United States or Kosovo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They either did not or would not perceive, that the great Cause of causes, ens entium, Parent of parents, had, in unravelling chaotic matter, with a wisdom for which man can never be sufficiently grateful, with a sagacity which he can never sufficiently admire, foreseen every thing that could contribute not only to his own individual happiness, but also to that of all the beings in nature; that he had given this nature immutable laws, according to which she is for ever regulated; after which she is obliged invariably to act; that he has described for her an eternal course, from which it is not permitted her to deviate, even for an instant; that she is therefore, rendered competent to the production of every phenomena, not only that he beholds, but of an infinity that he has never yet contemplated; that she needs not any exterior energy for this purpose, having received her powers from a hand far superior to any the feeble weak imagination of man is able to form; that when this nature appears to afflict him, it is only from the contraction of his own views, from the narrowness of his own ideas, that he judges; that, in fact, what he considers the evils of nature, are the greatest possible benefits he can receive, if he was but in a condition to be acquainted with previous causes, with subsequent effects.
A propensity to materialism had not, however, so subdued the mind of Darwin, as to prevent him from acknowledging the existence of what he terms the Great Cause of Causes, Parent of Parents, Ens Entium. Nay, he went the length of maintaining, that his doctrine of spontaneous vitality was not inconsistent with Scripture.
Is it not more worthy the exalted mind of the GREAT PARENT OF PARENTS, ens entium, more consistent with truth, to suppose that his wisdom in giving these immutable, these eternal laws to the macrocosm, foresaw every thing that could possibly be requisite for the happiness of the beings contained in it; that therefore he left it to the invariable operation of a system, which never can produce any effect that is not the best possible that circumstances however viewed will admit: that consequently the natural activity of the human mind, which is itself the result of this eternal action, was purposely given to man, that he might endeavour to fathom, that he might strive to unravel, that he might seek out the concatenation of these laws, in order to furnish remedies against the evils produced by ignorance.
This Reason teaches us, that there is a first Cause of all Things, an Ens Entium, which we call God, and our Reason will also suggest, that he must be eternal, and, as the Author of every Thing perfect, he must be infinitely perfect. If so, he can be subject to no Passions, and neither loves nor hates; he must be ever the fame, and cannot rashly do to Day what he shall repent to Morrow.
"'Yea, but what is this Ens Entium? saith Sir Walter. "I answered it is God, and being disliked as before, Sir Walter wished that grace might be said, 'for that, quoth he, is better than his disputation. Thus supper ended and grace said, I departed to Dorchester with my fellowminister, and this is to my remembrance the substance of that speech with Sir Walter Raleigh I had at Wolverton."
SECTION VII. Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative Principles of Reason. The former cogitates its object either by means of pure transcendental conceptions, as an ens originarium, realissimum, ens entium, and is termed transcendental theology; or, by means of a conception derived from the nature of our own mind, as a supreme intelligence, and must then be entitled natural theology.
He is not the ens entium, or to theion, or any other of the thousand titles with which ancient and modern speculation has invested him, but simply the Architect, as the Greeks have it, the ἀρχὸς, the chief workman, under whom we are all workmen also; and hence our labor is his worship. This idea, then, of masonic labor, is closely connected with the history of the organization of the institution.
Fitzjames answering that Aristotle should say he was Ens Entium, I answered, that whether Aristotle, dying in a fever, should cry: Ens Entium, miserere mei; or drowning himself in Euripum, should say: Quia ego to non capio, to me capies, it was uncertain, but that God was Ens Entium, a thing of things, having being of Himself, and giving being to all creatures, it was most certain, and confirmed by God Himself unto Moses.
For a species or sub-species, being always a conception, which contains only what is common to a number of different things, does not completely determine any individual thing, or relate immediately to it, and must consequently contain other conceptions, that is, other sub-species under it. This law of specification may be thus expressed: entium varietates non temere sunt minuendae.
What a sublime idea of the infinite might of the great Architect, the Cause of all causes, the Father of all fathers, the Ens Entium! For if we would compare the Infinite, it would surely require a greater Infinite to cause the causes of effects than to produce the effects themselves. In this, published in the year 1794, you have nineteenth-century Evolution precisely defined.
Word Of The Day