Rodionikov
Canada
You say you can't see a reign of goodness and truth on earth. Nor could I, and it cannot be seen if one looks on our life here as the end of everything. On earth, here on this earth, there is no truth, all is false and evil; but in the universe, in the whole universe, there is a kingdom of truth, and we who are now the children of earth are - eternally - children of the whole universe. Don't i feel in my soul that I am part of this vast harmonious whole? Don't I feel that I form one link, one step, between the lower and higher beings, in this vast harmonious multitude of beings in whom the Deity the Supreme Power if you prefer the term - is manifest? If i see, clearly see, that ladder leading from plant to man, why should I suppose it breaks off at me and does not go farther and farther? I feel that i cannot vanish, since nothing vanishes in this world, but that i shall always exist and always have existed. I feel that beyond me and above me there are spirits, and that in this world there is truth.

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But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others - he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself: and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals - when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition. Just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance.

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You say you can't see a reign of goodness and truth on earth. Nor could I, and it cannot be seen if one looks on our life here as the end of everything. On earth, here on this earth, there is no truth, all is false and evil; but in the universe, in the whole universe, there is a kingdom of truth, and we who are now the children of earth are - eternally - children of the whole universe. Don't i feel in my soul that I am part of this vast harmonious whole? Don't I feel that I form one link, one step, between the lower and higher beings, in this vast harmonious multitude of beings in whom the Deity the Supreme Power if you prefer the term - is manifest? If i see, clearly see, that ladder leading from plant to man, why should I suppose it breaks off at me and does not go farther and farther? I feel that i cannot vanish, since nothing vanishes in this world, but that i shall always exist and always have existed. I feel that beyond me and above me there are spirits, and that in this world there is truth.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others - he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself: and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals - when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition. Just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance.

WU TANG IS FOR THE CHILDREN
WU TANG KILLA BEES ON A SWARM
WU
WU
WU
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Free Will and the Law of Necessity
If history dealt with external phenomena, the establishment of this simple and obvious law would suffice and we should have finished our argument. But the law of history relates to man. A particle of matter cannot tell us that it does not feel the law of attraction or repulsion and that that law is untrue, but man, who is the subject of history, says plainly: I am free, and am therefore not subject to the law.

The presence of the problem of man's freewill, though unexpressed, is felt at every step of history.

All seriously thinking historians have involuntarily encountered this question. All the contradictions and obscurities of history, and the false path historical science has followed, are due solely to the lack of a solution of that question.

If the will of every man were free, that is, if each man could act as he pleased, all history would be a series of disconnected accidents.

If in a thousand years even one man in a million could act freely, that is, as he chose, it is evident that one single free act of that man's in violation of the laws governing human action, would destroy the possibility of the existence of any laws for the whole of humanity.

If there be a single law governing the actions of men, freewill cannot exist, for man's will would be subject to that law. In this contradiction lies the problem of freewill, which from most ancient times has occupied the best human minds and from most ancient times has been presented in its whole tremendous significance.

The problem is, that regarding man as a subject of observation from whatever point of view theological, historical, ethical, or philosophic - we find a general law of necessity to which he (like all that exists) is subject. But regarding him from within ourselves, as what we are conscious of, we feel ourselves to be free.


- Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, War and Peace Epilogue Part II, Chapter 8 Opening Monologue (1869).
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Jul 22, 2015 @ 2:16pm 
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