Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian

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That we should not judge of our happiness until after our death. That to philsophise is to learne how to die. Of the institution and education of children. Of friendship. Of bookes. By Montaigne. -- Montaigne. What is a classic? by C.-A. Sainte-Beuve. --The poetry of the Celtic races, by E. Renan. --The education of the human race, by G.E. Lessing. --Letters upon the aesthetic education of man, by J.C.F. Schiller. --Fundamental principles of the metaphysic of morals. Transition from popular moral philosophy to the metaphysic of morals. by I.Kant. --Byron and Goethe, by G. Mazzini.
 

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Page 353 - Finally, there is an imperative which commands a certain conduct immediately, without having as its condition any other purpose to be attained by it. This imperative is Categorical. It concerns not the matter of the action, or its intended result, but its form and the principle of which it is itself a result; and what is essentially good in it consists in the mental disposition, let the consequence be what it may. This imperative may be called that of Morality.
Page 411 - The mind which is immortal makes itself Requital for its good or evil thoughts, Is its own origin of ill and end, And its own place and time...
Page 329 - Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a Good Will...
Page 336 - I recognise with respect. This merely signifies the consciousness that my will is subordinate to a law, without the intervention of other influences on my sense. The immediate determination of the will by the law, and the consciousness of this is called respect, so that this is regarded as an effect of the law on the subject, and not as the cause of it. Respect is properly the conception of a worth which thwarts my self-love.
Page 371 - ... on the relation of rational beings to one another, a relation in which the will of a rational being must always be regarded as legislative, since otherwise it could not be conceived as an end in itself.
Page 350 - The dependence of the desires on sensations is called inclination, and this accordingly always indicates a want. The dependence of a contingently determinable will on principles of reason is called an interest. This therefore, is found only in the case of a dependent will which does not always of itself conform to reason; in the Divine will we cannot conceive any interest. But the human will can also take an interest in a thing without therefore acting from interest. The former signifies the practical...
Page 336 - I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.
Page 358 - Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
Page 357 - A MAXIM is a subjective principle of action and must be distinguished from the objective principle, namely practical law. The former contains the practical rule set by reason according to the conditions of the subject (often its ignorance or its inclinations), so that it is the principle on which the subject acts; but the law is the objective principle valid for every rational being, and is the principle on which it ought to act that is an imperative. 2 [ I have no doubt that ' den' in the original...

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