Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical, Volume 2J. W. Parker, 1859 - 302 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
action apparent magnitude appears Aristotle asserted Athenian Athens authority Bailey Bentham cause character Charlemagne Church civilization common condition Constitution cracy democracy democratic desire despotism distance doctrine Edinburgh Review elements England English equality Europe exist fact favour feelings feudal France French Grecian Greece Greek Grote Guizot habits happiness Hesiod human ideas Iliad improvement individual influence institutions intellect interest kings labour legislation less liberty Lord Brougham Louis Blanc Lycurgus mankind means ment Michelet mind mode modern moral nation nature never object opinion Patroclus peculiar Pericles persons philosophy Plato pleasure political popular principle produce progress racter reason recognised religious remarkable render retina Revolution rience Roman Roman empire rule sense sentiment social society Spartan speculations spirit supposed tendency theory things thought Thucydides tion Tocqueville truth virtue Whewell Whewell's whole women writers
Popular passages
Page 468 - What one expects to find in a principle is something that points out some external consideration, as a means of warranting and guiding the internal sentiments of approbation and disapprobation: this expectation is but ill fulfilled by a proposition, which does neither more nor less than hold up each of those sentiments as a ground and standard for itself.
Page 94 - It is, I think, agreed by all that Distance, of itself and immediately, cannot be seen. For, distance being a line directed endwise to the eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye, which point remains invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or shorter.
Page 12 - The gradual development of the equality of conditions is therefore a providential fact, and it possesses all the characteristics of a divine decree: it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress.
Page 55 - A native of the United States clings to this world's goods as if he were certain never to die ; and he is so hasty in grasping at all within his reach, that one would suppose he was constantly afraid of not living long enough to enjoy them. He clutches everything, he holds nothing fast, but soon loosens his grasp to pursue fresh gratifications.
Page 465 - I mean that principle which approves or disapproves of certain actions, not on account of their tending to augment the happiness, nor yet on account of their tending to diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question, but merely because a man finds himself disposed to approve or disapprove of them : holding up that approbation or disapprobation as a sufficient reason for itself, and disclaiming the necessity of looking out for any extrinsic ground.
Page 469 - Because my moral sense tells me it is.' '2. Another man comes and alters the phrase: leaving out moral, and putting in common in the room of it. He then tells you that his common sense tells him what is right and wrong, as surely as the other's moral sense did: meaning by common sense a sense of some kind or other, which, he says, is possessed by all mankind: the sense of those whose sense is not the same as the author's being struck out as not worth taking.
Page 12 - The Christian nations of our age seem to me to present a most alarming spectacle; the impulse which is bearing them along is so strong that it cannot be stopped, but it is not yet so rapid that it cannot be guided: their fate is in their hands; yet a little while and it may be so no longer.
Page 470 - A great multitude of people are continually talking of the Law of Nature; and then they go on giving you their sentiments about what is right and what is wrong: and these sentiments, you are to understand, are so many chapters and sections of the Law of Nature.
Page 324 - Greeks from being conquered, it also kept them politically disunited, and perpetuated their separate autonomy. It fostered that powerful principle of repulsion, which disposed even the smallest township to constitute itself a political unit apart from the rest, and to resist all idea of coalescence with others, either amicable or compulsory. To a modern reader, accustomed to large political aggregations, and securities for good government through the representative system, it requires a certain mental...
Page 112 - ... he could form no judgment of their shape, or guess what it was in any object that was pleasing to him. He knew not the shape of anything, nor any one thing from another, however different in shape or magnitude : but upon being told what things were, whose form he before knew from Feeling, he would carefully observe them that he might know them again...