Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 edition. Excerpt: ... in the complete need, duty, responsibility, and religion of Man. By losing sight of this fact, public opinion, upon all matters, is drawn violently, first in one direction, then in another; believing for the time that each new theory or idea is the sum total of everything. A glance at the history of thought shows the truth of this, and what enormous influences for good and for evil, new schools special processes) have, and have had over the histories and destinies of Man. Reason and Metaphysics. The relation of Reason to Metaphysics should also be outlined. Metaphysic has been called the science of Mind. But till we know what "Mind" is,1 not only shall we be helpless to write a "science" upon it, but even to speculate with regard to it in any real and intelligent manner. For immediately we sever "Mind" from " Life," in order to speculate upon "Mind," we remove all the acting powers in Man, and begin to regard him simply as a living machine. Reason or Intellect, according to this mode of procedure, has been the power or faculty within a man which enabled him to dissect his own attributes, to point to this or that power or condition of being: in short, has been the full and complete exercise of his understanding or Mind itself. Mind, in this sense, has embraced the whole of his being, that is, has taken into consideration as part of itself, not only his Feelings, but his Sensations, and examined and explained them all according to a purely philosophical or still mode of life.2 Hence metaphysics, except as an exercise for the mind, has been practically a dead letter. For mental faculties are not tangible like the material elements of the body, so that physiology has become--inasmuch as its...
