"Rationalism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... practical fact that the partisans of one of the two sections which to-day divide the Reformed Church of France, not only do not consider themselves bound by the Confession of La Rochelle, but, tending more and more towards Rationalism, and seeing in Protestantism only the religion of free thought, have come to reject the great miracles of the gospel, and to demand for their pastors, in the bosom of the Church, unlimited freedom in teaching. While ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... or indeed their creeds, to writing, lest they should fall into the hands of spies and be used in evidence against them, much more is this the case with those whose search after truth has led them to forsake the lines of rationalism and enter the land of mysticism and spiritualism. But two of these mystic schisms need we touch upon in this article, in order to show to what lengths the Mujik will go in his efforts to escape from the trammels of ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... heart and soul of the book: the weary, unsatisfied, empty heart of poor man looking backward or forward for the satisfaction that the present always fails to give "under the sun," and which he, who was wiser than all who came before him, Solomon, warns his readers against! Oh, poor blind rationalism! missing all the beauties of God's Word in its own exceeding cleverness, or—folly! How would the present application of such reasoning sound! The Victorian era is certainly one of the most "brilliant and ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... encomium. It discusses many of the leading religious questions of the day in a racy and pointed style, and while opposing what the author deems the errors of Protestantism in general, reserves its hottest fire for modern Pantheism, Socialism, Rationalism, and other kindred innovations, which he regards as gaseous exhalations from the bottomless pit, taking a visible form in these latter days. From the well-known ability of the author, and the spicy relish of his pen, the work is adapted to make a sensation beyond ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... which this little volume announced was connected with hostility to France, and with a friendly attitude toward England. . . This great movement was, in fact, a revulsion from the spirit of Voltaire to that of Rousseau, from the artificiality of society to the simplicity of nature, from doubt and rationalism to feeling and faith, from a priori notions[11] to history, from hard and fast aesthetic rules to the freedom of genius. Goethe's 'Goetz' was the first revolutionary symptom which really attracted much attention, but the 'Fly-sheets on German Style and Art' preceded the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... York. John Hill Burton, a Scottish author, educated as a lawyer, composed vigorously written histories of Scotland and of the reign of Queen Anne. Lecky wrote in a pleasing style a History of England in the Eighteenth Century, besides a History of Rationalism in Europe, and a History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne. In ecclesiastical history, Milman, whose leading work is the History of Latin Christianity, Dean Stanley, and Bishop Creighton ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... his 'Moines d'Occident.' You will find in his pages all the essential facts that are known, encircled with a nimbus of enthusiastic sympathy which I hope you will like better to see them through, than distorted by blackening fog of contemptuous rationalism. But although I ask you thus to make yourselves aware of the greatness of my omission, I must also certify you that it does not break the unity of our own immediate subject. The influence of Celtic passion and art both on Northumbria and the Continent, ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... introduction to his commentary on the Pentateuch; and the body of the work shows that he constantly drew his inspiration from Rashi and ever had Rashi before his eyes. At the same time he also opposes Rashi, either because the free ways of the French rabbi shocked him, or because the Frenchman's naive rationalism gave offense to his mysticism. In fact, it is known that Nahmanides is one of the first representatives of Kabbalistic exegesis, and his example contributed not a little toward bringing it into credit. Even the author of the Zohar - that Bible of the Kabbalah, which under cover of false authority ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... religious and the scientific theories, or, as I should put it, between superstition and rationalism, ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... in Herzog's "Real-Encyclopadie" (Bd. X. 1882) and in Riehm's "Handworterbuch" (1884)—both works with a conservative leaning—are on the same side; and Diestel, [8] in his full discussion of the subject, remorselessly rejects the universality doctrine. Even that staunch opponent of scientific rationalism—may I say rationality?