classics digests, reflections and reviews
The Federal Constitution The Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government. The two great points of difference between […]
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What is Time Time is merely a device by means of which we gradually see that which is in reality and which is ever the same. In order that the eye may see the entire globe, the latter must turn before the observing eye. Even the world revolves before the eyes of men in time. Time and space is the disintegration of the infinite for the convenience of finite creatures. […]
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When men accept as indubitable truths that which is offered to them as such by others, without stopping to examine it by the exercise of their reason, they fall into superstition. Such is our modern superstition of science, namely recognition as indubitable truths of what is passed as truth by professors, academicians and men calling themselves scientists in general…people who in a given period usurp the right of determining what […]
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Connexion of the Sensible and the Abstract Some things are perceived by the senses immediately, some mediately, with the intervention of others. The latter may be signified and suggested to the mind by sensible marks, with which they have an arbitrary connexion. For instance, in reading a book, what I immediately perceive are the letters; but mediately, or by means of these, the notions of justice, virtue, truth, etc. Philosophers […]
Read more“Only he who does not believe in God can believe that men, who are of his own kind, may order his life so as to make it better.” “Men see that there is something wrong with their life and endeavor in some way to improve it…But to improve oneself, one must first admit that one lacks goodness, and this is annoying. And they turn all their attention away from that […]
Read moreA story of Tolstoy was related by Prof. Irwin Weil [1]: A young Jewish man wrote to Tolstoy a few months before the latter died, and asked how a Jew could believe his teachings which were based on the words of Jesus Christ. Tolstoy replied, “The words of Christ are not important and applicable because they were said by Christ, on the contrary, they were said by Christ because they […]
Read moreIdeally, a translation should give the readers of the Bible in their own language the same interpretive options that a reader of the original will have. I’ve been struggling with a troubling phenomenon in public discourse in the past two years, namely, the abuse of authority in interpretation. The above quote from a recent blog post by Dr. Daniel B. Wallace on Bible translation caught my attention, because it speaks directly […]
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