Historical Reprints
Philosophical
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IN presenting to the public this edition of the late Robert G. Ingersoll's works, it has been the aim of the publisher to make it worthy of the author and a pleasure to his friends and admirers. No one can be more conscious than he of the magnitude of the task undertaken, or more keenly feel how far short it must fall of adequate accomplishment.
THE lectures, essays, and other matter contained in these pages have been discovered recently in a well-worn desk which was formerly the property of a Lady Professor of Girtham College; and as they contain some original thoughts and investigations, they have been considered worthy of publication.
"Reasoning" is defined as: "The act, process or art of exercising the faculty of reason; the act or faculty of employing reason in argument; argumentation, ratiocination; reasoning power; disputation, discussion, argumentation." Stewart says: "The word reason itself is far from being precise in its meaning. In common and popular discourse it denotes that power by which we distinguish truth from falsehood, and right from wrong, and by which we are enabled to combine means for the attainment of particular ends."
"The Pearl of Great Price," as written by Bonus of Ferrara, and edited by Janus Lacinius. In the first place, it is one of the earliest works printed on alchemy, and the original is a very beautiful specimen of typography. Concerning the latter point, it is only necessary to say that it was issued from the press of Aldus, appearing in 1546.
Are these the only works of Providence within us? What words suffice to praise or set them forth? Had we but understanding, should we ever cease hymning and blessing the Divine Power, both openly and in secret, and telling of His gracious gifts? Whether digging or ploughing or eating, should we not sing the hymn to God
If in so learned an Age as this, when Arts and Sciences are risen to such Perfection, there be any Gentleman unskilled in the Art of Loving, let him come to my School; where, if he hath any Genius, he will soon become an Adept
WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. and though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was in those of the ancients.
These lectures have been so maimed and mutilated by orthodox malice; have been made to appear so halt, crutched and decrepit by those who mistake the pleasures of calumny for the duties of religion, that in simple justice to myself I concluded to publish them.
The world needs knowledge, but still more imperatively it needs the right use of the knowledge that is at its disposal. For this reason I have been mainly concerned in these pages with indicating what I consider to be the right mental attitude with which to approach certain fundamental questions.
IN the following pages the author has freely discussed the claims of the books called the Old and New Testaments, to be considered Divine revelations. He had a right so to do; and in presenting the work to the public he gives the result of his exercise of such right.
Plato, unfolding the knowledge of eternal being, calls it at first intelligence, but he also conjoins with intelligence reason. For, when reason understands perpetual being, as reason it energizes transitively, but as perceiving intellectually it energizes with simplicity, understands each particular so far as simple at once, but not all things at once, but passing from one to another, at the same time intellectually perceiving every thing which it transitively sees, as one and simple.
Of that golden chain of philosophers, who, having themselves happily penetrated, luminously unfolded to others the profundities of the philosophy of Plato, Proclus is indisputably the largest and most refulgent link.
A previous attempt was made to describe to some extent the astral plane - the lower part of the vast unseen world in the midst of which we live and move unheeding. In this little book must be undertaken the still harder task of trying to give some idea of the stage next above that - the mental plane or the heaven-world, often spoken of in our Theosophical literature as that of Devachan or Sukhavati.
Now this masterpiece is in a larger 12 point font, instead of it's original 8 point font. The entire theory of the book is diametrically opposed to the modern method of thinking, for it is concerned with subjects openly ridiculed by the sophists of the twentieth century. Its true purpose is to introduce the mind of the reader to a hypothesis of living wholly beyond the pale of materialistic theology, philosophy, or science.
Nine works of Aristotle on health and the human body.