Philosophy and religion -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- United States
_Immortality_
I. IMPORTANCE TO US OF AN OPINION CONCERNING DEATH AND IMMORTALITY:
_a._ We know we must die soon:
1. Speak of the numberless generations of life.
_b._ We live according to our expectations:
1. Relation throughout history of beliefs concerning
immortality and of the morality of peoples.
2. Good and bad effects of belief in heaven and hell.
II. KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING IMMORTALITY:
_a._ What is Knowledge?
1. The relativity of all knowledge.
2. Knowledge through conviction loses force when there
is disagreement.
3. Knowledge through analogy is like circumstantial
evidence.
_b._ We know:
1. That matter and force do not die.
α. We know of nothing that is positively mortal.
2. That life works in a certain direction.
3. That death and re-birth are the means of moving in
that direction, _i.e._, of progress.
4. That this progress is of the spirit or self.
5. That we are forever a part of the world, related to
the whole.
6. As we know nothing but consciousness or self, we
believe it must be immortal, though we have no proof.
III. THE THEORY OF RACE-IMMORTALITY AS AN IDEAL:
_a._ It is more improbable than self-immortality.
1. All planets die.
2. The last generation, dies, too.
_b._ It is not true immortality:
1. The thing we cannot transmit is the Self which loves
and seeks.
IV. MEMORY AND PERSONALITY:
_a._ Admission of ignorance and indifference. Why?
1. Everything is a memory and a prophecy, since
everything exists forever, and advances.
2. The body is a memory.
3. Memory must continue at least in its results on the
self, if not more definitely.
_b._ Love and Meeting:
1. Love may have other satisfactions than we dream of.
2. We are all one, and cannot be separated.
V. “I AM” EXPRESSES IMMORTALITY:
_a._ Each least thing is eternal and universal.
SEVENTH MEETING
_The Meaning of Beauty_
I. BEAUTY IS THE SYMBOL OF COMPLETENESS AND HARMONY:
_a._ This is the reason beauty delights us:
1. It pictures the aim and desire of our whole life.
_b._ The smallest thing can be as a universe in itself, if it be
complete and harmonious, _i.e._, perfect:
1. A drop as well as a planet; a dog, in his way, as
well as a man; a day as well as a century.
II. THE GOOD, THE TRUE AND THE BEAUTIFUL HAVE THE SAME END, AND ARE
SOUGHT, RESPECTIVELY, BY PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE AND ART:
_a._ Philosophy seeks the whole at once, therefore can never
reach that completeness.
_b._ Science seeks individual truths, not the moral truth, or
aim:
1. Darwin, the philosophical scientist.
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