—Zockler [9] flinches from a distinct defence of the thesis, any opposition to which, well within my recollection, was howled down by the orthodox as mere "infidelity." All that, in his sore straits, Dr. Zockler is able to do, is to pronounce a faint commendation upon a particularly ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... I mean, in the expression it gives, under cover of legends, prophecies, or mysteries, of the effort, the tragedy, and the consolations of human life. Such a moral fable is what Christianity is in fact; but it is far from what it is in intention. The modernist view, the view of a sympathetic rationalism, revokes the whole Jewish tradition on which Christianity is grafted; it takes the seriousness out of religion; it sweetens the pang of sin, which becomes misfortune; it removes the urgency of salvation; it steals empirical reality away from the last judgment, from hell, and from ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... a short one this time at any rate; and that's a blessing!" said the old gentleman rather irritably. "Rationalism—eh? I understand that ism, I rather suspect, better than the other. It means in plain English, that you think I'm wrong in only wanting to give religious instruction the same chance with Zack which you let all ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... not pleased at the mention of Mrs. Maginnis. Since the death of Wilhelmina, two weeks before, her mind had been disturbed as to the substantial value of faith-cures. Dr. Beswick's rationalism on the subject rose to trouble her. Happily she had not been sent for to visit any new cases, the death of Wilhelmina, her first notable example, having a little spoiled the charm of her success, as Dr. Beswick had foreseen. Doubt ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... religious enthusiasm, as commonly understood, by aesthetic. The loveliness of the Christian legend—from that he started. He dealt with the New Testament very much as he had formerly dealt with the Elizabethan poets. He would have no appeal to the vulgar by aggressive rationalists. Let rationalism filter down in the course of time; the vulgar were not prepared for it as yet. It was bad that they should be superstitious, but worse, far worse, that they should be brutally irreverent, and brutal irreverence inevitably ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... of postponed rationalism, a rationalism intercepted by a supernatural version of the conditions of happiness. Its moral principle is reason—the only moral principle there is; its motive power is the impulse and natural hope to be and to be happy. Christianity merely renews ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Lefranc in his "Veil raised for the Curious." A mystic and diabolic aspect of the Fraternity is so remote from his mind that in his "Secret of Freemasonry" the Bishop of Grenoble affirms that its sole project is to replace Christianity by rationalism. ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... not proposed to enter into the Rationalism of the last century, therefore; or to inquire into the causes of the barren lifeless shape into which Theology then, for the most part, threw itself. I have never made that department of Ecclesiastical History my study: and who does ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... the preacher, the one commanding law is that men should cling to truth and right, if the very heavens fall. In principle this is universally accepted. To the partisans of authority and tradition it is as much a commonplace as to the partisans of the most absolute and unflinching rationalism. Yet in practice all schools alike are forced to admit the necessity of a measure of accommodation in the very interests of truth itself. Fanatic is a name of such ill repute, exactly because one who deserves to be called by it ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... indifferent on many points (on the reality of witchcraft, for instance) concerning which Browne's more timid, personally grounded faith might indulge no scepticism, forced himself, nevertheless, to detect a vein of rationalism in a book which on the whole much attracted him, and hastily put forth his "animadversions" upon it. Browne, with all his distaste for controversy, thus found himself committed to a dispute, and his ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... interference on His part, though His existence might be necessary for its conservation. A view so sharply opposed to the current belief could not have made way as it did without a penetrating criticism of the current theology. Such criticism was performed by Bayle. His works were a school for rationalism for about seventy years. He supplied to the thinkers of the eighteenth century, English as well as French, a magazine of subversive arguments, and he helped to emancipate morality both ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... to prayer, and the priest and the sage may exchange altars without the compromise of faith or of knowledge.' Infidelity has shifted the battlefield from metaphysics to physics, from idealism and rationalism to positivism or rank materialism; and in order to combat it successfully, in order to build up an imperishable system of Christian teleology, it is necessary that you should thoroughly acquaint yourself with the 'natural sciences,' with dynamics, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... collusion with the spirit of evil, and every man was warned that the less he had to do with the "daughters of men" the more perfect might be his communion with the Creator. Lecky in his History of Rationalism shows what women endured when these ideas were prevalent, and their sufferings were not mitigated until rationalism took the place of religion, and reason ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Scripture that is divinely inspired is also profitable, etc.," he would virtually have said, "There is some Scripture, some part of the Bible, that is not profitable, etc., and therefore is not inspired." This is what the spirit of rationalism wants, namely, to make human reason the test and judge and measure of what is inspired and what is not. One man says such and