The Scientific Spirit of the Age, and Other Pleas and Discussions — John Shaqi
The Scientific Spirit of the Age, and Other Pleas and DiscussionsCobbe, Frances Power
Religion
The Scientific Spirit of the Age, and Other Pleas and Discussions
Cobbe, Frances Power
Knowledge, Sociology of; Philosophy and religion; Science -- Moral and ethical aspects
To resume the subject of this paper. We have seen that the Emotions,
which are the chief springs of human conduct, may either be produced by
their natural stimuli or conveyed by contagion from other minds, but
that they can neither be _commanded_ nor _taught_. If we desire to
convey good and noble emotions to our fellow-creatures, the only means
whereby we can effect that end is by filling our own hearts with them
till they overflow into the hearts of others. Here lies the great truth
which the preachers of Altruism persistently overlook. It is better to
_be_ good than to _do_ good. We can benefit our kind in no way so much
as by being ourselves pure and upright and noble-minded. We can never
_teach_ Religion to such purpose as we can _live_ it.
It was my privilege to know a woman who for more than twenty years was
chained by a cruel malady to what Heine called a “mattress grave.”
Little or nothing was it possible for her to do for any one in the way
of ordinary service. Her many schemes of usefulness and beneficence were
all stopped. Yet, merely by attaining to the lofty heights of spiritual
life and knowledge, that suffering woman helped and lifted up the hearts
of all who came around her, and did more real good, and of the highest
kind, than half the preachers and philanthropists in the land. Even now,
when her beautiful soul has been released at last from its earthly cage,
it still lifts many who knew her to the love of God and Duty to remember
what she was, and to the faith in immortality to think what now she must
be, within the golden gates.
ESSAY III.
PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM.
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