The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress

Chapter 10

Chapter 1091 wordsPublic domain

HOW THOUGHT IS PRACTICAL

Functional relations of mind and body.—They form one natural life.—Artifices involved in separating them.—Consciousness expresses vital equilibrium and docility.—Its worthlessness as a cause and value as an expression.—Thought’s march automatic and thereby implicated in events.—Contemplative essence of action.—Mechanical efficacy alien to thought’s essence.—Consciousness transcendental and transcendent.—It is the seat of value.—Apparent utility of pain.—Its real impotence.—Preformations involved.—Its untoward significance.—Perfect function not unconscious.—Inchoate ethics.—Thought the entelechy of being.—Its exuberance. Pages 205-235