such a verse is not profitable to him, another says such and such a verse is not profitable to him; a third ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... was at that time curiously eager for some adequate philosophy of life, and his social satire seemed very small beer indeed. I was really young. I hungered after great truths: "Middle-march," "Adam Bede," "The Rise and Fall of Rationalism," "The History of Civilisation," were momentous events in my life. But I loved life better than books, and I cultivated with care the acquaintance of a neighbour who had taken the Globe Theatre for the purpose of producing ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... were momentous. Connected on the one side with scholarship and the study of texts, it opened the path for modern biblical criticism. Connected on the other side with intolerance of mere authority, it led to what has since been named rationalism—the attempt to reconcile the religious tradition with the reason, and to define the logical ideas that underlie the conceptions of the popular religious conscience. Again, by promulgating the doctrine of personal freedom, and by connecting ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... I dispute? Surely not. Surely I believe in you and in 'mysteries.' Surely I prefer the no-reason to ever so much rationalism ... (rationalism and infidelity go together they say!). All which I may do, and be afraid sometimes notwithstanding, and when you overpraise me (not overlove) I must be ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... marrying a Quaker lady from York." Suppose Dr. Karl Pearson had said to Shelley, "From what I see of your temperament, you are running great risks in forming a connection with the daughter of a fanatic and eccentric like Godwin." Shelley would be employing the strict rationalism of the older and stronger free thinkers, if he answered, "From what I observe of your mind, you are rushing on destruction in marrying the great-niece of an old corpse of a courtier and dilettante like Samuel Rogers." It ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... went, she had the autumn foliage, and she managed to say a new thing about it: it is "color taking its fond and bright farewell of form—like the imagination giving a deeper, richer, and warmer glow to old familiar truths before the winter of rationalism comes and places trunk and branches in naked outline ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... religion is typical of the limits of humanistic interests and perceptions. In making his division of reason into the theoretical and the practical, it is to the latter realm that he assigns morality and religion. Clearly this is genuine rationalism. I am not forgetting Kant's great religious contribution. He was the son of devout German pietists and saturated in the literature of the Old Testament. It is to Amos, who may justly be called his spiritual father, that he owes the moral absoluteness of his categorical imperative, the ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... fast men less constrained. Solemnity, even in dissipation, is the order of the day; and they go to the devil with a perverse seriousness, a systematic rationalism of wickedness that would have surprised the simpler sinners of old. Some of these men whom we see gravely conversing on the steps have but a slender acquaintance with each other. Their intercourse consists principally of mutual bulletins ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 'Fraser' attacking Manning, and criticising among other writings Mr. Lecky's 'Rationalism' (very favourably), and Professor Seeley's then anonymous 'Ecce Homo.' He thinks that the author is a 'sheep in wolf's clothing,' and that his views dissolve into mist when closely examined. I need not give any account of these articles, but I may notice a personal connection which was involved. ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... that of a fierce and untutored knighthood. These tales were the product of the English mind in its boyhood, and it is to the youth of our day that they are best adapted and most attractive; but the rationalism of the nineteenth century may find in their spirit of simple faith, of unquestioning belief and trust, much that is beautiful in human life which modern thought and science have swept away. It is on account of the enduring character ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... deists of England had very little to teach a disciple of Bayle, Fontenelle, and Montesquieu. They were, almost without exception, a group of second-rate and insignificant writers whose 'onslaught' upon current beliefs was only to a faint extent 'systematic and reasoned.' The feeble and fluctuating rationalism of Toland and Wollaston, the crude and confused rationalism of Collins, the half-crazy rationalism of Woolston, may each and all, no doubt, have furnished Voltaire with arguments and suggestions, but they cannot have seriously influenced ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... theology. The paltry discussions of scholasticism, the dryness of spirit of Descartes, the deep-rooted irreligion of the eighteenth century, by lessening God, and by limiting Him, in a manner, by the exclusion of everything which is not His very self, have stifled in the breast of modern rationalism all fertile ideas of the Divinity. If God, in fact, is a personal being outside of us, he who believes himself to have peculiar relations with God is a "visionary," and as the physical and physiological sciences have shown us that all supernatural visions are illusions, the logical Deist ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... political theories, but were contented, as in old days, to be governed by the King. It was a religious society; among the peasants and the nobles, if not among the clergy, there still lingered something of the simple but profound faith of German Protestantism; they were scarcely touched by the rationalism of the eighteenth or by the liberalism of the nineteenth century; there was little pomp and ceremony of worship in the village church, but the natural periods of human life—birth, marriage, death—called for the blessing of the Church, ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... Invasion of Scepticism. Rationalism of Cotton Mather, and its cause Blaise de Vigenere Erastus Bekker, Lubienitzky, Pierre Petit Bayle Fontenelle The ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... was not picturesque like Dickens, and I was at that time curiously eager for some adequate philosophy of life, and his social satire seemed very small beer indeed. I was really young. I hungered after great truths: Middlemarch, Adam Bede, The Rise and Influence of Rationalism, The History of Civilisation, were momentous events in my life. But I loved life better than books, and very curiously my studies and my pleasures kept pace, stepping together like a pair of well-trained carriage horses. While I was waiting for my coach ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... through the life, conflicts of religious creeds, strifes between Protestantism and Catholicism, between Platonism, Mysticism, and Rationalism. In dealing with such delicate and serious topics I have avoided all controversy, and have ventured only on the simplest and briefest exposition. My effort has been to state the case fairly all round, to maintain an even ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... father to son are adhered to without wavering, and at the same time without apparent enthusiasm. Catholics and Protestants live amicably side by side; but intermarriages are rare, and conversions from Rome to rationalism infrequent. The Sunday services of the little Protestant church are often attended by Catholics. Strangers passing through Osse, market-folk, peasants and others, never fail to inspect it curiously. The Protestant pastor is looked up to with respect and affection alike by Catholic and Protestant ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... matters and a remarkable degree of uncertainty and embarrassment in the discussion of great problems. At the Borckes', and also at the homes in Morgnitz and Dabergotz, she had been declared "infected with rationalism," but at the Grasenabbs' she was pronounced point-blank an "atheist." To be sure, the elderly Mrs. Grasenabb, nee Stiefel, of Stiefelstein in South Germany, had made a weak attempt to save Effi at least for deism. But Sidonie von Grasenabb, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... grotesque, be recognised among thinkers, our reigning philosophy will modify itself; scientific men will conceive differently from Humboldt (for instance) of the mystery of life; the materialism which stifles the higher instincts of men will be dislodged, and the rationalism which divides Oxford with Romanism (nothing between, we hear!) will ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... needs the witness of a united Church. Men must hear again the voice which peals through the lapse of centuries bearing witness to the "faith once delivered to the saints," or else for many souls there will be only rationalism and unbelief—while this sad, weary world, so full of sin and sorrow, is pleading for help, it is a wrong to Christ and to the souls for whom He died that His children should be separated in rival folds. As baptised into Christ we are brothers. Notwithstanding the hedges ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple
... to whom even Confucius paid extraordinary deference. This man was called Lao-tse, a recluse and philosopher, who was already an old man when Confucius began his travels. He was the founder of Tao-tze, a kind of rationalism, which at present has millions of adherents in China. This old philosopher did not receive Confucius very graciously, since the younger man declared nothing new, only wishing to revive the teachings of ancient sages, while he himself was a great awakener ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... 60. RATIONALISM.—As the content of a philosophical doctrine must be determined by the initial assumptions which a philosopher makes and by the method which he adopts in his reasonings, it is well to examine with some care certain ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... Psalm-tunes—an instrument designed For the New England tour—refined From secular drosses, and inclined To an unworldly turn, (combined With no sectarian bias;) Then, travelling by stages slow, Under the style of Knott & Co., I would accompany the show As moral lecturer, the foe 590 Of Rationalism; while you could throw The rappings in, and make them go Strict Puritan principles, you know, (How do you make 'em? with your toe?) And the receipts which thence might flow, We could divide between us; Still more attractions to combine, Beside these services of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... shall better see that presently; only I have to remind you, for the glory of your Rationalism, that other Rationalists make the errors extend even to the 'moral element'; but it is all one to me. You say, that, as far as regards every thing else, it is very possible that these 'inspired' men might ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers |
