I have a hypothesis that our spiritual sense is as much a part of the human experience as the six regular senses. “Six senses?”, you might wonder. “Is this guy counting ESP as one of the senses?” No, what I am counting is kinesthesia, which most scientists now recognize as the sixth sense. Kinesthesia is our sense of self-movement and body perception. There is an easy way for you to see for yourself how this sense works. Stretch your arms…
I have been reading William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). The book is interesting and thought-provoking, and covers a number of interesting subjects related to religion. In this passage (pp. 15-16), James discusses truth and feelings: Let us play fair in this whole matter, and be quite candid with ourselves and with the facts. When we think certain states of mind superior to others, is it ever because of what we know concerning their organic antecedents? No! it…
To finish up my series of posts about Burke’s ’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), here are a few other assorted profound and interesting passages from Reflections. In this first passage (p. 14), Burke writes about being true to your proper character: Those who quit their proper character, to assume what does not belong to them, are, for thei greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave, and of the character they assume. In this passage (pp….
Continuing my series of posts excerpting interesting passages from Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), in this passage (pp. 315-310), Burke describes some of the problems with how the revolutionaries are changing the military, and foresees the rise of a Napoleon-like “popular general” who becomes master of the army, “the master . . . of your king, the master of your Assembly, the master of your whole republic.”: What you may do finally does not appear, nor…
More from Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). In this passage (pp. 285-6) he is still discussing the problems with the revolutionaries scheme for splitting the country up into administrative units of equally sized square segments; he points out that our attachments and communities are formed from the bottom up and are not imposed from the top down: To a person who takes a view of the whole, the strength of Paris, thus formed, will appear a…
More from Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) by Edmund Burke. Before this passage, Burke has been writing about how the French revolutionaries had created an entirely new system for geographical divisions of the country, and he describes all the negative consequences of the new system. In this passage (pp. 266-7), he observes that the revolutionaries are treating France like barbarous conquerors, subduing the people and destroying their institutions: It is impossible not to observe that, in the spirit…
More wisdom from Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (1790). Much of what he writes could be written about the woke upheavals of 2020, from pages 245 to 252: I AM convinced that there are men of considerable parts among the popular leaders in the National Assembly. Some of them display eloquence in their speeches and their writings. This cannot be without powerful and cultivated talents. But eloquence may exist without a proportionable degree of wisdom. When…
More from Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), comparing the beneficial superstitions bequeathed to us by tradition, versus the foolish invented superstitions of pretended philosophers (pp. 230-235): If the injustice of the course pursued in France be clear, the policy of the measure, that is, the public benefit to be expected from it, ought to be at least as evident and at least as important. To a man who acts under the influence of no passion, who…
More wisdom from Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), pp. 205-214 (emphasis added): All this violent cry against the nobility I take to be a mere work of art. To be honored and even privileged by the laws, opinions, and inveterate usages of our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages, has nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man. Even to be too tenacious of those privileges is not absolutely a crime. The strong…
I’ve been reading Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (1790). It is interesting (and alarming) to see the many parallels to current events. The following passage (pp. 165-168) seems to be describing the intellectual and spiritual forebears of the current agitators of the moment: Along with the monied interest, a new description of men had grown up with whom that interest soon formed a close and marked union — I mean the political men of letters. Men…