Contentment

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Now she was dead and had simply gone through another alteration. “She is like the four seasons in the way that spring, summer, autumn and winter follow each other,” Zhuangzi reflected. She was now at peace, lying in the bosom of the dao, the greatest of mansions. If he wept and complained, he would be completely at odds with the Way things really were. 25 Zhuangzi and his friends showed a bemused, detached delight in the change, death, and dissolution that filled so many of the other sages of the Axial Age with dismay. One day, Master Li, one of Zhuangzi’s disciples, had visited a dying friend, and to his disgust found his wife and chil-dren sobbing at the bedside. “Out of the way! Shoo!” he cried. “Don’t pester change in the making!” Then, leaning against the door of his sick friend’s bedroom, he remarked whimsically: “It’s amazing—that Maker-of-Things! What will it make of you next? Where will it send you? Will it make you into a rat’s liver? Will it make you into a bug’s arm?” “Our parents are part of us,” the dying man replied. East and west, north and south—wherever we go, we follow their wishes. And we obey yin and yang even more completely. They’ve brought me here to the brink of death and to resist their wishes would be such insolence. We call our life a blessing, so our death must be a blessing too. Suppose a mighty metal-smith cast a piece of metal, which jumped up and said, “No, no—I must be one of those legendary Mo-yeh swords!” Wouldn’t the metal-smith consider it ominous metal? And suppose, having chanced upon human form, I insist, “Human, human, and nothing but human!” Wouldn’t the Maker- of-Change consider me an ominous person? I see Heaven and Earth as a mighty foundry and the Maker-of-Change as a mighty metal-smith—so wherever they send me, how could I ever complain? I’ll sleep soundly—and then, suddenly, I’ll wake. 26 Once they had given up thinking of themselves as unique and precious individuals whose lives must be preserved at all costs, Zhuangzi and his friends found that they could observe their predicament with cheerful interest and detachment, and remain calm and content. 27 Once you were entirely reconciled with the Way of Heaven, you were at peace because you were attuned to reality. What exactly was the Way? Time and again, Zhuangzi insisted that the Way was unthinkable, inexpressible, and impossible to define. It had no qualities, no form; it could be experienced but never seen. It was not a god; it had existed before Heaven and Earth, and was beyond divinity; it was more ancient than antiquity—yet it was not old. It was both being and nonbeing.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  People became too agitated by their strong opinions; they were too anxious to discover the truth. So a Skeptic would kindly undermine their certainty, flushing all this intellectual turmoil out of their systems. Sextus Empiricus, the first Skeptical writer, who lived in the third century CE, explained that Pyrrho and his disciples began by trying to find truth in order to gain peace of mind. But when they were unable to achieve this to their satisfaction, they gave up and immediately felt much better. “When they suspended judgement, tranquillity followed as it were fortuitously, as a shadow follows a body.” 62 So they became known as skeptikoi (“inquirers”) because they were still looking, had not closed their minds, but had learned that an uncluttered attitude, open to all possibilities, was the secret of happiness. The Axial Age was well and truly over for these Hellenistic philosophers, and yet in their work we find ghostly relics of the great pioneering spiritualities that sages and prophets had been exploring for more than five hundred years. The heroic striving of Confucius, the Buddha, Ezekiel, and Socrates had been replaced by a more modest, attainable, and, as it were, “budget” version. In Zeno’s ideal of a life attuned to nature, there was a hint of Daoism, but instead of yearning to change the world by aligning himself with the natural process, the Stoic simply resigned himself to the status quo. There is a fatalism in all these third-century Greek philosophies that was anathema to the Axial Age. The Buddha had warned his disciples not to become attached to metaphysical opinions; the mystics of the Upanishads had reduced their interlocutors to silence by pointing out the fallacy of rational thought, but they had not simply “suspended judgement” like the Skeptics. They had used the experience of dismantling ordinary habits of thought to give people intimations of a mystery that lay beyond words and conceptual ideas. The renouncers of India had left the world behind, but not to live in the suburban Epicurean Garden, and the Buddha had insisted that his monks must return to the agora and practice compassion for all living beings. Herein lay the difference. These Hellenistic philosophers made no heroic ethical demands. They all claimed to lay aside the abstruse metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle and go back to Socrates, who had tried to teach men how to live. They wanted the peace of mind that Socrates had possessed when he had faced his unjust death with equanimity. They were also popularizers like Socrates, who had talked to everybody, learned and uneducated alike. But Socrates had never claimed that a human being’s sole aim should be to eliminate disturbance. Zeno, Epicurus, and Pyrrho all wanted a quiet life and were determined to avoid the extremity and striving of the great Axial philosophers. They simply wanted ataraxia, to be trouble-free.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Belief is thus the mental state or function of cognizing reality. As used in the following pages, 'Belief' will mean every degree of assurance, including the highest possible certainty and conviction. There are, as we know, two ways of studying every psychic state. First, the way of analysis: What does it consist in? What is its inner nature? Of what sort of mind-stuff is it composed? Second, the way of history: What are its conditions of production, and its connection with other facts? Into the first way we cannot go very far. In its inner nature, belief or the sense of reality, is a sort of feeling more allied to the emotions than anything else. Mr. Bagehot distinctly calls it the 'emotion' of conviction. I just now spoke of it as acquiescence. It resembles more than anything what in the psychology of volition we know as consent. Consent is recognized by all to be a manifestation of our active nature. It would naturally be described by such terms as 'willingness' or the 'turning of our disposition.' What characterizes both consent and belief is the cessation of theoretic agitation, though the advent of an idea which is inwardly stable, and fills the mind solidly to the exclusion of contradictory ideas. When this is the case, motor effects are apt to follow. Hence the states of consent and belief, characterized by repose on the purely intellectual side, are both intimately connected with subsequent practical activity. This inward stability of the mind's content is as characteristic of disbelief as of belief. But we shall presently see that we never disbelieve anything except for the reason that we believe something else which contradicts the rest thing. [297] Disbelief is thus an incidental complication to belief, and need not be considered by itself. The true opposite of belief, psychologically considered, are doubt and inquiry, not disbelief. In both these states the content of our mind is in unrest, and the emotion engendered thereby is, like the emotion of belief itself, perfectly distinct, but perfectly indescribable in words. Both sorts of emotion may be pathologically exalted. One of the charms of drunkenness unquestionably lies in the deepening of the sense of reality and truth which is gained therein.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  The æsthetic principles are at bottom such axioms as that a note sounds good with its third and fifth, or that potatoes need salt, We are once for all so made that when certain impressions come before our mind, one of them will seem to call for or repel the others as its companions. To a certain extent the principle of habit will explain these æsthetic connections. When a conjunction is repeatedly experienced, the cohesion of its terms grows grateful, or at least their disruption grows unpleasant. But to explain all æsthetic judgments in this way would be absurd; for it is notorious how seldom natural experiences come up to our æsthetic demands. Many of the so-called metaphysical principles are at bottom only expressions of æsthetic feeling. Nature is simple and invariable; makes no leaps, or makes nothing but leaps; is rationally intelligible; neither increases nor diminishes in quantity; flows from one principle, etc., etc.,—what do all such principles express save our sense of how pleasantly our intellect would feel if it had a Nature of that sort to deal with? The subjectivity of which feeling is of course quite compatible with Nature also turning out objectively to be of that sort, later on. The moral principles which our mental structure engenders are quite as little explicable in toto by habitual experiences having bred inner cohesions. Rightness is not mere usualness, wrongness not mere oddity, however numerous the facts which might be invoked to prove such identity. Nor are the moral judgments those most invariably and emphatically impressed on us by public opinion. The most characteristically and peculiarly moral judgments that a man is ever called on to make are in unprecedented cases and lonely emergencies, where no popular rhetorical maxims can avail, and the hidden oracle alone can speak; and it speaks often in favor of conduct quite unusual, and suicidal as far as gaining popular approbation goes. The forces which conspire to this resultant are subtle harmonies and discords between the elementary ideas which form the data of the case.