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Page 1 of 21907 · PDF PAGE 227
220 THE STAR IN THE WEST HUME Hume , at heart a thoroughgoing agnostic and man of the world , saw the practical falsity of abstruse philosophy , the conclusions of which were at once dissipated by the “ feelings of our heart,” which re duced “ the profound philosopher to a mere plebeian .' He forcibly asserts , that ideas of primary qualities are attained by abstraction— " an opinion which if we examine it accurately , we shall find to be unintelligible , and even absurd .” He further agrees with Berkeley in stating that : “ An extension that i…
1907 · PDF PAGE 234
… enables us to infer the existence of one ob ject from that of another . Such is the foundation of moral reasoning .” — P. 174 . KANT On Hume's despairing " something ," Kant builds his à priori , and though the detail of his criticism differs from that of Hume's , in the main result it coincides , arriving at the same unleapable ditch , the limitation of all knowledge regarding the reality of phenomena as revealed to us by our senses . Hume starting with the proposition that ideas are copied from impressions ends in the unknown ; Berkeley thro…
1907 · PDF PAGE 316
THE NEW WINE 309 Hume is ignorant of the Supreme Being , yet his ignorance is so naïve, that he all but lifted the veil of Isis . His “ Ignorance " is in every way equivalent to Berkeley's “ God .” It is absolutely true of Kant , who set himself the question , “ Must we believe that Mysticism is like some vast ocean , the empire of illusion ? " And then again and again answered in the negative . He proposed time after time that Reason be its own end , founded upon Right and Duty , and in the Freedom of the “ Person ," the moral sublimity of “ D…
1907 · PDF PAGE 232
THE NEW WINE 225 nature .” On this despairing position of Hume , Kant bases his à priori. BERKELEY AND HUME Thus Hume arrives at the conclusion that all rela tionships between cause and effect are based on ex perience , and behind experience there is , “ a certain unknown and inexplicable something ." ? So also does Berkeley in the “ Three Dialogues " end in a similar quandary which he calls “ God." Starting out on his quest by stating : “ Can any doctrine be true that necessarily leads a man into an absurdity ? " ; he promptly proceeds to trav…
1907 · PDF PAGE 314
…ows or hath ideas ; but the ideas are not conveyed to Him by sense as ours are . . 2 God to him is a mahayogi . It is absolutely true of Hume , but Hume , studiously avoiding the word God , could find no helpmeet to fill his place : For my part , when I enter most intimately into what I call myself , I always stumble on some particular percep tion or other , of heat or cold , light or shade , love or hatred , pain or pleasure . I never can catch myself at any time without a perception , and never can observe anything but the perception . 3 1 Ti…
1907 · PDF PAGE 240
…,” he turns to “ Pure Natural Science ," again assuming at the outset apodictic laws of nature , which Berkeley also assumed , and which Hume proved to be sceptical ; such as “ substance continues permanent ”-a theory on the same footing as papal infallibility , and about a hundred years older-and that all that happens is “ determined by a cause according to fixed laws " (p . 42 ). Concerning which Huxley states : “ not one of these events is more than probable '; though the probability may reach such a very high degree that , in ordinary langu…
1907 · PDF PAGE 228
…rom the age -worn lips of the Sphinx ; for as he himself says : Eternal mockery is the real ; Eternal falsehood , the ideal .' However , Hume arrives at a negative result of ex traordinary worth . He took Newton's second law of motion ,' i.e., of Cause and Effect , and wrote against it a colossal “ WHY ? ” Berkeley, as we saw above , arrived at the conclu sion , that it was impossible to solve the question of relationship between the things which are perceived , and the things which are not perceived ; and in the “ Three Dialogues between Hylas…
1907 · PDF PAGE 230
…el in the spirituality of God , whereby he may burn in twain the gordian knot into which he has tangled his under standing ; we now find Hume , in a similar manner , groping for the handle of some bricked-up door, which will lead him forth from the depths of that same night in which Berkeley has already lost his way . When Hume states : “ he feels events to be con nected in his imagination ”; he is only reiterating the words of Philonous , when he says : “ I have a notion of Spirit , though I have not, strictly speaking , an idea of it . I do n…
1907 · PDF PAGE 243
…irst to vanish in the Absolute ether of Pyrrhonism , which he outwardly symbolized under the form of a Bishop of the Church of England . Hume following , clutched vaguely in the night of doubt at a “ some thing ” he could not grasp , and whose watery sub stance trickled through his clenched and searching fingers . Kant similarly losing his way in the night of Hume's ignorance , struck a spark on the tail of his shirt , proclaiming the day ; but as the flames rose and scorched his fundamental basis , he , also , leapt from his empiric hose into …
1907 · PDF PAGE 318
