Mysticism and Logic: And Other EssaysLongmans, Green and Company, 1918 - 234 pages |
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Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays - The Original Classic Edition Bertrand Russell No preview available - 2011 |
Common terms and phrases
acquainted actual appearances argument Aristotle author of Waverley axioms belief belong called causal dependence cause and effect concerned correlation defined definition denotation desire determined difficulty empirical entities ethical event evil example exist fact false finite future geometry given Hegel Heraclitus hitherto human ideal inferred infinite number infinitesimal instinct intellect intuition Joseph Larmor judgment Julius Cæsar kind knowledge knowledge by description law of causality Leibniz logical matter means mental merely metaphysical method mind mysticism nature notion objects observed Parmenides particular past perceived perspective philo philosophy philosophy of mathematics phrase physical world Plato possible present principle priori problem propositional function pure mathematics question realise reality reason regard relation round square scientific scientific method Scott seems sense-data sensibilia sensible so-and-so space supposed theory thing thought three-dimensional space tion true truth universe volitions whole wholly wish word
Popular passages
Page 57 - ... condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge...
Page 60 - Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.
Page 75 - Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
Page 219 - Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted.
Page 56 - Brief and powerless is man's life ; on him and all his race the slow sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man, condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day...
Page 47 - That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving ; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms...
Page 185 - The Law of Causation, the recognition of which is the main pillar of inductive science, is but the familiar truth that invariability of succession is found by observation to obtain between every fact in nature and some other fact which has preceded It...
Page 52 - ... disenchantments of the world of fact. In the contemplation of these things the vision of heaven will shape itself in our hearts, giving at once a touchstone to judge the world about us...
Page 14 - There is one reality, at least, which we all seize from within, by intuition and not by simple analysis. It is our own personality in its flowing through time — our self which endures.
Page 61 - Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible; but the world of pure reason knows no compromise, no practical limitations, no barrier to the creative activity embodying in splendid edifices the passionate aspiration after the perfect from which all great work springs. Remote from human passions, remote even from the pitiful facts of Nature, the generations have gradually created an ordered cosmos, where pure thought can dwell as in its natural...