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Yesterday I began by translating a chapter from La Belle Nivemaise and writing down vocabulary words. Then I worked on an awful math problem and translated three pages of French grammar besides. Today, French grammar and history. I simply refuse to do that wretched math every day. Daddy thinks it’s awful too. I’m almost better at it than he is, though in fact neither of us is any good, so we always have to call on Margot’s help. I’m also working away at my shorthand, which I enjoy. Of the three of us, I’ve made the most progress. I’ve read The Storm Family. It’s quite good, but doesn’t compare to Joop ter Heul. Anyway, the same words can be found in both books, which makes sense because they’re written by the same author. Cissy van Marxveldt is a terrific writer. I’m definitely going to let my own children read her books too. Moreover, I’ve read a lot of Korner plays. I like the way he writes. For example, Hedwig, The Cousin from Bremen, The Governess, The Green Domino, etc. Mother, Margot and I are once again the best of buddies. It’s actually a lot nicer that way. Last night Margot and I were lying side by side in my bed. It was incredibly cramped, but that’s what made it fun. She asked if she could read my diary once in a while. “Parts of it,” I said, and asked about hers. She gave me permission to read her diary as well. The conversation turned to the future, and I asked what she wanted to be when she was older. But she wouldn’t say and was quite mysterious about it. I gathered it had something to do with teaching; of course, I’m not absolutely sure, but I suspect it’s something along those lines. I really shouldn’t be so nosy. This morning I’lay on Peter’s bed, after first having chased him off it. He was furious, but I didn’t care. He might consider being a little more friendly to me from time to time. After all, I did give him an apple last night. I once asked Margot if she thought I was ugly. She said that I was cute and had nice eyes. A little vague, don’t you think? Well, until next time! Anne Frank PS. This morning we all took turns on the scale. Margot now weighs 132 pounds, Mother 136, Father 155, Anne 96, Peter 14g, Mrs. van Daan 117, Mr. van Daan 165. In the three months since I’ve been here, I’ve gained 19 pounds. A lot, huh? TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1942 Dearest Kitty, My hand’s still shaking, though it’s been two hours since we had the scare. I should explain that there are five fire extinguishers in the building. The office staff stupidly forgot to warn us that the carpenter, or whatever he’s called, was coming to fill the extinguishers.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Now our Secret Annex has truly become secret. Because so many houses are being searched for hidden bicycles, Mr. Kugler thought it would be better to have a bookcase built in front of the entrance to our hiding place. It swings out on its hinges and opens like a door. Mr. Voskuijl did the carpentry work. (Mr. Voskuijl has been told that the seven of us are in hiding, and he’s been most helpful.) Now whenever we want to go downstairs we have to duck and then jump. After the first three days we were all walking around with bumps on our foreheads from banging our heads against the low doorway. Then Peter cushioned it by nailing a towel stuffed with wood shavings to the doorframe. Let’s see if it helps! I’m not doing much schoolwork. I’ve given myself a vacation until September. Father wants to start tutoring me then, but we have to buy all the books first. There’s little change in our lives here. Peter’s hair was washed today, but that’s nothing special. Mr. van Daan and I are always at loggerheads with each other. Mama always treats me like a baby, which I can’t stand. For the rest, things are going better. I don’t think Peter’s gotten any nicer. He’s an obnoxious boy who lies around on his bed all day, only rousing himself to do a little carpentry work before returning to his nap. What a dope! Mama gave me another one of her dreadful sermons this morning. We take the opposite view of everything. Daddy’s a sweetheart; he may get mad at me, but it never lasts longer than five minutes. It’s a beautiful day outside, nice and hot, and in spite of everything, we make the most of the weather by lounging on the folding bed in the attic. Yours, Anne COMMENT ADDED BY ANNE ON SEPTEMBER 21, 1942: Mr. van Daan has been as nice as pie to me recently. I’ve said nothina, but have been enjoyina it while it lasts. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1942 Dearest Kitty, Mr. and Mrs. van Daan have had a terrible fight. I’ve never seen anything like it, since Mother and Father wouldn’t dream of shouting at each other like that. The

