Related to Material relating to the history of emotions
Description:

'Cosmic Emotion' (Vol. II), pp. 253-285:

 

'By a cosmic emotion - the phrase is Mr. Henry Sidgwick's - I mean an emotion which is felt in regard to the universe or sum of things, viewed as a cosmos or order. There are two kinds of cosmic emotion one having  reference to the Macrocosm or universe surrounding and containing us, the other relating to the Microcosm or universe of our own souls. When we try to put together the most general conceptions that we can form about the great aggregate of events that are always going on, to strike a sort of balance among the feelings which these events produce in us, and to add to these the feeling of vastness associated with an attempt to represent the whole of existence, then we experience a cosmic emotion of the first kind... If, on the other hand, we consider the totality of our own actions and of the feelings that go with them or spring out of them, if we frame the highest possible generalization to express the character of those which we call good, and if we contemplate this with the feeling of vastness which belongs to that which concerns all things that all men do, we shall experience a cosmic emotion of the second kind.' (253-254)

 

'The character of the emotion with which men contemplate the world, the temper in which they stand in the presence of the immensities and the eternities, must depend first of all on what they think the world is. The theory of the universe, the view of things, prevalent at any time and place, will rouse appropriate feelings in those who contemplate it; not the same in all, for temperament varies with the individual, and the same facts stir differently different souls, yet so that, on the whole, the character of cosmic emotion depends on the nature of cosmic ideas.

When, therefore, the inevitable progress of knowledge has changed the prevalent cosmic ideas, so that the world as we know it is not the world which our fathers knew, the oldest cosmic emotions are no longer found to fit.' (254-255)

 

'We always know a little more than our imaginations have thoroughly pictured. To some minds there is hope and renewing of youth in the sense that the last word is not yet spoken, that greater mysteries yet lie behind the veil... But others see in the clearer and wider vision that approaches them the end of all beauty and joy in the earth; because their old feelings are not suited to the new learning, they think that learning can stir no feelings at all.' (255-256)

 

'Whatever conception... we can form of the external cosmos must be regarded as only provisional and not final, as waiting revision when we shall have pushed the bounds of our knowledge further away into time and space. It must always, therefore, have a character of incompleteness about it, a want, a stretching out for something better to come, the expectation of a further lesson from the universal teacher, Experience...

But again, this incompleteness does not belong to our conception of the external cosmos alone, but to that of the internal cosmos also. Human nature is fluent, it is constantly though slowly changing, and the universe of human action is changing also. Whatever general conception we may form of good actions and bad ones, we must regard it as quite valid only for ourselves ; the next generation will have a slightly modified form of it, but not the same thing. The Kantian universality is no longer possible. No maxim can be valid at all times and places for all rational beings ; a maxim valid for us can only be valid for such portions of the human race as are practically identical with ourselves.' (269-270)

 

'So far our cosmic conception is external. Starting with organic action, as that which has affected the evolution of life and all the works of life, we have found it to have the character of freedom, or action from within, and in the case of the social organism we have seen that freedom is the organic action of society as such, which is what we call the Republic. The Republic is the visible embodiment and personification of freedom in its highest external type.

But the Republic is itself still further personified, in a way that leads us back with new light to the conception of the internal cosmos. The practice of band-work, or comradeship, the organic action of society, has so moulded the nature of man as to create in it two specially human faculties the conscience and the intellect... Conscience and reason form an inner core in the human mind, having an origin and a nature distinct from the merely animal passions and perceptions ; they constitute the soul or spirit of man, the universal part in every one of us. In these are bound up, embalmed and embodied, all the struggles and searchings of spirit of the countless generations which have made us what we are. Action which arises out of that inner core, which is prompted by conscience and guided by reason, is free in the highest sense of all; this at last is good in the ethical sense. And yet, when we act with this most perfect freedom, it may be said that it is not we that act, but Man that worketh in us.' (283-284)

 

Related to Speculation regarding the future evolution of mind (c.1850-1940)
Description:

'Cosmic Emotion' (Vol. II), pp. 253-285:

 

'By a cosmic emotion - the phrase is Mr. Henry Sidgwick's - I mean an emotion which is felt in regard to the universe or sum of things, viewed as a cosmos or order. There are two kinds of cosmic emotion one having  reference to the Macrocosm or universe surrounding and containing us, the other relating to the Microcosm or universe of our own souls. When we try to put together the most general conceptions that we can form about the great aggregate of events that are always going on, to strike a sort of balance among the feelings which these events produce in us, and to add to these the feeling of vastness associated with an attempt to represent the whole of existence, then we experience a cosmic emotion of the first kind... If, on the other hand, we consider the totality of our own actions and of the feelings that go with them or spring out of them, if we frame the highest possible generalization to express the character of those which we call good, and if we contemplate this with the feeling of vastness which belongs to that which concerns all things that all men do, we shall experience a cosmic emotion of the second kind.' (253-254)

 

'The character of the emotion with which men contemplate the world, the temper in which they stand in the presence of the immensities and the eternities, must depend first of all on what they think the world is. The theory of the universe, the view of things, prevalent at any time and place, will rouse appropriate feelings in those who contemplate it; not the same in all, for temperament varies with the individual, and the same facts stir differently different souls, yet so that, on the whole, the character of cosmic emotion depends on the nature of cosmic ideas.

When, therefore, the inevitable progress of knowledge has changed the prevalent cosmic ideas, so that the world as we know it is not the world which our fathers knew, the oldest cosmic emotions are no longer found to fit.' (254-255)

 

'We always know a little more than our imaginations have thoroughly pictured. To some minds there is hope and renewing of youth in the sense that the last word is not yet spoken, that greater mysteries yet lie behind the veil... But others see in the clearer and wider vision that approaches them the end of all beauty and joy in the earth; because their old feelings are not suited to the new learning, they think that learning can stir no feelings at all.' (255-256)

 

'Whatever conception... we can form of the external cosmos must be regarded as only provisional and not final, as waiting revision when we shall have pushed the bounds of our knowledge further away into time and space. It must always, therefore, have a character of incompleteness about it, a want, a stretching out for something better to come, the expectation of a further lesson from the universal teacher, Experience...

But again, this incompleteness does not belong to our conception of the external cosmos alone, but to that of the internal cosmos also. Human nature is fluent, it is constantly though slowly changing, and the universe of human action is changing also. Whatever general conception we may form of good actions and bad ones, we must regard it as quite valid only for ourselves ; the next generation will have a slightly modified form of it, but not the same thing. The Kantian universality is no longer possible. No maxim can be valid at all times and places for all rational beings ; a maxim valid for us can only be valid for such portions of the human race as are practically identical with ourselves.' (269-270)

 

'So far our cosmic conception is external. Starting with organic action, as that which has affected the evolution of life and all the works of life, we have found it to have the character of freedom, or action from within, and in the case of the social organism we have seen that freedom is the organic action of society as such, which is what we call the Republic. The Republic is the visible embodiment and personification of freedom in its highest external type.

But the Republic is itself still further personified, in a way that leads us back with new light to the conception of the internal cosmos. The practice of band-work, or comradeship, the organic action of society, has so moulded the nature of man as to create in it two specially human faculties the conscience and the intellect... Conscience and reason form an inner core in the human mind, having an origin and a nature distinct from the merely animal passions and perceptions ; they constitute the soul or spirit of man, the universal part in every one of us. In these are bound up, embalmed and embodied, all the struggles and searchings of spirit of the countless generations which have made us what we are. Action which arises out of that inner core, which is prompted by conscience and guided by reason, is free in the highest sense of all; this at last is good in the ethical sense. And yet, when we act with this most perfect freedom, it may be said that it is not we that act, but Man that worketh in us.' (283-284)