Universal force

“ But we do not mend matters by emptying terms taken from the inorganic world rather than from human personality. To designate the universal Power by some scientific term, such as Force, does not help us in the least. ”

“ In every case, however, One should draw his conclusions on the principle that the universal and primary underlying cause takes precedence and that the cause of particular events is secondary to it, and that the force is most ensured and strengthened when the stars which are the lords of the universal natures are configurated with the particular causes. ”

“ Immense combined propulsions direct human affairs and conduct them within a given time to a logical state, that is to say, to a state of equilibrium; that is to say, to equity. A force composed of earth and heaven results from humanity and governs it ”

“ Nothing indeed of a true moral influence can be expected so long as states direct all their energies to idle plans of aggrandizement by force, and thus incessantly check the slow motions by which the intellect of the species is unfolding and forming itself, to say nothing of their shrinking from all positive aid to those motions. But all good that is not engrafted upon moral good is mere show and hollow speciousness—the dust and ashes of mortality. ”

“ If we may not read the meaning of the great central force in the light of that force which we carry in the will, how can we warrantably interpret the laws of nature, in the light of that which we carry in the intellect? ”

“ There is therefore but one response possible from us. Force, Force to the utmost, Force without stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant Force which shall make Right the law of the world, and cast every selfish Dominion down in the dust. ”

“ A DYNAMIC theory, like most theories, begins by begging the question: it defines Progress as the development and economy of Forces. Further, it defines force as anything that does, or helps to do work. Man is a force ”

“ It is true that Bahá’ís are not pacifists since we uphold the use of force in... It is true that Bahá’ís are not pacifists since we uphold the use of force in the service of justice and upholding law. But we do not believe that war is ever necessary and its abolition is one of the essential purposes and brightest promises of Bahá’u’lláh’s revelation. ”

“ Thus is loaded with potential energy the universe of matter, generating life, mind, civilization, and hence we may conclude that whatever else it is, civilization is a force; that it is the sum of all the forces employed to drive humanity onward; that it acts on man as mechanical force acts on matter, attracting, repelling, pressing forward yet holding in equilibrium, and all under fixed and determined laws. ”

“ But when one tried to think it out, what in the world became of force considered as an objective entity? Force, even the most materialistic of philosophers will agree with the most idealistic, is nothing but a name for the cause of motion. ”

“ Here is a force which history clearly teaches has been the greatest power in the development of men. Yet we have merely been playing with it and have never seriously studied it as we have the physical forces. ”

“ Thus, from whatever side we look at this question—whether the common-sense of mankind, the logical analysis of the relation between cause and effect, or the study of the working of our own intellects in the interpretation of Nature—we seem led to the same conclusion—that the notion of force is one of those elementary forms of thought with which we can no more dispense than we can with the notion of space or of succession. ”

“ Warfare is the ultimate tragedy of disunity among nations where no international authority exists powerful enough to restrain them from pursuing their own limited interests. Bahá’ís therefore ask to serve their countries in non-combatant ways during such fighting; they will doubtless serve in such an international Force as Bahá’u’lláh envisions, whenever it comes into being. ”

“ Just so the force of man’s free will is distinguished by reason from the other forces of nature only by the definition reason gives it. Freedom, apart from necessity, that is, apart from the laws of reason that define it, differs in no way from gravitation, or heat, or the force that makes things grow ”

“ But we,—we who are here to realise the existence of the all-powerful Force which gives us complete mastery over the things of space and time and matter—we, who know that over that individual moving universe of atoms called Man, It can hold absolute control,—we can prove for ourselves that the whole earth is subject to the dominance of the immortal Soul,—ay!—and the very elements of air, fire and water!—for these are but the ministers and servants to Its sovereign authority! ”

“ I was about to say that the overruling will of Providence and the free agency of man were the two great motive powers of the moral universe—the human free will, being the great inward and impulsive force, is the centrifugal or flying-off power, and the government of God the centripetal or constraining power ”

“ we call those forces gravitation, inertia, electricity, animal force, and so on, but we are conscious of the force of life in man and we call that freedom. ”

“ Man commonly begs the question again taking for granted that he captures the forces. A dynamic theory, assigning attractive force to opposing bodies in proportion to the law of mass, takes for granted that the forces of nature capture man. ”

“ They were to carry with them a double force—a force of coercion, visible and palpable; a force addressed to conscience, neither visible nor palpable, and in its nature only capable of being inwardly appreciated. ”

“ This stage of abstract ideas or of negative powers or forces finally becomes convinced of the essential unity of all processes and of all forces; it sets up the doctrine of the correlation of forces, and believes that persistent force is the ultimate truth, the fundamental reality of the world. This we may call a concrete idea, for it sets up a principle which is the origin of all things and forces, and also the destroyer of all things, and hence more real than the world of things and forces ”

“ The reaction of mind on the mass of nature seemed not greater than that of a comet on the sun; and had the spontaneous influx of force stopped in Europe, society must have stood still, or gone backward, as in Asia or Africa. Then only economies of process would have counted as new force, and society would have been better pleased; for the idea that new force must be in itself a good is only an animal or vegetable instinct. ”

“ Force is force, everywhere. Political, moral force, physical force, dynamic force, heat, light, tidal waves, and so on-- all are one, all is one. In time we shall know how to galvanize into aptitude and moral energy all the limp and crooked consciences and wills that need taking in hand, and such there always will be in modern civilisation. I don't know how to do it. I don't know how it will be done, but in the future the priest as well as the doctor will turn electricity on as his principal, nay, his only agent. ”

“ It was a battle of principles rather than of nations—the last great struggle between reason and force—the fight between the instinct of some men to rule other men and the contrary instinct, implanted more or less in all men, that they shall hold up their heads and rule themselves. ”

“ But when he succeeds at last he will find that for all practical purposes, as things are going to-day, he will have a monopoly of the universe, of the greatest force there is in it, the combining and melting and fusing force that brings all men and all ideas together, making the race one—a force which is the chief characteristic of every great period and of every great character that history has known. ”

“ What then will happen, unless you have the surest moral training for foundation? The force which rouses up the highest in you, rouses up also the lowest; and there must be battle-royal and victory at last, or surrender to hell. ”

“ But now if things or parts of things which we call different, are those of which the constituent forces differ in one or more respects; what must happen to any like forces, or any uniform force, falling on them? Such like forces, or parts of a uniform force, must be differently modified. ”

“ In almost every age and nation we find [19] a vital Power, an ordering Force, recognised as present in the natural world, and the human mind seems ever prone to believe such Power to have affinity to human nature and to be, so to speak, open to a bargain. ”

“ Universal approval will guide the laws of mankind as well as the laws of nature, and so things fall into their places or fall from their assumed places as sure as the stars of heaven roll and fall to the universal laws of gravitation. ”

“ And this force of forces—that now goes to waste or assumes perverted forms—we may use for the strengthening, and building up, and ennobling of society, if we but will, just as we now use physical forces that once seemed but powers of destruction. ”

“ Of such a process we have no experience, no idea." "We experience as little concerning force as a motive power, as concerning the necessity of a movement." Force is said to be the constraining element! ”

“ The presence of universal moral forces is here symbolized. All about us are familiar forces which we did not originate, which we do not control—the light and the heat [Pg 173] of the sun, the power of gravitation, the movements of the winds, and the pulsating tides. We cannot control them; we can only adjust ourselves to their movements and wisely cooperate with them for certain ends. ”

“ This conception of force or power is derived from the consciousness of our own power to move our limbs, and perhaps too of passions, temptations, sentiments to move or oppose our wills. This power is most distinctly felt when it is resisted. The effort which is necessary when we choose to do what we have barely strength to do, impresses on us more clearly the sense of a force residing in ourselves capable of overcoming resistance. ”

“ Thus they play their part, those energetic men-at-arms; and thus one great force, the force of iron, spins and expands itself, century after century, helping on, as it whirls, the great progress of society towards its goal, wherever that may be. ”

“ Thus we may speak of the force of love, the force of truth, the force of public opinion, the force of moral suasion, the force of non-resistance. Or we may speak of the force of gravitation, the force of cohesion, the force of repulsion, &c. Or in relation to the muscular force of human beings, we may speak of benevolent force, kind force, uninjurious force; meaning thereby various applications of muscular strength for the purpose of preventing human beings committing on themselves or others some injury ”

“ This first divine law of nature, if we may so speak, by virtue of which labour and struggle [44] became from the beginning the destiny of man, has retained its full force through all succeeding ages, and is applicable alike to every class, and every nation, to each individual as well as to mankind in general, to the most important, as to the most insignificant, relations of society. ”

“ Controlling and Directing One’s Forces The most powerful forces in the universe are the silent forces; and in accordance with the intensity of its power does a force become beneficent when rightly directed, and destructive when wrongly employed.
This is a common knowledge in regard to the mechanical forces, such as steam, electricity, etc., but few have yet learned to apply this knowledge to the realm of mind, where the thought-forces (most powerful of all) are continually being generated and sent forth as currents of salvation or destruction. ”

“ It has been said that all great movements which affect the condition of peoples are originated and carried forward by the combination of two forces: the force of conviction, which comes from reason, and the force of enthusiasm, which is born of sentiment. ”

“ Force comprises two elements, attraction and repulsion, 15 analagous to the principles commonly called good and evil in the affairs of human society; take away from mechanical force either of these two oppugnant elements, and there could be neither organism nor life, so without both good and evil in human affairs there could be no progress. ”

“ All Force is the same force. Science just now has a tendency to call it electricity; but I am indifferent to such baptisms. The same Force pervades my razor, my cow in my field, and the central me which dominates my mind: the same force in different stages of evolution. And that Force persists forever. ”

“ This Infinite Power is creating, working, ruling through the agency of great immutable laws and forces that run through all the universe, that surround us on every side. Every act of our every-day lives is governed by these same great laws and forces. Every flower that blooms by the wayside, springs up, grows, blooms, fades, according to certain great immutable laws. ”

“ And as the undefinable essence of the force moving the heavenly bodies, the undefinable essence of the forces of heat and electricity, or of chemical affinity, or of the vital force, forms the content of astronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and so on, just in the same way does the force of free will form the content of history. ”

“ Force, says Marx, is the midwife of progress; force, a vast and burning upheaval from below, a strained and spasmodic pressure from the molten womb of the earth, bowed the mountain out of its deep resting place, tilted away the early sea, arched its summit high over the surrounding lowlands. ”

“ There we see that power which in undisturbed and solemn grandeur holds equally the world and the dust of which worlds are formed together, and carries them on in their course through illimitable space through illimitable ages ”