Thoughts on Life and Religion: An Aftermath from the Writings of The Right Honourable Professor Max MüllerMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Religion
Thoughts on Life and Religion: An Aftermath from the Writings of The Right Honourable Professor Max Müller
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Life; Philosophy; Religion; Theology
Nature, Man, and Self are the three great manifestations in which
the infinite in some shape or other has been perceived, and
every one of these perceptions has in its historical development
contributed to what may be called religion.
_Gifford Lectures, I._
Like all other experiences, our religious experience begins with the
senses. Though the senses seem to deliver to us finite experiences
only, many, if not all, of them can be shown to involve something
beyond the Known, something unknown, something which I claim the
liberty to call infinite. In this way the human mind was led to
the recognition of undefined, infinite agents or agencies beyond,
behind, and within our finite experience. The feelings of fear, awe,
reverence, and love excited by the manifestations of some of these
agents or powers began to react on the human mind, and thus produced
what we call Natural Religion in its lowest and simplest form--fear,
awe, reverence, and love of the gods.
_Gifford Lectures, I._
The perception of the Infinite can be shown by historical evidence
to be the one element shared in common by all religions. Only
we must not forget that, like every other concept, that of the
Infinite also had to pass through many phases in its historical
evolution, beginning with the simple negation of what is finite, and
the assertion of an invisible Beyond, and leading up to a perceptive
belief in that most real Infinite in which we live and move and have
our being.
_Gifford Lectures, IV._
KNOWLEDGE
The lesson that there are limits to our knowledge is an old lesson,
but it has to be taught again and again. It was taught by Buddha,
it was taught by Socrates, and it was taught for the last time
in the most powerful manner by Kant. Philosophy has been called
the knowledge of our knowledge; it might be called more truly the
knowledge of our ignorance, or, to adopt the more moderate language
of Kant, the knowledge of the limits of our knowledge.
_Last Essays._
Metaphysical truth is wider than physical truth, and the new
discoveries of physical observers, if they are to be more than
merely contingent truths, must find their appointed place
and natural refuge within the immovable limits traced by the
metaphysician.... It is only after having mastered the principles
of metaphysics that the student of nature can begin his work in the
right spirit, knowing the horizon of human knowledge, and guided by
principles as unchangeable as the pole star.
_Last Essays._
There is no subject in the whole realm of human knowledge that
cannot be rendered clear and intelligible, if we ourselves have
perfectly mastered it.
_Chips._
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