The World's Greatest Books — Volume 14 — Philosophy and Economics

The use of words being to stand as outward marks of our internal ideas, and those ideas being taken from particular things, if every particular idea that we take in should have...

There is a certain effeminate and light opinion, and that no more in sorrow than it is in pleasure, whereby we are so dainty tender that we cannot abide to be stung of a bee, bu...

That which knows all things and is known by none is the subject; and for this subject all exists. But the world as idea consists of two essential and inseparable halves. One hal...

What comes from a willing hand is far more acceptable than what comes from a full hand. "It was a small favour for him to do"; yes, but he could do no more. "But it is a great t...

The transferring of right, if not mutual, is free gift; if mutual, it is contract. When this is not simultaneous there is a covenant or pact. The covenant can become void only t...

Whatever theory we adopt respecting the foundation of the social union there is a circle round every human being which no government ought to be permitted to overstep; there is...

All things depend on the Divine power; but God's will, because of his perfection, cannot be other than it is, and therefore things cannot be differently constituted. For to supp...

The Island of Utopia is shaped like a new moon, in breadth at the middle 200 miles, narrowing to the tips, which fetch about a compass of 500 miles, and are sundered by eleven m...

It is impossible that such governments as have hitherto existed in the world would have commenced by any other means than a total violation of every principle, sacred and moral....

The magistrates who form the government may be numerous, or may be few; and, generally speaking, the fewer the magistrates the stronger the government. A magistrate has three wi...

In regard to his system of thought, Plato was a realist. He believed that ideas have a real existence, and that material things are only copies of the realities existing in the...

But who are to be our actual rulers? The best of the elders, whose firmness and consistency have stood the test of temptation. To them we transfer the title of guardians, callin...

Nor is it true that the maintenance of labour is drawn from capital, and that therefore population regulates itself by the funds which are to employ it, for that would involve t...

As a necessary consequence of the increase in the power of fire, we find the more frequent and more extended adoption of defences, and of cover for protection in attack and hamp...

It may be a good thing to be reputed liberal, but liberality without the reputation of it is hurtful. Display necessitates the imposition of taxes, whereby the prince becomes ha...

Capital pre-supposes wage-labour, and wage-labour pre-supposes capital. One is a necessary condition to the existence of the other. The two mutually call each other into existen...

But the moral law demands prompt obedience from everyone, and thus even the most ordinary intelligence can discern what should be done. Everyone has power to comply with the dic...

All the immediate checks to population which have been observed to prevail in the same and different countries seem to be resolvable into moral restraint, vice, and misery; and...

This is the point which consciousness has attained, and these are the principal phases of that form in which the principle of freedom has realised itself, for the history of the...

"Early in the last century the evolution was completed by the final consolidation of the entire capital of the nation. The industry and commerce of the country, ceasing to be co...

France, by the perfidy of her leaders, has utterly disgraced the tone of lenient counsel in the cabinets of princes, and has taught kings to tremble at what will hereafter be ca...

Immanuel Kant, the most celebrated of German metaphysicians, was born at Königsberg on April 22, 1724, and died on February 12, 1804. Taking his degree at Königsberg, he speedil...

The state of homogeneity in the social aggregate is an unstable one. The primary political differentiation originates from the primary family differentiation. Men and women very...

The forcing system has been by many given up, and precocity is discouraged. People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal. The o...

Of all these, the dictates of goodwill are the surest of coinciding with utility, since utility corresponds precisely to the widest and best-advised goodwill. Even here, however...

The metaphysical polity was required to combat the theological; but now it has served its destructive purpose, and tends to become obstructive, for, having destroyed the old, it...

Acknowledgment and thanks for permission to use the following selections are herewith tendered to Houghton, Mifflin & Company, Boston, for "Looking Backward," by Edward Bellamy;...

First, that growth being an integration with the organism of such environing matters as are of like nature with the matters composing the organism, its growth is dependent on th...

As subsistence is, in the nature of things, prior to conveniency and luxury, so the rural industries which procure the former must be prior to the urban industries which ministe...