“There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object those qualities with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious.” (David Hume, "Of Miracles and the origin of religion.")

“the boundaries of what is possible in moral matters are less narrow than we think. It is our weaknesses, our vices and our prejudices that shrink them. Base souls do not believe in great men; vile slave smile with an air of mockery at the word liberty.” (Rousseau, Social Contract, 195)

I've become more and more convinced that the traits we have--our weaknesses, predilections, fears, and hopes--, we attribute to others. If we are unmerciful, we expect others to be unmerciful; if we are suspicious, we assume that others are too. It thus comes as a surprise to us when people do kind or generous things that we don't expect them to do, because maybe we would not have thought to do it ourselves. I like this quote by Rousseau for expressing how this human trait limits us. 'base souls do not believe in great men;' we have a hard time getting above our natures. At the same time, the power of example is inestimable. I guess the moral then is to be unassuming.

Prudence

"...goodness of heart and openness of temper, though these may give (you) great comfort within, and administer to an honest pride in their own minds, will by no means, alas! do their business in the world. Prudence and circumspection are necessary even to the best of men. They are indeed, as it were, a guard to Virtue, without which she can never be safe. It is not enough that your designs, nay, that your actions, are intrinsically good; you must take care they shall appear so. If your inside be never so beautiful, you must preserve a fair outside also. This must be constantly looked to, or malice and enjy will take care to blacken it....Let this, my young readers, be your constant maxim, that no man can be good enough to enable him to neglect the rules of prudence; nor will virtue herself look beautiful unless she be bedecked with the outward ornaments of decency and decorum." (Henry Fielding, "Tom Jones")

I heard an argument the other day in favor of not rejecting the idea of watching explicit material just because it is explicit. You have to judge it for how it is presented and what the overall point is. Otherwise you are limiting yourself to important concepts and intimating that you do not have complete free agency in that you cannot control your actions after seeing explicit material, so the argument went. As much as I am partial to this way of thinking, and recognize its logic, I don't know how far I am willing to throw all caution to the wind and be so sure of myself that that which I view doesn't affect me. Sounds quite anti-humanistic, but I think this quote helps to illustrate an important consideration.

Conscience and Religion

"For there can and must be no radical difference between morality and religion. If a conflict arises between them, if the testimony of the Bible contradicts the testimony of the moral conscience, this dispute should be settled in a way that respects the absolute primacy of the moral consciousness. For if we relinquish this primacy, we forego any criterion of religious truth; then we no longer have any standard by which to measure the claims to certainty of an alleged revelation or distinguish, within religion itself, between reality and deception. Every literal interpretation of the Bible must therefore be rejected which commands us to act contrary to the first principles of morality." (Ernst Cassirer paraphrasing Bayle's (17th century philosopher) philosophy on religion)

"Past times are is if they had never been. It is always necessary to start at the point at which one already stands, and at which nations have arrived." (Voltaire)

This is probably one of the most interesting questions I know of: When there is a conflict between what a convention that we recognize as authority prescribes, and what something inside us says. Bayle is saying that since all religious belief originates in conscience and feeling--a realm beyond physical senses and the basis for revelation--than if we were to relegate conscience to a secondary position when deciding the truth of something, we would negate religion's foundation. This has always been interesting for me even though I can't say that I have had great struggles between my conscience and what my traditional beliefs have prescribed; it has been more a matter of gaining knowledge and confirming that something was true. I am aware though that this can be an extremely real problem. I think that Voltaire's quote clears this up a bit though. One would do well to take everything presented to them as authority as new and to test it out against their conscience. We would have to remembe Kant's cautioning that we proceed this way without rejecting and disobeying it also. If we were to question everything and disobey everything until we received some type of inner feeling of it being in harmony with our morals, society would be a mess.

Shaftesbury and Beauty

"All beauty is truth, just as all truth can be understood basically only through the meaning of form, that is, the meaning of beauty...Sense as such is not capable of perceiving this phenomenon, let alone understanding it in its ultimate origin. Where sense only is involved, where the relation we establish between ourselves and the world depends merely on our instincts and appetites, there is as yet no acces to the realm of form. The animal that is affected by the objects of its environment merely as stimuli which awaken its instincts and occasion certain reactions, is ignorant of all knowledge of the form of things. This knowledge does not spring from the force of desire as a direct sense reaction but from the force of pure contemplation, which is free of all desire for possession and of any act of direct seizure of the object. In this faculty of pure contemplation and of a pleasure which is not motivated by any 'interest' (is) the fundamental force behind all artistic enjoyment and all artistic creation." (Cassirir on Shaftesbury and Beauty)

I think Shaftesbury is making a very important point here. One understanding of beauty is often connected with the immediate effect on the eyes or senses. I think Shaftesbury points to animal instincts here and sees that such instincts correspond to an immediate action or desire to partake, touch, taste, or own the object. I think he is searching for a deeper understanding of beauty where contemplation is first required to appreciate what makes the object pleasing to the senses i.e. the process of creation and development and/or work involved to bring it to this point. He sees this undestanding as leading to the greatest possible aesthetic enjoyment. I see it as important because it removes the possibility of false motivations for considering beauty and instills a desire to acquire the traits of the beautiful object.

Seneca

"'Why do many adversities come to good men?' No evil can befall a good man; opposites do not mingle. Just as the countless rivers, the vast fall of rain from the sky, and the huge volume of mineral springs do not change the taste of the sea, do not even modify it, so the assaults of adversity do not weaken the spirit of a brave man. It always maintains its poise, and it gives its own colour to everything that happens; for it is mightier than all external things. And yet I do not mean to say that the brave man is insensible to these, but that he overcomes them, and being in all else unmoved and calm rises to meet whatever assails him. All his adversities he counts mere training. Who, moreover, if he is a man and intent upon the right, is not eager for reasonable toil and ready for duties accompanied by danger? To what energetic man is not idleness a punishment? Wrestlers, who make strength of body their chief concern, we see pitting themselves against none but the strongest, and they require of those who are preparing them for the arena that they use against them all their strength; they submit to blows and hurts, and if they do not find their match in single opponents, they engage with several at a time. Without an adversary, prowess shrivels. We see how great and how efficient it really is, only when it shows by endurance what it is capable of. Be assured that good men ought to act likewise; they should not shrink from hardships and difficulties, nor complain against fate; they should take in good part whatever happens, and should turn it to good. Not what you endure, but how you endure, is important."

I think this fits in well with Emerson's "Compensation" and gives maybe a reason why all things end up returning to their natural order. Seneca says that "no evil can befall a good man"; not that seemingly difficult things do not happen to them but because of how good men react to something that may seem bad changes that adversity to a learning and growing experience. This really is common sense. We see this at work in nature and in society. The muscle is torn in order to grow stronger, seperation from loved ones makes the bonds of love tighter. At the same time a lack of judgmenet can turn even minor ordeals into crisis and weaken us if we are not strong.