The Religion of Philosophy: Or, The Unification of Knowledge : a Comparison of the Chief Philosophical and Religious Systems of the World Made with a View to Reducing the Categories of Thought, Or the Most General Terms of Existence to a Single Principle, Thereby Establishing a True Conception of God

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Williams & Norgate, 1885 - Religion - 566 pages
"It is well known that religion, as well as philosophy, depends upon language for the expression of its truths. This seems a simple proposition, but what are its consequences? If language is the sole medium of development of the higher thoughts and feelings, in its genesis may we not hope to discover the deepest truths of life and mind? Before the complex symbols which we call words came into use, and hence before the mind acquired the faculty of forming thoughts or extended comparisons, activities or motions were the only medium of expression between sentient beings. Language is the development of these expressive actions, and so highly complex has it become, so far removed from its rude beginnings, that it seems another order of creation, a system of miraculous origin. But when we remember that intelligence is a concomitant development with language, that thought or spirit is but a building up of words into ideas, and that these words are merely condensed memories, common experiences which have become current from tongue to tongue, is it not evident that there is no impenetrable mystery in speech, and that its product, mind, is a synthesis of simple and familiar truths? Again, when we retrace sensibility or feeling, from which language has been gradually evolved, to its beginnings in organic life, we find no absolute demarcations; we find that all life, whether mental or physical, is interdependent"--Introduction.

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Page 476 - And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God: and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.
Page 476 - And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve ; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell : but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Page 346 - That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.
Page 252 - is a definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external coexistences and sequences.
Page 136 - This therefore being my purpose, to inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent...
Page 394 - I lived in truth, and fed my soul with justice. What I did to men was done in peace, and how I loved G-od, God and my heart well know. I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, and a shelter to the stranger. I honored the gods with sacrifices, and the dead with offerings.
Page 129 - For words are wise men's counters; they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.
Page 420 - Lu asked about serving the spirits of the dead. The Master said, 'While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?' Chi Lu added, 'I venture to ask about death?
Page 406 - He who by His might looked even over the water-clouds, the clouds which gave strength and lit the sacrifice, He who is God above all gods. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice...
Page 499 - Whosoever shall say to his brother, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

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