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Now God has sent someone to help me: Peter. I fondle my pendant, press it to my lips and think, “What do I care! Petel is mine and nobody knows it!” With this in mind, I can rise above every nasty remark. Which of the people here would suspect that so much is going on in the mind of a teenage girl? SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1944 My dearest Kitty, There’s no reason for me to go on describing all our quarrels and arguments down to the last detail. It’s enough to tell you that we’ve divided many things like meat and fats and oils and are frying our own potatoes. Recently we’ve been eating a little extra rye bread because by four o’clock we’re so hungry for dinner we can barely control our rumbling stomachs. Mother’s birthday is rapidly approaching. She received some extra sugar from Mr. Kugler, which sparked off jealousy on the part of the van Daans, because Mrs. van D. didn’t receive any on her birthday. But what’s the point of boring you with harsh words, spiteful conversations and tears when you know they bore us even more? Mother has expressed a wish, which isn’t likely to come true any time soon: not to have to see Mr. van Daan’s face for two whole weeks. I wonder if everyone who shares a house sooner or later ends up at odds with their fellow residents. Or have we just had a stroke of bad luck? At mealtime, when Dussel helps himself to a quarter of the half-filled gravy boat and leaves the rest of us to do without, I lose my appetite and feel like jumping to my feet, knocking him off his chair and throwing him out the door. Are most people so stingy and selfish? I’ve gained some insight into human nature since I came here, which is good, but I’ve had enough for the present. Peter says the same. The war is going to go on despite our quarrels and our longing for freedom and fresh air, so we should try to make the best of our stay here. I’m preaching, but I also believe that if I live here much longer, I’ll turn into a dried-up old beanstalk. And all I really want is to be an honest-to-goodness teenager! Yours, Anne WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 19, 1944 Dearest Kitty, I (there I go again!) don’t know what’s happened, but since my dream I keep noticing how I’ve changed. By the way, I dreamed about Peter again last night and once again I felt his eyes penetrate mine, but this dream was less vivid and not quite as beautiful as the last. You know that I always used to be jealous of Margot’s relationship with Father. There’s not a trace of my jealousy left now; I still feel hurt when Father’s nerves cause him to be unreasonable toward me, but then I think, “I can’t blame you for being the way you are.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  The ideal family scene has now reached its high point. I want to read or study and Margot does too. Father and Mother ditto. Father is sitting (with Dickens and the dictionary, of course) on the edge of the sagging, squeaky bed, which doesn’t even have a decent mattress. Two bolsters can be piled on top of each other. “I don’t need these,” he thinks. “I can manage without them!” Once he starts reading, he doesn’t look up. He laughs now and then and tries to get Mother to read a story. “I don’t have the time right now!” He looks disappointed, but then continues to read. A little while later, when he comes across another good passage, he tries again: “You have to read this, Mother!” Mother sits on the folding bed, either reading, sewing, knitting or studying, whichever is next on her list. An idea suddenly occurs to her, and she quickly says, so as not to forget, “Anne, remember to . . . Margot, jot this down. . . “ After a while it’s quiet again. Margot slams her book shut; Father knits his forehead, his eyebrows forming a funny curve and his wrinkle of concentration reappearing I at the back of his head, and he buries himself in his book 1 again; Mother starts chatting with Margot; and I get curious and listen too. Pim is drawn into the conversation . . . Nine o’clock. Breakfast! FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1943 Dearest Kitty, Every time I write to you, something special has happened, usually unpleasant rather than pleasant. This time, however, something wonderful is going on. On Wednesday, September 8, we were listening to the seven o’clock news when we heard an announcement: “Here is some of the best news of the war so far: Italy has capitulated.” Italy has unconditionally surrendered! The Dutch broadcast from England began at eight-fifteen with the news: “Listeners, an hour and fifteen minutes ago, just as I finished writing my daily report, we received the wonderful news of Italy’s capitulation. I tell you, I never tossed my notes into the wastepaper basket with more delight than I did today!”

