United States or Madagascar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Nevertheless our discourse has been so far interesting, that I shall be happy to meet you again and give you an opportunity for further converse should you desire it, . . ask for the Head Professor of Scientific Positivism, any day in the Strangers' Court of the Royal Institutional College, and I will at once receive you! My name is Mira-Khabur, Professor Mira Khabur...at your service!"
By scepticism this is treated as an unsatisfactory state of affairs, while positivism and agnosticism are cheerful about it, call real truth sour grapes, and consider phenomenal truth quite sufficient for all our 'practical' purposes. In point of fact, nothing could be farther from all this than what pragmatism has to say of truth. Its thesis is an altogether previous one.
"Considerations on Representative Government" appeared in 1861, "Utilitarianism," in 1863, "Auguste Comte and Positivism" and the "Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," in 1865. After that, besides the very welcome "Inaugural Address" at St. Andrew's in 1867, his only work of importance was "The Subjection of Women," published in 1869.
In the Democratic convention which met at Charleston in April, 1860, the waning power of political evasion made its last real stand against the rising power of political positivism. To accept Douglas and the idea that somehow territorial legislatures were free to do what Congress could not do, or to reject Douglas and endorse Davis's ultimatum that in substance was the issue.
On a day in May, not so long ago, Joan Vernon, coming out into the sunshine from her lodging in the Place de la Sorbonne, smiled a morning greeting to the statue of Auguste Comte, founder of Positivism. It would have puzzled her to explain what Positivism meant, or why it should be merely positive and not stoutly comparative or grandly superlative. As a teacher, therefore, Comte made no appeal.
The man who can laugh at himself, and who is not anxious to have the last word, is right in the suburbs of greatness. However, the Beechers all had a deal of positivism in their characters. Thomas K. Beecher of Elmira, in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six, declared he would not shave until John C. Fremont was elected President. It is needless to add that he wore whiskers the rest of his life.
Frederic Harrison, the English prophet of Positivism, following out the same train of thought, has declared that the soldier's readiness to die in battle for his country is a realised example of a readiness, always latent in men, to spend themselves and be spent in the service of humanity generally. Again in the same sense, another writer observes, "The soldier's subsistence is certain.
Well might the Church persecute Galileo for his proof of the world's mobility. Instinctively she perceived that in this one proposition was involved the principle of hostility to her most cherished conceptions, to the very core of her mythology. Science was born, and the warfare between scientific positivism and religious metaphysic was declared.
But must you go so soon?" "Yes, I have a pressing engagement." "What a queer age," said Durtal, conducting him to the door. "It is just at the moment when positivism is at its zenith that mysticism rises again and the follies of the occult begin." "Oh, but it's always been that way. The tail ends of all centuries are alike. They're always periods of vacillation and uncertainty.
And laying one hand on his breast he bowed profoundly. "A Professor of Positivism who is himself never positive!" observed Theos with a slight smile. "Ah pardon!" returned the other gravely "On the contrary, I am always positive! ... of the UNpositiveness of Positivism!" And with this final vindication of his theories he made another stately obeisance and went his way.
Word Of The Day