Solidity

“ Solidity, extension, space — the foundation properties of the material world — mean, as has been said above, certain movements and energies of our own bodies, and exist in our minds in the shape of feelings of force, allied with visible and tactile, and other sensible impressions. ”

“ Here all the School Philosophers interrupt me with their Arguments, and declare that there is only Extension and Solidity in Bodies, and that there they can have nothing but Motion and Figure. Now Motion, Figure, Extension and Solidity cannot form a Thought, and consequently the Soul cannot be Matter. ”

“ The discovery of the analogy was a long time retarded by the notion, that the rings must necessarily be solid. The idea of solidity is irresistibly forced upon the mind, when you look upon the rings, as sharply defined as the horizon circle round a school globe. ”

“ In the first rank among the primary qualities is solidity, which is given to you in the sensation of resistance, and inevitably accompanied by form, etc. On the contrary, when you examine the phenomena of consciousness, you do not therein find this character of resistance, of solidity, of form, etc.; you do not find that the phenomena of your consciousness have a figure, solidity, impenetrability, resistance; without speaking of secondary qualities which are equally foreign to them, color, savor, sound, smell, etc. ”

“ For the capacities of things have just the same solidity and eternity, as the relations of things have, and are just such independent realities as they are: and are just the same proper materials to found the omnipotence of God upon, as the relations of things are, to found his infinite wisdom upon. ”

“ We consider it, therefore, as what we call a Substance, or as a thing that subsists by itself, and independent of any other thing. Solid and substantial, accordingly, are two words which, in common language, are considered either as altogether or as nearly synonymous.
Solidity necessarily supposes some degree of extension, and that in all the three directions of length, breadth, and thickness. All the solid bodies, of which we have any experience, have some degree of such bulk or magnitude. ”

“ The necessity of such a motion is built only on the supposition that the world is full ; but not on the distinct ideas of space and solidity, which are as different as resistance and not resistance, protrusion and not protrusion. And that men have ideas of space without a body, their very disputes about a vacuum plainly demonstrate, as is shown in another place. ”

“ What do we mean by solidity, for instance? We mean partly that we get certain sensations from touching the object—sensations of touch and sensations of what is called the muscular sense, sensations of muscular exertion and of pressure resisted. Now, so far as that is what solidity means, it is clear that the quality in question involves as direct a reference to our subjective feelings as the secondary qualities of colour and sound. But something more than this is implied in our idea of solidity. We think of external objects as occupying space. ”

“ To the end that we may be convinced of that want of solidity which the greatest men have not known how to give to the proofs they have offered, but which they have successively imagined has established their positions, let us briefly examine what the most celebrated philosophers, what the most subtile metaphysicians have said. ”

“ For it is in early life that the foundation of our mental edifice is laid. All that is good, valid and solid in man’s mental structure depends on the breadth, width, depth, and solidity of that foundation. ”

“ Of all the constituents of things only one is universally present, that above described as physical solidity, which presents itself according to circumstances as impenetrability, resistance or weight. ”

“ Men were no longer mere drifting clouds of etheric or gaseous matter, but had succeeded in developing a certain amount of solidity, though they were still unpleasantly jelly-like in consistency and indeterminate in shape. ”

“ Force, struggle, solidity, contact, may yield to gentleness, non-resistance, intermingling and uniting—not by an ethical change, but by a change in scientific thought. We shall no longer think of mind and matter as wronging or thwarting one another, because they are not different forces ”

“ And he that thinks that nothing but bodies that are hard can keep his hands from approaching one another, may be pleased to make a trial, with the air inclosed in a football. The experiment, I have been told, was made at Florence, with a hollow globe of gold filled with water, and exactly closed ; which further shows the solidity of so soft a body as water. ”

“ And have become, are wise. The gain is great
In vision and solidity; it lives.
Yet at a thought of life apart from her,
Solidity and vision lose their state,
For Earth, that gives the milk, the spirit gives.
p. 14INTERNAL HARMONY Assured of worthiness we do not dread
Competitors ”

“ In 208 such cases, the mind casts off the empire of the idea of cause, as it casts off even the still more familiar sway of the ideas of space and time. But the character of the material world in which we live when awake is, that we have at every instant and at every place, force operating on matter and matter resisting force.
3. Solidity.—From our consciousness of muscular exertion, we derive, as we have seen, the conception of force, and with that also the conception of matter. ”

“ The abundance, the solidity, and the splendour of the results already achieved by science are well fitted to inspire us with a cheerful confidence in the soundness of its method. ”

“ Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and [pg 502] directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.336 Compared with this world of living individualized feelings, the world of generalized objects which the intellect contemplates is without solidity or life. ”

“ The primary qualities are said to be of a different character, and to supply the information and the evidence which are wanted. These are principally extension, figure, and solidity. We are cognisant of these qualities, not as mere sensations in ourselves, like heat and cold, colour and sound, but as they exist and show themselves in external things. Heat and cold, colour and sound—in a word, all our sentient modifications—may be so increased in degree as to become unbearable. ”

“ But, say you, they are extension in general and motion in general. Thus we see how much the tenet of extended, moveable substances, existing without the mind, depends on that strange doctrine of abstract ideas. And here I cannot but remark, how nearly the vague and indeterminate description of matter, or corporeal substance, which the modern philosophers are run into by their own principles, resembles that antiquated and so much ridiculed notion of materia prima, to be met with in Aristotle 105and his followers. Without extension, solidity cannot be conceived ”

“ The first quality we know in matter is centrality,—we call it gravity,—which holds the universe together, which remains pure and indestructible in each mote, as in masses and planets, and from each atom rays out illimitable influence. To this material essence answers Truth, in the intellectual world,—Truth, whose centre is everywhere, and its circumference nowhere, whose existence we cannot disimagine,—the soundness and health of things, against which no blow can be struck but it recoils on the striker,—Truth, on whose side we always heartily are. ”

“ Solidarity, compactness in all things, became the order of nature; the atmosphere surrounding the earth, became more and more fitted for the higher and more complicated animal organizations. At last when time was ripe for his advent, when the earth was fitted for his residence, and the air for his breathing, MAN, the last and most perfect in his structure, the most delicate and finished in his organization of all living things, made his appearance. ”

“ Every other condition in which we can live refers us to a previous condition, and requires for its solution a following condition; only the aesthetic is a complete whole in itself, for it unites in itself all conditions of its source and of its duration. Here alone we feel ourselves swept out of time, and our humanity expresses itself with purity and integrity as if it had not yet received any impression or interruption from the operation of external powers. ”

“ This view of the system of things spreads for me a new light over the heavens and the earth. It is a foundation of peace and strength and happiness more to be valued, in my account, than the title-deed of all the world. ”

“ But to take our present fact as an example, how important a foundation does it offer upon which to build a series of thoughts, capable of lifting the human mind above the materialities by which it is surrounded,—of exalting each common nature by the refinement of its fresh ideas to a point higher in the scale of intelligence,—of quickening every impulse of the soul,—and of giving to mankind the most holy longings. ”

“ What therefore is the foundation of your philosophy?”
“The foundation,” replied my friend, “consists in the distinguishing of things in our power from things not in our power. The things that are needful are in our power, viz. justice, temperance, truthfulness, courage and the like; but the things that are not in our power are not needful, such as wealth, beauty, reputation, health, pleasure, life and the rest. ”

“ We have in this a new confirmation of the law of development in crystals, the passing from special-sidedness to all-sidedness, from imperfection to perfection as the law of all development in nature. Man, then, appears as the most perfect earthly being, in whom all that is corporeal appears in highest equilibrium and in whom the primordial force is fully spiritualized, so that man feels, understands, and knows his own power. ”

“ Practica determines the correct way of living and the form of discipline, according to the institution of the virtues. Mechanica occupied with fleeting things, strives to provide for the needs of the body. For the end and aim of all human actions and studies, which reason regulates, ought to look either to the reparation of the integrity of our nature or to alleviating the needs to which life is subjected. The integrity of our nature is repaired by Wisdom, to which Theorica relates, and by Virtue, which Practica cultivates. ”

“ At which time weights not heavier than atoms, or mustard-seeds, shall be brought out, that things may be balanced with the utmost exactness, and perfect justice administered. Then the books of the good works, beautiful to behold, shall be cast into the balance of light, by which the balance shall be depressed according to their degrees, out of the favour of God. ”

“ Such objections as these must, I think, arise in the mind of every one who ponders, for the first time, upon the conception of a single physical basis of life underlying all the diversities of vital existence; but I propose to demonstrate to you that, notwithstanding these apparent difficulties, a threefold unity—namely, a unity of power, or faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of substantial composition—does pervade the whole living world. ”

“ The balance of mental and social, as well as of physiological, functions, is implied in the complex life of whose evolution we form a part. To say that we are to promote this balance of various functions, is to say nothing more than that we are to promote the life into which physical and mental and social factors enter. ”

“ When those feelings have been moved, and they all act in the due degree, we have what may be called the state of harmony. This equilibrium is the great root of the world, and this harmony is its universal path.' What is here called 'the state of equilibrium,' is the same as the nature given by Heaven, considered absolutely in itself, without deflection or inclination. ”

“ He also, though born so long before, had, like ourselves, been caught by the spirit of Freedom and Nature which belonged to the time, and which whispered flatteringly in every ear, "You have materials and solid power enough within yourself, without much outward aid; all depends upon your developing them properly." ”

“ The development of the Stable from the Unstable explains to us the evolution of function in the direction of the preservation of the organic forms of which it is the function, as well as the evolution of harmonious movement in the heavenly bodies. The explanation of the natural and necessary elimination of the inharmonious covers the whole ground, and seems to assign a cause for every form of preservative action, for the harmonious conduct which preserves the state or the family as a collection of individuals, as well as for the harmony of function that preserves the individual. ”

“ One lies in the immeasurable width and extent of that relativity between power and function, which we have seen to underlie every known production,—and conceivable possibility of ruling or moulding Nature. Now, under power we class forces such as those which hold corpuscles in cohesion, balance the orbs of heaven, or control the growth of a crystal. ”

“ I look, however, forward to a time when the strength, insight, and elevation, which now visit us in mere hints and glimpses during moments "of clearness and vigor," shall be the stable and permanent possession of purer and mightier minds than ours—purer and mightier, partly because of their deeper knowledge of matter and their more faithful conformity to its laws. ”

“ Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 87—“The phrase ‘solidarity of humanity’ is growing every day in depth and significance. Whatever we do, we do not for ourselves alone. It is not as an individual alone that I can be measured or judged.” ”

“ As world is balanced against world in the [Pg 408] universe, so in the human fabric, in the vegetable structure, in the crystallized gem, or in the rude rock, force is weighed against force, and the balance hangs in tranquillity. ”