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  These were not simply logical reflections. Gotama was a very skilled yogin, and practiced this mindfulness with the disciplined concentration that enabled him to see these truths more “directly,” without the filter of self-protecting egotism that distorts them. But he did not stop at contemplating these negative truths; he also fostered the more “skillful” (kusala) states while performing his yogic exercises, sitting cross-legged, and practicing the breathing rituals of pranayama. He was not only eliminating hatred from his mind, but making sure that it was also “full of compassion, desiring the welfare of all living beings.” He was not only freeing him-self of laziness and inertia, but cultivating “a mind that is lucid, conscious of itself, and completely alert.” By systematically banishing one anxious thought after another, he found that his mind became “calm and still . . . had outgrown debilitating doubt,” and was no longer plagued by “unprofitable [akusala] mental states.”81 If performed at sufficient depth, in the yogic manner, these mental exertions could, he believed, transform the restless and destructive tendencies of the unconscious and conscious mind. In later years, Gotama claimed that this yogic mindfulness brought to birth a different kind of human being, one that was not dominated by craving, greed, and selfishness. He had almost killed himself by undergoing excessive mortification, and was convinced that disciplined, systematically acquired compassion could take the place of the old punitive asceticism, and give the aspirant access to hitherto unknown dimensions of his humanity. Every day, while practicing yoga, he entered into an alternative state of consciousness, fusing each successive trance with a feeling of positive benevolence toward the entire world.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Thus the king had to plow the first furrow after the winter rest; only then could the peasants begin their work of cultivation. In the spring, his wives ceremonially presented themselves to the king, so that he could open the matrimonial season. At the end of autumn, the king rode out to the northern suburbs, with his ministers and officers, to greet winter and bring back the cold. There he announced that the season of rest and darkness had begun, and ordered the peasants to return to their villages. As usual, he led the way, offering sacrifice and sealing his own palace gates. Then townsfolk and peasants followed his example, and retired to their homes. Our information about the royal rites comes from the ancient Chinese classics . We do not know how historical these descriptions were; they could be largely utopian, but the ideals they expressed were deeply embedded in the Chinese imagination and would be crucial to the Axial Age. In the other cities, the princes, the local sons of Heaven, probably officiated at similar ceremonies. They served as retainers at the royal court and ate at the king’s table; by sharing the food that he gave them, they absorbed some of his daode. In the capital, the king revered the deceased Shang and Zhou monarchs in elaborate, dramatic rites, while in the principalities the princes honored their own forebears, the founding fathers of the city, in the ancestral temple next to their residence. Like the Shang, the Zhou held a special “hosting” ( bin ) sacrifice every five years and invited the nature gods and ancestors to a great banquet. For ten days, the court made elaborate preparations, fasting, cleaning the temple, and bringing the memorial tablets of the ancestors from their niches and setting them up in the palace courtyard. On the day of the feast, the king and queen processed separately to the courtyard; then the younger members of the royal family, each impersonating an ancestor, were led in by a priest, greeted reverently, and escorted to their places. Animals were slaughtered in their honor, and while the meat was cooking, priests ran through the streets calling any stray gods to the feast, crying, “Are you here? Are you here?” There was beautiful music, stately feasting, and everybody played their roles with the utmost decorum. After the banquet—a holy communion with the ancestors, who were mystically present in their young descendants—hymns celebrated the perfect performance of the rite: “Every custom and rite is observed,” the participants sang; “every smile, every word is in place.” 50 Every single facial gesture, every movement of their bodies, and every word that they uttered during the bin was prescribed. The participants left their individuality behind to conform to the ideal world of the ritual. “We have striven very hard,” they continued, “that the rites may be without mistake.”

