Unity of place

“ We have still to ask how in particular we can most truly conceive the systematic unity which is formed by the whole multiplicity of apparently more or less independent subjects of experience, what degree of permanence and individuality, so far as we can judge, belongs to ourselves as members of that system, and what light is thrown by our ethical, religious, and æsthetic aspirations and ideals on the concrete character of the whole system and on our own place in it. ”

“ The first and most obvious element of the continuity of group unity is the continuance of the locality, of the place and soil on which the group lives. The state, still more the city, and also countless other associations, owe their unity first of all to the territory which constitutes the abiding substratum for all change of their contents. ”

“ But when the spiritual and the material keep separate, in their own respective provinces, then they can find their unity. In like manner, when we respect the true individuality of men, then we can discover their true unity. ”

“ And if we widen out the sphere of unity a little to include the inhabitants of a village who seek to be loving and united, who associate with and are kind to one another, what great advances they will be seen to make, how secure and protected they will be. Then let us widen out the sphere a little more, let us take the inhabitants of a city, all of them together: if they establish the strongest bonds of unity among themselves, how far they will progress, even in a brief period and what power they will exert. ”

“ Unification of the whole of mankind is the hall mark of the stage which human society is now approaching. Unity of family, of tribe, of city-state, and nation have been successively attempted and fully established. ”

“ The Valley of Unity which succeeds to that of Independence, is the valley of privation of all things and reduction to unity, that is to say, the attainment of a degree of spirituality, in which the Divine Essence, apart from every attribute, is the object of contemplation. ”

“ The cloud of Bounty showered, the Light of Guidance shone upon the earth. The world put on a new garment, the people became a new people, the oneness of humanity was proclaimed. The great unity of thought transformed humanity and created a new world. ”

“ This faith of thine, O Peter, is the very cause and message of unity to the nations; it shall be the bond of union between the hearts of men and the foundation of the oneness of the world of humanity. In brief, the original purpose of temples and houses of worship is simply that of unity—places of meeting where various peoples, different races and souls of every capacity may come together in order that love and agreement should be manifest between them. ”

“ We cannot, as is possible with those in the East with their surroundings, people in imagination our landscapes with scenes that enrich the thought and 'nourish the heart. Yet it is this consciousness of a common heritage associated with one's home surroundings and this use of it that affords the best basis for strength of the sentiment and the spirit of communal unity. ”

“ A building of this kind is in consequence also symbolical for the reason that it merely suggests the band of unity which it is, because it is only able, by means of its form and content, to express the sacred unity which unites men in an external way. ”

“ And who shall determine the limits of the unconscious life which in that lonely contemplation or that lonelier scorn, the soul receives from the State? For from the same source the component and the composite, the constituent and the constituted unity alike arise, and the Immanence that is in each is One. ”

“ It has been said that a city whose members enjoy an equal division of goods and education will present to the gaze of the Divinity a spectacle surpassing the spectacle of the city of our fathers. The madness of the moment tends to achieve the unity of peoples and to make but one man of the whole race: well and good; but, in acquiring general faculties, will not a whole series of private sentiments perish? ”

“ It even marks the national difference more emphatically; but the ground of the uniformity of the individuals is with it not merely the natural common interest, but it is the consequence of the spiritual unity, which abstracts from nature, and as history, satisfied with no present, hovers continually outside of itself between past and future. ”

“ They are not unrelated, but correspond each as the negative to that fourfold presentment of ideals we have hitherto been raising. To this ideal unity of healthy town, with its practical and scientific schools of all kinds, with its meditative cloister of ethical and social idealism, of unified science and philosophy, of imagination and drama, all culminating in the polity, culture, and art which make a city proper, we have here the corresponding defects in detail. ”

“ To-day I add to that first conviction, to that first desire for unity, this other conviction, long a mere opinion vaguely or intermittently apprehended: Nations, races and individual men are unified by an image, or bundle of related images, symbolical or evocative of the state of mind, which is of all states of mind not impossible, the most difficult to that man, race or nation; because only the greatest obstacle that can be contemplated without despair rouses the will to full intensity. ”

“ Who cannot perceive the hand of God in bringing us from the turmoil and strife of the business world to these mountain vales, where we have the opportunity and the privilege of building up cities and villages upon the principle of unity which has been revealed to us, thus affording that necessary discipline which we could not have obtained among the cities of the Gentiles? ”

“ V. All individual reason, sprung from the same source, participates in one same light, lives one same life, has one and the same patrimony, is indivisible in the creative principle, but divisible in creatures. The unity, then, or rather the uniformity or community of human reason is possible, is necessary. ”

“ Whether, indeed, we should work for organic unity or not will evoke large divergence of opinion. Whether or not we should cultivate the spirit of unity—the atmosphere in which the beautiful flower of unity will come to perfection—this is a question upon which there can surely be no divergence of view. ”

“ So men have said in effect throughout the ages, and where they have conceded reality or substantial character to manifoldness, the concession has simply concealed a reassertion, but with fuller and deeper meaning, of the intimacy of unity with reality. What makes for real unity or wholeness, then, must impart realistic character, giving actual contact and intimacy with just that of which, so to speak, the world is made. ”

“ We may postulate such a unity only if the spiritual life is itself a universal life transcending that of the isolated individuals; if it bears in itself a unity which takes the multiplicity up into itself. ”

“ The thus conceived unity of mankind presupposes a plan of the history of humanity, namely, that the multiple phenomena of social life will finally unite and cooperate in a not less harmonious manner than the varied and different phenomena of organic and cosmic life. ”

“ For there is no art where there is no style, and no style where there is no unity, and unity is of the individual. ”

“ It hardened into an age of inert construction. The organic unity of a varied and elastic society gave way to a conventional order which proved its artificial character by its inexorable law of exclusion. ”

“ Scenes which make vital changes in our neighbors’ lot are but the background of our own, yet, like a particular aspect of the fields and trees, they become associated for us with the epochs of our own history, and make a part of that unity which lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness. ”

“ Upon detached souls they bestow the gift of Unity, enrich the destitute, and offer the cup of knowledge unto them who wander in the wilderness of ignorance. All the guidance, the blessings, the learning, the understanding, the faith, and certitude, conferred upon all that is in heaven and on earth, are hidden and treasured within these Cities. ”

“ Europe has passed from the conception of an outwardly composed unity of religion and government to the conception of the inner unity which is compatible with outward variations in creeds, in manners, in religions, in social institutions. Harmony, not uniformity, is Nature's end. ”

“ A unitary well-defined territory of well marked and fairly uniform character tends to national unity, not only through making the community a relatively closed one, but also by aiding the imagination to grasp the idea of the nation and offering a common object to the affections and sentiments of the people. ”

“ Communities with geographical unity constitute the primary type of communities which we find in the world. Indeed the lower we go in the scale of being, the more necessary is geographical unity for that close interaction of individuals which constitutes society. ”

“ I mean that Unity of Spirit—in itself a fountain of strength—which, filling the people of the North, shall make them tread under foot past antipathies, decayed dissensions, and those irritating names which now exist only as tattered ensigns of ancient strife. ”

“ The collective activity of peoples belonging to that age worked in it; and, in proportion as they came together in order to accomplish a building of prodigious size, the product of their activity came to be the band, which, on the ground and soil they had thus selected, and by means of the accumulated mass of stone and the architectural construction on the land—just as in our case morality, custom, and the lawful constitution of State-life—bound them in unity together. ”

“ PROGRESS TOWARDS THE UNITY OF MANKIND. UNITY AMID DIVERSITY.—The path of human progress has led in the direction of unity as the ultimate goal. It is, however, a unity in variety toward which the course of history has moved. The development and growth of distinct nations, each after its own type, and, not less, the freedom of the individual to realize the destiny intended for him by nature, are necessary to the full development of mankind,—necessary to the perfection of the race. ”

“ Make our souls dependent upon the Verses of Thy Divine Unity, our hearts cheered with the outpourings of Thy Grace, that we may unite even as the waves of one sea and become merged together as the rays of Thine effulgent Light; that our thoughts, our views, our feelings may become as one reality, manifesting the spirit of union throughout the world. ”

“ Thus the organization of every social group is more or less pervaded by the spiritual influxes of: unity of language, of culture, of religion, of tradition, of customs, and in general of feeling and of volition, which are as essential as the material elements: unity of economic interests, of living conditions, and of territory. ”

“ By this thou canst measure and reach the reality and know for a certainty that the difference among the sects of the world is due to the difference of comprehensions. As long as the perceptive powers differ, surely the opinions and thoughts also differ. But if One Great Perceptive Power which comprehendeth all, cometh to the Center, the differing opinions become united, and ideal unity and oneness are revealed. ”

“ He declared the unity of humanity, and spread abroad the teaching of the equality of all men.
Therefore, all of you ought with your hearts and minds to endeavour to win the people with kindness, so that this great Unity may be established, that childish superstitions may pass away, and all may become one. ”

“ Shall the world, which has become a neighborhood, organize itself into a great community of mutual respect, good will and brotherhood, or shall its structure be that of restless orders of exploiters and exploited? ”

“ All these, mingled together make the unity, the great and solemn voice of the ocean. And "what are those wild waves saying?" They are talking of Life,—of Immortality.
8. An indomitable strength is at the bottom of Nature—how much more so at Nature's summit, the Soul! And it speaks of partnership, of union. Let us accept the swift exchange which, in the individual, exists between the diverse elements; let us accept the superior Law which unites the living members of the same body—Humanity ”

“ You would tell me that you asked for unity and I had given you uniformity. Uniformity you can have anywhere; in modern life all is standardized and stereotyped; you have it in the great hotel and the Atlantic liner—there you have men of all nations, they do the same thing at the same time, they eat the same food and wear the same clothes ”

“ The wall is a unity—but a unity which comprehends diversity, so Pure Being is a unity but a unity which is the soul of diversity.
The third movement of the Absolute Being is Simple Oneness—a step attended with external manifestation. The Absolute Oneness is free from all particular names and attributes. The Oneness Simple takes on names and attributes, but there is no distinction between these attributes, one is the essence of the other. ”

“ That which, in medieval thought, establishes unity in the very dissimilar meanings of the word, is the conviction that every one of these groupings represents a divine institution, an element of the organism of Creation emanating from the will of God, constituting an actual entity, and being, at bottom, as venerable as the angelic hierarchy. ”

“ Inside the modern city, in spite of its nominal political unity, there are probably more communities, more differing customs, traditions, aspirations, and forms of government or control, than existed in an entire continent at an earlier epoch. ”

“ Would they not long ago have disappeared as a nation from the face of the earth, had they not, after they were driven out of their own land, created out of the confines of their own life, a sacred territory for their existence and a soil on which they could thrive? ”