Orthodoxy: Its Truths And ErrorsClarke, James Freeman
Religion
Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors
Clarke, James Freeman
Unitarianism
The human soul, a unit, indivisible, and without parts, nevertheless acts
in three directions—of will, affection, intellect. These are
distinguishable, though not divisible. Every one knows the difference
between an _act_; an _emotion_ of anger, pity, sorrow, love; and a process
of logic, or an intellectual argument. These are the three primary states
of the mind, evidently distinct. It is impossible to mistake either for
the other. I may direct my mind towards action, towards thought, or
towards emotion. The first of these, action, is the most within my own
power, depends chiefly on myself, lies nearest the will. _Will_ passes
instantaneously into action. I will to lift my arm, and it is done. On the
other hand, feeling or emotion lies the farthest from this centre of will,
depends least of all on my own choice, and in it I am most passive. But
the sphere of intellect is intermediate. I am more free when I think than
when I feel; less free than when I act. In the domain of will, I act upon
external things; in the domain of feeling, I am acted upon by external
things; in the domain of intellect, I neither act nor am acted upon, but I
_see_ them. In all thinking, in proportion as it is pure thought, both
will and emotion are excluded. We are neither actors nor sufferers, but
spectators. Things seen pass into our life through the intellect, and
become sources of emotion and action. Love of truth causes us to desire to
know it; this desire leads us to put our mind in the presence of truth,
but when there, the functions of emotion and will cease, and all we have
to do is to look.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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