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The conventual establishment was intended to be a self-sufficient corporation, a sort of socialistic community doing all its own work and supplying all its own stuffs and food.569 The altruistic principle was supposed to rule. They had their orchards and fields, and owned their own cattle. Some of them gathered honey from their own hives, had the fattest fish ponds, sheared and spun their own wool, made their own wine, and brewed their own beer. In their best days the monks set a good example of thrift. The list of minor officials in a convent was complete, from the cellarer to look after the cooking and the chamberlain to look after the dress of the brethren, to the cantor to direct the singing and the sacristan to care for the church ornaments. In the eleventh century the custom was introduced of associating lay brethren with the monasteries, so that in all particulars these institutions might be completely independent. Nor was the convent always indifferent to the poor.570 But the tendency was for it to centre attention upon itself, rather than to seek the regeneration and prosperity of those outside its walls. Like many other earthly ideals, the ideal of peace, virtue, and happy contentment aimed at by the convent was not reached, or, if approached in the first moments of overflowing ardor, was soon forfeited. For the method of monasticism is radically wrong. Here and there the cloister was the "audience chamber of God." But it was well understood that convent walls did not of themselves make holy. As, before, Jerome, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine had borne testimony to that effect, so now also did different voices. Ivo of Chartres (d. 1116) condemns the monks who were filled with the leaven of pride and boast of their ascetic practices and refers to such passages as 1 Tim. 4:8 and Rom. 14:17. The solitudes of the mountains and forests, he says, will not make men holy, who do not carry with them rest of soul, the Sabbath of the heart, and elevation of mind. Peter of Cluny wrote to a hermit that his separation from the world would not profit unless he built a strong wall against evil in his own heart, and that wall was Christ the Saviour. Without this protection, retirement to solitude, mortifications of the body, and journeyings in distant lands, instead of availing, would bring temptations yet more violent. Every mode of life, lay and clerical, monastic and eremitic, has its own temptations.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  CHAPTER VIII. CHRISTIAN ART. § 102. Religion and Art. Man is a being intellectual, or thinking and knowing, moral, or willing and acting, and aesthetic, or feeling and enjoying. To these three cardinal faculties corresponds the old trilogy of the true, the good, and the beautiful, and the three provinces of science, or knowledge of the truth, virtue, or practice of the good, and art, or the representation of the beautiful, the harmony of the ideal and the real. These three elements are of equally divine origin and destiny. Religion is not so much a separate province besides these three, as the elevation and sanctification of all to the glory of God. It represents the idea of holiness, or of union with God, who is the original of all that is true, good, and beautiful. Christianity, as perfect religion, is also perfect humanity. It hates only sin; and this belongs not originally to human nature, but has invaded it from without. It is a leaven which pervades the whole lump. It aims at a harmonious unfolding of all the gifts and powers of the soul. It would redeem and regenerate the whole man, and bring him into blessed fellowship with God. It enlightens the understanding, sanctifies the will, gives peace to the heart, and consecrates even the body a temple of the Holy Ghost. The ancient word: "Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto," is fully true only of the Christian. "All things are yours," says the Apostle. All things are of God, and for God. Of these truths we must never lose sight, notwithstanding the manifold abuses or imperfect and premature applications of them. Hence there is a Christian art, as well as a Christian science, a spiritual eloquence, a Christian virtue. Feeling and imagination are as much in need of redemption, and capable of sanctification, as reason and will. The proper and highest mission of art lies in the worship of God. We are to worship God "in the beauty of holiness." All science culminates in theology and theosophy, all art becomes perfect in cultus. Holy Scripture gives it this position, and brings it into the closest connection with religion, from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of the Revelation, from the paradise of innocence to the new glorified earth. This is especially true of the two most spiritual and noble arts, of poetry and music, which proclaim the praise of God—in all the great epochs of the history of his kingdom from the beginning to the consummation. A considerable part of the Bible: the Psalms, the book of Job, the song of Solomon, the parables, the Revelation, and many portions of the historical, prophetical, and didactic books, are poetical, and that in the purest and highest sense of the word.