Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T17:30:49.532Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Unity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Bart Schultz
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Get access

Summary

(1) We may be over-conscientious about using words which do not to us convey what we believe: we must remember that our ideas are more or less incommunicable to uneducated minds and that what we have out-grown is actually not only ‘best for them’ but perhaps brings them as near as they can be brought to the truth. (2) We may often clothe new ideas in old words: the uneducated will not feel the inconsistency, and will imbibe the new teaching unconsciously: Mr Maurice is an excellent pattern in this species of useful ingenuity, though he carries it I think too far. (3) We must sometimes sacrifice our individuality to a system: if the teaching we are forced to give is better than what would otherwise be given, we must be satisfied with having chosen the lesser evil.

I must say a word as to my phrase ‘Regulative Beliefs’. I did not mean by this moral rules only but such parts of our creed as we believe to influence conduct: if we are only sceptical as to any of these beliefs, we should still, I think, teach them, if teaching be our duty: if we have rejected any of such beliefs, generally held, we should not, except in a very urgent case – alluded to in (3) – As to speculative beliefs the Athanasian creed offers an excellent example of what I would avoid teaching. If I had to teach a moral duty such as obedience I think I should teach the broad rule at one time, and the limitations at another, as a suitable opportunity arose for introducing them. They would be more likely, I imagine, thus to combine in due proportions in the rustic brain.

Henry Sidgwick, “Instructions for the ‘Initial Society’”
Type
Chapter
Information
Henry Sidgwick - Eye of the Universe
An Intellectual Biography
, pp. 61 - 136
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Unity
  • Bart Schultz, University of Chicago
  • Book: Henry Sidgwick - Eye of the Universe
  • Online publication: 09 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511498336.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Unity
  • Bart Schultz, University of Chicago
  • Book: Henry Sidgwick - Eye of the Universe
  • Online publication: 09 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511498336.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Unity
  • Bart Schultz, University of Chicago
  • Book: Henry Sidgwick - Eye of the Universe
  • Online publication: 09 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511498336.003
Available formats
×