…iving to get on to another line (e), and the junctions and sidings are so multitudinous . 1 (e) This is overcome by Yoga . Huxley , like Hume , diagnosed with an almost in credible minuteness all the symptoms of this mental unstability , but could not in all the wonders of their laboratories , and in all the wisdom of their pharma copoeia , discover a single or certain cure ; and yet , strange to say , it is within the grasp of all from the most ignorant clodhopper to the most sapient sage . Now turning back from the present day , we shall find…
1907 · PDF PAGE 231
224 THE STAR IN THE WEST principle , that perceives , knows , wills , and operates about ideas . ” 1 This “ human soul " of Hume , the “ I myself ” of Berkeley are synonymous terms ; in fact , they are one with the “ purusha ” of the Yogins , and the “ magical stone " of the philosophic alchymists . Hume arrives at the conclusion : “ that there is a species of sceptic ism , antecedent to all study and philosophy , which is much inculcated by Des Cartes and others , as a sovereign preservative against error and precipitate judgement . It recomme…
1907 · PDF PAGE 285
…re , but merely a violation of that under standing which falsely interprets a “ something ” which reason alone cannot grasp . 1 Huxley's Hume , p . 155. “ It will be said that these are miracles , but we reply that miracles , when they are genuine , are simply facts for science ." “ A philosopher has declared that he would discredit universal testimony rather than believe in the resurrection of a dead person , but his speech was rash , for it is on the faith of universal testimony that he believed in the impossibility of the resurrec tion . Sup…
1907 · PDF PAGE 200
…s to show how all philo sophies may be equated in corresponding terms of each other ; and how the philosophic principles of Berkeley and Hume , combined , form what may be known as the philosophical theme of Crowleyanity , in which it is demonstrated how all systems are inwardly mystically identical , and outwardly sceptically diverse . Further , how by the study of Berkeley , Hume , and Kant , taken unitedly or separately , the conclusion which is arrived at is, that the Reason alone is inadequate to solve the Great Problem ; for ultimately al…
1907 · PDF PAGE 239
…nd connect it with another which is not contained in the former ," and explains the difficulty by assumed knowledge à priori. (Rendering Hume's position now impregnable , thanks to ethnology , etc. , etc. ) ; and then Kant asks , " How is pure mathematics possible " ? [Again falling into the fallacy of supposing his own brain to be without a history . It is curious to note that Kant's à priori is but a recasting of the old myth of Pallas , Wisdom , springing full- armed from the brain of Zeus , and like the legend is a strangely false assertion…
1907 · PDF PAGE 288
…n I tell you which ? Down goes the moon - one sees the howling bitch !" 4 1 The Sword of Song , Pentecost , vol . ii, p . 170 . Huxley's Hume , p . 157 . Gargoyles , vol . iii, p . 85 . 4 Ibid . vol . iii, p . 91 . 3
1907 · PDF PAGE 282
… day agnosticism must look back on as its founder . Berkeley , as we have seen , carried the Cartesian principle to its logical result ; Hume , 1 The Sword of Song , vol . ii, p . 163 , ? Mysteries : Lyrical and Dramatic , vol . i, p . 95 . 3 The Fatal Force , vol . i, p . 145 . Mysteries : Lyrical and Dramatic , vol .i, p . 107 .
1907 · PDF PAGE 223
… it will be necessary , first of all to satisfy the three heads of the terrible offspring of Echidna's womb , whose names are Berkeley , Hume , and Kant . BERKELEY . Berkeley , that “ God - illumined Adept ,” ) almost at the commencement of his introduction to “ The Prin ciples of Human Knowledge ,” states : “ Upon the whole ,I am inclined to think that the far greater part , if not all , of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers , and blocked up the way to know ledge , are entirely owing to ourselves that we have first rais…
1907 · PDF PAGE 236
… aid the reader , I will place all criticisms of a purely Crowleyan savour in square brackets . ) Immanuel Kant finding his master David Hume enmeshed in the negative net of an excessive Pyrrhon ism , set out to free him from the tangled conception of cause . To accomplish this end , and to avoid falling into the same entanglement of empirical uncertainties ( physical ), groping about in the dark for some weapon which might enable him to free his unfortunate master , himself fell into the same metaphysical pitfall , and tented himself by declar…
1907 · PDF PAGE 210
…ce and time in order to avoid the objects, which custom has rendered too familiar to it. " - An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding , Hume (Religion of Science Library ), p. 172.
1907 · PDF PAGE 280
… Chinese , and its light is focussed in the greatest of the great : Socrates and Plato , Malebranche and Descartes , Locke and Spinoza , Hume and Berkeley , Swedenborg and Kant , Hegel and Comte , Tyndall , Spencer , and Huxley . Declining the mimetic , seeking the idiosyncratic , and standing by the eclectic , it has stood and grown a Colossus of Thought , ever young , ever virile , as age after age has gathered round it, and as the years have swept by it on their path to oblivion . Between the theist and the atheist stands the agnos tic , and…