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Ataraxia was also the goal of Pyrrho of Elis (c. 365–275), founder of the Skeptics. We know very little about him. He wrote nothing and indeed no Skeptical texts were produced until about five hundred years after his death. Pyrrho seems to have insisted that it was impossible to be certain about anything, so the best way to live at peace was to suspend judgment. People who were dogmatic and self-assertive were doomed to unhappiness. “Nothing is honourable or base or just or unjust,” he is reported to have said. “Convention and habit are the basis of everything that men do, for each thing is no more this than that.”61 This was inconsistent, of course. If it was true that we knew nothing, how could Pyrrho know that even this was true—or evolve a philosophy at all? But Pyrrho apparently saw Skepticism as a therapy, not as an epistemological theory. People became too agitated by their strong opinions; they were too anxious to discover the truth. So a Skeptic would kindly undermine their certainty, flushing all this intellectual turmoil out of their systems. Sextus Empiricus, the first Skeptical writer, who lived in the third century CE, explained that Pyrrho and his disciples began by trying to find truth in order to gain peace of mind. But when they were unable to achieve this to their satisfaction, they gave up and immediately felt much better. “When they suspended judgement, tranquillity followed as it were fortuitously, as a shadow follows a body.”62 So they became known as skeptikoi (“inquirers”) because they were still looking, had not closed their minds, but had learned that an uncluttered attitude, open to all possibilities, was the secret of happiness.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  He died on Wednesday, May 26, 735, of a complaint accompanied with asthma, from which he had long suffered. The circumstances of his death are related by his pupil Cuthbert.1046 During Lent of the year 735 Bede carried on the translation of the Gospel of John and "some collections out of the Book of Notes" of Archbishop Isidore of Seville. The day before he died he spent in dictating his translations, saying now and then, "Go on quickly, I know not how long I shall hold out, and whether my Maker will not soon take me away." He progressed so far with his rendering of John’s Gospel that at the third hour on Wednesday morning only one chapter remained to be done. On being told this he said, "Take your pen, and make ready, and write fast." The scribe did so, but at the ninth hour Bede said to Cuthbert, ’ "I have some little articles of value in my chest, such as pepper, napkins and incense: run quickly, and bring the priests of our monastery to me, that I may distribute among them the gifts which God has bestowed on me. The rich in this world are bent on giving gold and silver and other precious things. But I, in charity, will joyfully give my brothers what God has given unto me." He spoke to every one of them, admonishing and entreating them that they would carefully say masses and prayers for him, which they readily promised; but they all mourned and wept, especially because he said, "they should no more see his face in this world." They rejoiced for that he said, "It is time that I return to Him who formed me out of nothing: I have lived long; my merciful Judge well foresaw my life for me; the time of my dissolution draws nigh; for I desire to die and to be with Christ." Having said much more, he passed the day joyfully till the evening, and the boy [i.e., his scribe] said, "Dear master, there is yet one sentence not written." He answered, "Write quickly." Soon after the boy said, "It is ended." He replied, "It is well, you have said the truth. It is ended. Receive my head into your hands, for it is a great satisfaction to me to sit facing my holy place, where I was wont to pray, that I may also sitting call upon my Father." And thus on the pavement of his little cell, singing, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," when he had named the Holy Ghost, he breathed his last, and so departed to the heavenly kingdom."

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In 817 Ratgar was deposed and Raban’s friend Eigil elected in his place.1225 With Eigil a better day dawned for the monastery. Raban was now unhampered in teaching and able once more to write. The school grew so large that it had to be divided. Those scholars who were designed for the secular life were taught in a separate place outside the monastery. The library was also much increased. In 822 Eigil died and Raban was elected his successor. He proved a good leader in spiritual affairs. He took personal interest in the monks, and frequently preached to them. He paid particular attention to the education of the priests. He compiled books for their especial benefit, and as far as possible taught in the school, particularly on Biblical topics. The principal of the school under him was Canadidus, already mentioned as the biographer of Eigil.1226 His most famous pupils belong to this period: Servatus Lupus, Walahfrid Strabo (826–829) and Otfrid. He showed his passion for collecting relics, which he enshrined in a very costly way. He also built churches and extended the influence of Fulda by colonizing his monks in different places, adding six affiliated monasteries to the sixteen already existing.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  After the dark age, the old political institutions had been so thoroughly destroyed that the Greeks could start again with a clean slate. 54 The eighth century saw a rapid growth in population and an improvement in agricultural technique, which enabled farmers to produce a surplus of crops. They needed security and some form of social organization to guard their land and crops from rivals. The Greeks could now use their extra produce for trade, could fund civic projects, and from the start, the whole community may have been involved in the decision making. 