Man : A creative first cause, two discourses delivered at Concord, Mass., July, 1882 / by Rowland G. Hazard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hazard, Rowland Gibson, 1801-1888, author.

Series:

PsycBooks Collection

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Metaphysics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 112 pages).

Other Title:

Man

Place of Publication:

Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1883.

Summary:

"In these discourses I have intended briefly to present the leading results of previous investigations, most of which had already been published; but more especially to vindicate metaphysical science from the charge of being unfruitful, by showing that in its proper application to the subject of its investigation, it is susceptible of the highest practical utility. I have endeavored to show that, to say nothing of the invigorating exercise of such study, it may be a means of making the same amount of intellectual power more effective, by the invention or discovery of better methods in its application; and further, that in this its own proper realm, --the realm of the spirit, --it may achieve a yet higher utility, a utility transcending all other, in creating, molding, and elevating the moral character"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).

Contents:

First discourse Man a creative first cause

General indifference to the subject

Characteristics of mind

Relations and functions of mental charcteristics

Existence of matter and its relations to cause

Of past events as cause

Freedom in Willing

Instinct, reason and habit

Necessitarian argument cause and effect

Influence of external and internal conditions

Could one will the contrary

Argument from prescience

A being with will, knwoledge and feeling is self-active, some conclusions re-stated

Is matter a distinct entity

Second discourse Man, in the sphere of his own moral nature, a supreme creative first cause

A cognitive sense includes a moral sense

Our efforts for internal change are always to increase our knowledge

The two modes of seeking knowledge the poetic and prosaic

One method of increasing the efficient of the intellect

Our creative power in the formation of charcter and the agency of habit

In the Moral nature the effort is itself teh consummation of its object and intent

The right or worng or moral action is all concentrated in our own free act or will

Recital of some of the foregoing conclusions

Our physical wants are more imperetative but are limited and temporary, while the spiritual are boundless and insatiable

Ideality is the nearest approach to reality, and fulfills the office of experience

Good and evil infuences of ideality

Systematic moral training in the formation and study of ideal constructions

All science first pursued merely for mental gratification

Solution of three problems essential to the practical utility of metaphysics

Synopsis of preceding results and deductions from them

Argument from final causes

Concluding remarks.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.