Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-k7p5g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T16:17:19.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

From ‘Ideas’ (1800)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

J. M. Bernstein
Affiliation:
New School University, New York
Get access

Summary

5. The mind understands something only in so far as it absorbs it like a seed into itself, nurtures it and lets it grow into blossom and fruit. Therefore scatter holy seed into the soil of the spirit, without any affectation and any added superfluities.

8. The mind, says the author of the Talks on Religion, can understand only the universe. Let imagination take over and you will have a God. Quite right: for the imagination is man's faculty for perceiving divinity.

11. Only through religion does logic become philosophy; only from it comes everything that makes philosophy greater than science. And instead of an eternally rich, infinite poetry, the lack of religion gives us only novels or the triviality that now is called art.

13. Only someone who has his own religion, his own original way of looking at infinity, can be an artist.

15. Every particular conception of God is mere gossip. But the idea of God is the Idea of ideas.

16. The priest as such exists only in the invisible world. In what guise is it possible for him to appear among men? His only purpose on earth will be to transform the finite into the infinite; hence he must be and continue to be, no matter what the name of his profession, an artist.

19. To have genius is the natural state of humanity. Nature endowed even humanity with health, and since love is for women what genius is for men, we must conceive of the golden age as a time when love and genius were universal.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

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.

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.

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.

Available formats
×