular problems must be judged by themselves. Your body of central truth is subject only to the test just mentioned. And you call this truth “absolute” merely because you conceive that it bears this test. Whether it does so is a question of fact, not of authority. And every man must, in such a matter, look for himself before judging about what is offered to him.
As to the principal special features of this discussion, they are: (1) The definition and comparison of what I have called the Four Historical Concepts of Being. ”

“ The question is not what you look at, but what you see. ”

“ We throw all our attention on the utterly idle question whether A has done as well as B, when the only question is whether A has done as well as he could. ”

“ We must decide those questions as a matter of calm study and judgment in the light of human experience. It is the judgment that should tell us whether a thing is right or wrong. And how shall we know whether it is right or wrong? ”

“ What is man? In how many different senses is good employed? A dialectic question is one to which the respondent makes sufficient reply by saying, Yes or No.391 You must ask in this form: Is the definition of man so and so? Is good enunciated in this or that different sense? To these questions the respondent may answer Yes or No. But if he persists in negative answers to your multiplied questions as to this or that sense of the term good, you may perhaps stand excused for asking him: “In how many different senses, then, do you yourself use the term good?”392 ”

“ If you will be candid, and bring your mind into a suitable condition to be reasoned with, we will call you to the consideration of questions which, if properly answered, will lead us into the true light of our subject. ”

“ Their conversation is direct, searching, and terribly honest. Many of their questions bring pain, they strike so keenly upon the wrongs in our world. I am used to answering complicated questions—theirs possess the simplicity that comes directly from the heart. ”

“ The practical reformer has continually to demand that changes be made in things which are supported by powerful and widely-spread feelings, or to question the apparent necessity and indefeasibleness of established facts; and it is often an indispensable part of his argument to show, how those powerful feelings had their origin, and how those facts came to seem necessary and indefeasible. ”

“ 'I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back garden and the family have to change their name. ”

“ Here, on the threshold of the inquiry, an objection meets us. There are in the world a number of extremely worthy, well-meaning persons, whose judgments and opinions are entitled to the utmost respect on account of their sincerity, who are of opinion that vital [359] phenomena, and especially all questions relating to the origin of vital phenomena, are questions quite apart from the ordinary run of inquiry, and are, by their very nature, placed out of our reach. ”

“ One can but answer such questions in the most fragmentary and tentative way, relying for the most part on the opinions and information of those who know, those who are in the van of action, at home and abroad, but also on one's own personal impressions of an incomparable scene. ”

“ Questions of Right and Questions of Expediency.+—Arguments that aim to convince us of the wisdom of an action are very common. In our home life and in our social and religious life these questions are always arising. ”

“ By such dark doubtings and questionings will he here be tempted and troubled, and these very doubts will drive him to a deeper searching into the intricacies of life, and arouse within him the feeling of necessity for some permanent Principle upon which to stand and take refuge. ”

“ We must first of all set our own thoughts to work and think about the great events of our days, their relation to us, and what we have to expect from them; and we must provide ourselves with a firm and clear view of all these matters, and a definite and unchangeable Yes or No in answer to the questions that arise out of them. ”

“ All these ways will be fruitful, but they will be fruitful relatively to the problem which provokes them. To explain anything at all, it is necessary to keep in mind the questions to which the proposed explanation is relevant. ”

“ It was as sharp, the question, as a knife in his side, but the answer hung fire still and seemed to lose itself in the vague darkness to which the thin admitted dawn, glimmering archwise over the whole outer door, made a semicircular margin, a cold silvery nimbus that seemed to play a little as he looked—to shift and expand and contract. ”

“ Entertaining these opinions of the course to be pursued, I beg of gentlemen to look at the question, as I have done, in a calm review of facts and of principles. ”

“ If we will take the good we find, asking no questions, we shall have heaping measures. ”

“ Controversies have been keenly agitated about the principles of morals, which resolve entirely into verbal disputes, or at most into questions of arrangement and classification, of little comparative moment to the points at issue. ”

“ Where there is a tacit convention that principles are not to be disputed; where the discussion of the greatest questions which can occupy humanity is considered to be closed, we cannot hope to find that generally high scale of mental activity which has made some periods of history so remarkable. ”

“ The whole interest of reason, speculative as well as practical, is centred in the three following questions:
1. WHAT CAN I KNOW?
2. WHAT OUGHT I TO DO?
3. WHAT MAY I HOPE? ”

“ Asking questions were the most important thing. ”

“ If the discussion of such comparatively tangible matters can occupy a large part of one's attention, imagine the result of the insistent desire, on the part of the doubter, to solve such problems as "What is thought?" "What is existence?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here are hundreds and thousands of people hearing weekly and daily what is right, and how many do what is right?—much less love what is right? What can be the reason of this, that men should know the better and choose the worse? What motive can one find out?—what reason or argument can one put before people, to make them do their duty? ”

“ Our understanding, confounded and amazed at so many statements, some of them learned, others absurd and all incomprehensible, remains in uncertainty and doubt. One only reflection has struck us: on reviewing so many prodigious facts, so many contradictory assertions, we ask ourselves: What are all these discussions to us? ”

“ 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. ”

“ But human nature, when placed in a conspicuous point of view, gives us every argument for appeasing the mind, and, to make this the more distinct, the laws and conditions of life should be explained in our discourse. ”

“ It remains to note that such phrases as 'Being and Nothing are the same,' or 'The unity of Being and Nothing'—like all other such unities, that of subject and object, and others—give rise to reasonable objection. ”

“ For the clearing of which let the word of truth be rightly divided, and a right distinction of things applied, there will appear nothing contradictory, but clear and satisfactory to each man’s conscience. ”