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I might remind you of what all Europe owes to the sorrow of a single Florentine in exile at Verona, or to the love of Petrarch by that little well in Southern France; nay, more, how even in this dull, materialistic age the simple expression of an old man's simple life, passed away from the clamour of great cities amid the lakes and misty hills of Cumberland, has opened out for England treasures of new joy compared with which the treasures of her luxury are as barren as the sea which she has made her highway, and as bitter as the fire which she would make her slave.
The stories which we have been considering are often trivial, sometimes comic; but they are universally diffused, and as well established as universally coincident testimony can establish anything. Now, if there be but one spark of real fire to all this smoke, then the purely materialistic theories of life and of the world must be reconsidered.
It never does harm for us honestly to confess our own limitations and our ignorance, and that is better than weak materialistic explanations, which after all explain nothing.
Again, much depends upon the character of the persons constituting the circle. A circle composed of harmonious, helpful persons will do much to hasten the coming of the manifestation, whereas one composed of inharmonious, sceptical, impatient, and materialistic persons will do much to retard the progress and development of the mediumistic powers. Developing Concentration.
It often owes its origin to strong revulsion against popular philosophies which limit all consciousness to mere perceptions of the senses, or against the materialistic tendencies which find an explanation for all mysteries in physical phenomena.
A flask of this vintage was promptly secured; then, dissatisfied with its materialistic aspect, I caused it to be garlanded with a wreath of violets and despatched it to her private apartment by the prettiest child I could pick up in the street. That is the way to touch their hearts. The offering was repeated at convenient intervals.
But the mind has its necessities as well as the body; and we hope and pray that the human intellect may never be so busy in materialistic inventions that it cannot give us an "Ode to Duty," and a "Happy Warrior," a "Snow Bound," and a "Thanatopsis," an "Evangeline" and a "Chambered Nautilus," a "Pippa Passes" or a "Biglow Papers," an "In Memoriam" or a "Locksley Hall."
With absolute candor and modesty he gives Marx credit for the theory of the materialistic conception of history, upon the enunciation and proof of which he had himself worked almost incessantly ever since the first idea of the theory had occurred to them, forty years prior to the time when he wrote this work.
You get, in short, a materialistic universe, in which only the tough-minded find themselves congenially at home. If now, on the other hand, you turn to the religious quarter for consolation, and take counsel of the tender-minded philosophies, what do you find? Religious philosophy in our day and generation is, among us English- reading people, of two main types.
It might be called the spiritual world let loose; or a sort of psychical anarchy; a jungle of mango plants. And it is pressing upon the West also to-day because of the breaking down of certain materialistic barriers that have hitherto held it back. In plain words the attitude of science is not only modified; it is now entirely reversed.
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