Series

“ To illustrate empirically of what wide application the concept of Series is, and how it is present wherever the concept of Law is present, and vice versa, is useful in beginning a discussion of this category, although anything like present completeness in such illustrations is hopeless. You find serial order wherever you look in the world of definitely conceived or of exactly describable fact. Space and Time illustrate our principle in their every detail. ”

“ The simplest way to introduce the element of hesitance and wavering, and thereby make the story more truly suggestive of the intricate variety of life, is to interrupt the series by the introduction of events whose apparent tendency is to hinder its progress, and in this way emphasize the ultimate triumph of the series in attaining its predestined culmination. ”

“ And the true Series is that of the Self, and of its expression in life. The true variety is that of various individual Selves, who together constitute, in their unity, the Individual of Individuals, the absolute. Beyond our own circle of concretely known facts, there are not merely series of data to be discriminated, but volitional processes to be estimated, appreciated, and conceived in their true serial order, as the stages of the world’s life. ”

“ Only the types of Series differ in these two worlds, the Well-Ordered Series being characteristic of the life of the Will just in so far as it is self-conscious, and consequently always knows what next to do, while the World of Description is characterized, in general, by another and less perfect type of serial order. ”

“ This world of facts, arranged in these abstractly conceived series, is anybody’s world. All of us start from different points of view. We all, if we find this sort of truth, shall come in the end to define our results in terms of corresponding series. And this variety of possible points of view is not merely a chance accompaniment of description, but a necessary consequence of the way in which this series-forming-process of looking for what lies between any two objects proceeds. ”

“ Therefore each life of a given series forms a different, a more intricate, and a more amazing pattern: in each the thread is drawn from nearer the central energy, which is divine, and so shows forth more of the coiled power within the soul. ”

“ A series is continuous when any term divides the whole series unambiguously into two mutually exclusive parts which between them comprise all the terms of the series, and when every term which so divides the series is itself a term of the series. ”

“ Series, it has been the publisher’s purpose to provide for the student the best possible road to learning—a road truly royal in its simplicity, its worth: a road wide and direct, and free from foolish, needless litter. ”

“ What is the exact relation of lines, which makes the scroll decoration in a balustrade alternate satisfactorily with an upright support, while the alternation of the arches in the Colosseum with the Greek pillars between them is incongruous?
In what does the pleasure in repeated series differ, when the observer is not certain just what is the repeated element? May there be a bare rhythmic pleasure, when the series is too far away to distinguish what the elements are, or when they run together, so that no definite demarcation is felt between them? ”

“ When the radical idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how can a consecutive series be formed of senses in their nature collateral? The shades of meaning sometimes pass imperceptibly into each other, so that though on one side they apparently differ, yet it is impossible to mark the point of contact. ”

“ Every word of the uttered line of poetry, viewed in its reference to the other words, or to previous and later experiences, is present in its own place in the series, is over and done with before later events can come, or when they are present, and is not yet when the former events of the succession are present. ”

“ Their story will be told, not for their own sake, but in reference and subordination to a higher series, according to the time and the degree in which they contribute to the common fortunes of mankind. ”

“ Of course, if the series were left entirely to themselves and if they were always produced in precisely the same order, for each term there would appear only one association, the relatively strongest—namely, that with the immediately succeeding term. But series of ideas are never left to themselves. The rich and quickly changing order of events brings them into the most manifold relations. ”

“ Daniel Webster
How many kinds of series are there? Two, the commencing and the concluding.
What is a commencing series? A commencing series is always an incomplete one, so far as the sense is concerned, as it requires something more than the series to complete the sense. It generally commences a sentence; as,
It is only when public opinion, or the strong power of government, the formidable array of influence, the force of a nation, or the fury of a multitude is directed against you, that the advocate is of any use. ”

“ V. A series, even a complete series, of all the states of all societies and of all their evolutions would not be enough to exhaust the subject-matter of history. There remains a number of unique facts which we cannot pass over, because they explain the origin of certain states of society, and form the starting-points of evolutions. ”

“ For, as a fact, one has only to reflect in order to see, as we just saw in the case of counting the eggs, or of cataloguing the stars, that the process of discrimination, or of forming series, is itself an incident in a life whose Internal Meaning lies not merely in the acknowledgment of facts, but also in the creation of novelties. ”

“ The vast difference between starting a train of events, and directing into a particular groove a series already started, is rarely apparent to the person confounded by the issue. ”

“ Classification, logic, and mathematics all result, then, from the mere play of the mind comparing its conceptions, no matter whence the latter may have come. The essential condition for the formation of all these sciences is that we should have grown capable of apprehending series as such, and of distinguishing them as homogeneous or heterogeneous, and as possessing definite directions of what I have called 'increase.' This consciousness of series is a human perfection which has been gradually evolved, and which varies greatly from man to man. ”

“ If he had smiled why would he have smiled?
To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity. ”

“ Each represents to him the one object, in that each stands for the whole series, and his thought is much more taken up with the series as a whole than with the individuals composing it. He knows that the percepts in such a series can only be successive, never simultaneous. ”

