Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 10, 2025
For, as we have already said, it is matter that hinders knowledge. All defect and evil is the result of the potential. Hence the farther a thing is removed from potentiality the more perfect it is and the freer it is from defect. God's essence is the most perfect thing there is; and as he knows his essence, his is the most perfect knowledge.
The primary condition of growth is immaturity. This may seem to be a mere truism saying that a being can develop only in some point in which he is undeveloped. But the prefix "im" of the word immaturity means something positive, not a mere void or lack. It is noteworthy that the terms "capacity" and "potentiality" have a double meaning, one sense being negative, the other positive.
But our bones and muscles and blood-vessels all come from the mesoderm by folding, plaiting, and channelling, and division of labor resulting in differentiation of structure. Of all true mesodermal structures the hydra has actually none, but in the ectodermal and entodermal cells he has the potentiality of them all.
And second, we observe that Aristotle introduced a new conception which to his view established a vital relation between the universal and the individual. This conception he formulated in the correlatives, Potentiality and Actuality. With these he closely connected the idea of Final Cause. The three to Aristotle constituted a single reality; they are organically correlative.
So he never admitted it, except in a secret corner of himself, where all his never-revealed fears and secrets were accumulated. For the rest, he had a pain, it went away, it made no difference. It even stimulated him, excited him. But it gradually absorbed his life. Gradually it drew away all his potentiality, it bled him into the dark, it weaned him of life and drew him away into the darkness.
It will be seen, too, in the next chapter, that he had realised the potentiality for good of the new forces in Irish life to which he gave play in his two great linked Acts one of them popularising local government, and the other creating a new Department which was to bring the government and the people together in an attempt to develop the resources of the country.
This denial of the sufficiency of the world of sense in the evolution of the human soul, on the one hand, and the affirmation of the potentiality of a higher world of spirit on the other hand, constitute the nucleus of the Christian religion. Its superiority consists in giving their rights to both worlds, and also in showing that they do not possess the same value.
If by power we are to understand sheer potentiality, I know of no sufficient evidence that enables us to say whether, under ideal conditions, the average degree of mental capacity would in the two cases prove the same or different.
And I would ask also: What would be the practical benefit of it? Would it not be a reflection on love and power that are infinite? To think that man was made in the divine image, and had within him the potentiality of attaining to absolute perfection and blessedness, but that his career has culminated instead in the character of a demon, and the suffering of endless torment!
After submitting to this scrutiny a few minutes, he gave a mighty yawn, which startled the spectators, but which delighted the Absolute Fool; for never before had he beheld such a depth of potentiality. He knelt in silent delight at this exhibition of the beauty of strength. Old Sardon soon became tired of all this, however, and he turned and walked back to his den.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking