Josiah Royce
Josiah Royce
Josiah Roycewas an American objective idealist philosopher...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth20 November 1855
CountryUnited States of America
self giving firsts
The other aspect of idealism is the one which gives us our notion of the absolute Self. To it the first is only preparatory. This second aspect is the one which from Kant, until the present time, has formed the deeper problem of thought.
moving past self
A self is, by its very essence, a being with a past. One must look lengthwise backwards in the stream of time in order to see theself, or its shadow, now moving with the stream, now eddying in the currents from bank to bank of its channel, and now strenuously straining onwards in the pursuit of its chosen good.
loving thinking
Thinking is like loving or dying. Each of us must do it for ourselves.
remained
The world, as transformed by this creative deed, is better than it would have been had all else remained the same, but had that deed of treason not been done at all.
Ideas any one can mould as he wishes.
conscious experience figures personal poor rational relation universal
For by such poor figures I may, in passing, symbolize that really rational relation of our personal experience to universal conscious experience.
cruelty deed due enter fitting human love loyal oppose shall time tragic treason
No baseness or cruelty of treason so deep or so tragic shall enter our human world, but that loyal love shall be able in due time to oppose to just that deed of treason its fitting deed of atonement.
believe beloved whenever
As for you, my beloved friend, I loyally believe in your uniqueness; but whenever I try to tell to you wherein it consists, I helplessly describe only a type.
life
It is an old story, this life of ours. There is nothing new under our sun. Nothing new, that is, for us, as we now feel and think.
cause despite evil far loyalty
It is an evil cause in so far as, despite the loyalty that it arouses in me, it is destructive of loyalty in the world of my fellows.
case evil fullest innocent life triumph
It is not those innocent of evil who are fullest of the life of God, but those who in their own case have experienced the triumph over evil
attains essential finds god individuality lives true union wins
And just because God attains and wins and finds this uniqueness, all our lives win in our union with him the individuality which is essential to their true meaning.
life-is individual knows
For the Absolute, as we now know, all life is individual, but is individual as expressing a meaning.
unique strive needed
So far as we live and strive at all, our lives are various, are needed for the whole, and are unique.