“ The discrete degrees constituting any one thing are always in a series, a lower one of the series being derived from the higher, like end, cause, and effect. End, cause, and effect follow in order, like prior, middle, and ultimate, the end or prior producing the cause or middle, and the cause or middle producing the effect or ultimate. Affection, thought, and act are related as end, cause, and effect. Take the example of speech for illustration. ”

“ In the brain are male and female faculties; here is marriage, here is fruit. And there is no limit to this ascending scale, but series on series. Every thing, at the end of one use, is taken up into the next, each series punctually repeating every organ and process of the last. We are adapted to infinity. ”

“ Europe and America, compared geographically, or socially, or politically, lead us to attempt the formation of series of objects. Feelings, deeds, persons, lives, stellar spectra, chemical elements, processes of evolution, types of doctrine, modes of conduct, aesthetic values, in brief, beings of all grades, invite serial treatment as soon as they are compared. Various series, already conceived, can be combined in the most varied ways, so as to give us systems of objects that no longer can be arranged in any single serial order. ”

“ And the rule of our discriminating intelligence is that, while the problem of the One and the Many is hopelessly baffling if we deal merely with two terms, and while it is equally hopeless so long as we deal with an indefinite number of objects not arranged in series, we begin to see the light so soon as we get one of our objects between the two others, and so begin to form a series possessing a definite character and direction. ”

“ Turning therefore to the hypothesis which regards one series as subordinate to the other, we assume in the first place, with Aristotle, Spinoza, Hegel, von Hartmann, and Wundt, that the mental series is the condition of the physical. ”

“ Every Natural Object a Member of a Series.—​Now take up a natural object, it does not matter what, and you are studying one of a group, a member of a series; whatever knowledge you get about it is so much towards the science which includes all of its kind. ”

“ Therefore the actual repeated series conforms to the given conditions and is made to do so in every case by its unchanging alternate in the same plane; while human figures with values of their own never can be considered quite as alternates, but are really felt to be a series by themselves. ”

“ In our Supplementary Essay we showed at length that a Self, as a real being, has a certain form of expression, which inevitably involves a serial structure, but that this serial structure, in its main outline, is most truly represented by the form of the series of whole numbers, rather than by the form of a series between any two of whose terms, further terms without end are interpolated. ”

“ Here, then, we meet the difficulty that diverse environments often shade into each other insensibly and form a continuous series, whereas the specific forms of life which are subject to them on the whole form a discontinuous series. ”

“ Times Literary Supplement: “An entertaining series of vivacious and stimulating studies of modern tendencies.”
Spectator: “Scintillating monographs ... that very lively and courageous series.”
Observer: “There seems no reason why the brilliant To-day and To-morrow Series should come to an end for a century of to-morrows. At first it seemed impossible for the publishers to keep up the sport through a dozen volumes, but the series already runs to more than two score. A remarkable series....” ”

“ When arranged in systematic order, they form a series, progressing from those that consist of one central thought, of one single germ, to others that exhibit various degrees or modes of development by means of an accompanying narrative. And in order to show the universality of these threads of thought or categories, as we may now call them, they have been illustrated, whenever I could do so, by examples drawn from the origin-stories and myths of other peoples in different parts of the world. ”

“ The story, which carries the same hero through the six books of the series, is always entertaining, novel scenes and varied incidents giving a constantly changing, yet always attractive aspect to the narrative. ”

“ In a complex story with a series of incidents taking place simultaneously, different threads of narrative must be woven together skillfully to make it evident how the several incidents took place at the same time. ”

“ The reader will now have in his mind the conception of a series or group of things or events, about the individuals of which we know but little, at least in certain respects, whilst we find a continually increasing uniformity as we take larger numbers under our notice. ”

“ It is an important fact that the types of structure forming any series grow more and more generalised as the distance from the present increases, and that different lines of development, when traced back into the past, often converge in types which combine the main characters of various existing groups. ”

“ A whole series needs to be looked at before one can appreciate the interest which these designs have in indicating the subjects on which imagination and thought were then exercised, and the modes in which they were exercised. Symbolism and mysticism pervade the whole. ”

“ A Succession of Incidents Required.—A series of unconnected happenings may be interesting merely from the unexpectedness—or the hurry and movement of the events, but ordinarily a story gains greatly in its appeal to the reader through having its separate incidents developed in some sort of organic unity. The handling of incidents for a definite effect gives what we call plot. A plot should work steadily forward to the end or dénouement, and should yet conceal that end in order that interest may be maintained to the close. ”

“ A series of words or members, whether in the beginning or middle of a sentence, if it does not conclude the sentence, is called a commencing series, and usually requires the rising inflection when not emphatic. ”

“ When completed, the series will constitute a body of thought which no student’s library can well be without, for the author’s learning extends over widely separated departments of literature and science, and in each he has proved himself capable of throwing out those suggestive thoughts which take root in the reader’s mind, and bear fruit. ”

“ A conception of the evolutionary series of plants and animals, and of man's place in the series; a reassurance that man's high place as an intellectual and emotional being is in no way put in peril by his being a part of the series. ”

“ Series, written primarily for young people, giving glimpses of the scenery of various countries with the life and manners of the people, now includes sixty volumes, all of which have proved exceedingly popular. ”