Evolution of Idea: A Thesis

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Printed at the Lakeside Press, 1926 - Metaphysics - 152 pages
 

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Page 67 - All that we know about motion is that it is a name for certain changes in the relations of our visual, tactile, and muscular sensations; and all that we know about matter is that it is the hypothetical substance of physical phenomena — the assumption of the existence of which is as pure a piece of metaphysical speculation as is that of the existence of the substance of mind.
Page 56 - Every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, except in so far as it may be compelled by impressed forces to change that state.
Page 65 - Descartes' position, that we know more of mind than we do of body ; that the immaterial world is a firmer reality than the material. For the sensation " muskiness " is known immediately. So long as it persists, it is a part of what we call our thinking selves, and its existence lies beyond the possibility of doubt. The knowledge of an objective or material cause of the sensation, on the other hand, is mediate ; it is a belief as contradistinguished from an intuition, and it is a belief which, in...
Page 64 - So that it appears to be a simple and original affection or feeling of the mind, altogether inexplicable and unaccountable. It is indeed impossible that it can be in any body : it is a sensation, and a sensation can only be in a sentient thing.
Page 82 - true" does not tally with the assertions of pure geometry, because by the word "true" we are eventually in the habit of designating always the correspondence with a "real" object; geometry, however, is not concerned with the relation of the ideas involved in it to objects of experience, but only with the logical connection of these ideas among themselves.
Page 81 - Geometry sets out from certain conceptions such as "plane," "point," and "straight line," with which we are able to associate more or less definite ideas, and from certain simple propositions (axioms) which, in virtue of these ideas, we are inclined to accept as "true." Then, on the basis of a logical process, the justification of which we feel ourselves compelled to admit, all remaining propositions are shown to follow from those axioms, ie, they are proven. A proposition is then correct ("true")...
Page 67 - In ultimate analysis, then, it appears that a sensation is the equivalent in terms of consciousness for a mode of motion of the matter of the sensorium. But, if inquiry is pushed a stage further, and the question is asked, What then do we know about matter and motion ? there is but one reply possible. All...
Page 81 - ... with disdain who should pronounce even the most out-of-the-way proposition of this science to be untrue. But perhaps this feeling of proud certainty would leave you immediately if some one were to ask you: " What, then, do you mean by the assertion that these propositions are true? " Let us proceed to give this question a little consideration. Geometry sets out from certain conceptions such as
Page 67 - ... mind. Our sensations, our pleasures, our pains, and the relations of these make up the sum total of the elements of positive, unquestionable knowledge. We call a large section of these sensations and their relations matter and motion ; the rest we term mind and thinking ; and experience shows that there is a certain constant order of succession between some of the former and some of the latter.
Page 81 - truth" of the individual geometrical propositions is thus reduced to one of the "truth" of the axioms. Now it has long been known that the last question is not only unanswerable by the methods of geometry, but that 129 it is in itself entirely without meaning. We cannot ask whether it is true that only one straight line goes through two points. We can only say that Euclidean geometry deals with things called "straight lines...

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