55 By the end of the century, poleis had been established throughout the Hellenic world, all bearing a marked family resemblance. A polis had to have a city wall, a temple, an assembly, and a harbor. 56 There was no distinction between the countryside, on which the economy depended, and the urban center, the core of social identity. Peasants and city dwellers had the same rights and responsibilities, and sat in the same governing assemblies. All citizens were free to use the public buildings and the agora, an open space at the heart of each city, where they could do business and hold discussions. Each polis had its own patronal deity, and each developed distinctive sacrifices and festivals that helped to bind the citizens together. The polis was an egalitarian society. From a very early date, farmers were highly critical of the old nobility and refused to accept a subservient role. Everybody could become a citizen—except slaves and women. The polis was an aggressively male state. During the dark age, women had enjoyed a better status, but in the new cities they were marginalized, segregated in secluded courtyards of the family home, and were rarely seen on the streets. There had also been an increase in the number of slaves. Most citizens owned their own land, and it was considered degrading to work for others or earn a salary. In other parts of the ancient world, kings had to limit the independence of their subjects in order to achieve a monarchical state, but Greek peasants refused to give up their traditional freedoms, and the aristocrats created autonomous city-states rather than large kingdoms that required local rulers to submit to an overlord. This ideal of independence was not a Greek invention. The Greeks probably preserved the old tribal assemblies and councils that other peoples abandoned when they developed large states and empires. 57 As we see in the epics of Homer, for a Greek aristocrat of the eighth century, public speaking was as important as military prowess. 58 In the Mycenaean period, the king had been simply primus inter pares, and had to listen to the advice of the lords. Discussion of public policy continued in the polis, and because the farmers took part in government, they also had to develop debating skills. Everybody was forced, in however rudimentary a way, to think about abstract principles of justice and morality, as they argued about practical problems.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Instead of discussing the external ceremonies of the cult, as the ritual reformers had done, Yajnavalkya had begun to explore the psychological makeup of the human being in an attempt to locate the true self, the inner person that controlled and animated the “I” of our mundane experience. We had to go beyond this “I” and discover modes of being that were different from our normal consciousness, which was dominated by sense perception, common sense, and rational thought. Yajnavalkya taught his disciples to consider their dreaming state, when they were no longer bound by space or time. In our dreams, we take the external world apart and create our own joys, pleasures, and delights. We become creators like Prajapati, bringing pools, wagons, roads, and teams of oxen into existence, and building up a whole new world by means of “the inner light that is in our heart.” 16 In dreams, we become aware of a freer and higher self, since, for a short time, we are released from the constraints of the body. We also have nightmares, however, when we become acutely aware of our pain, fear, and desire. But in deep sleep, which is dreamless, the self is liberated from even these mental appearances of activity. In deep sleep, a person is “beyond fear.” Deep sleep, Yajnavalkya believed, was not oblivion, but a state of unified consciousness. He compared it to the experience of sexual intercourse, when “a man embraced by a woman he loves is oblivious to everything within or without.” He loses all sense of duality: “There isn’t a second reality there that he could see as something distinct and separate from him.” 17 Conscious only of oneness, the self experiences ananda, the “bliss” of brahman. But the temporary release that we experience in sleep or orgasm is only a foretaste of the permanent liberation that is the goal of the spiritual quest, an experience of complete freedom and serenity. This enlightened state comes when the sage experiences the atman. At one with the inner core of his being, he “becomes calm, composed, cool, patient and collected,” because he is in the world of the brahman. Suffused by the immortal, fearless brahman, he is “free from evil, free from stain, free from doubt.” Because he knows the “immense and unborn self, unaging, undying, immortal and free from fear,” he knows the brahman and is himself released from terror and anxiety. 18 Thus knowledge of the self was an experience of pure bliss, an ekstasis. This knowledge lay beyond concepts and did not depend upon logical deduction.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The Essenes and the Qumran sect had already withdrawn from mainstream society, believing that the Jerusalem temple was corrupt; their purified community would be a new temple of the spirit. They had imbibed the apocalyptic piety that had developed after the Axial Age and, like the Zoroastrians, looked forward to a great battle at the end of time between the children of light and the children of darkness, internalizing the violence of their time and giving it sacred endorsement. But the most progressive Jews in Palestine were the Pharisees, who developed some of the most inclusive and advanced spiritualities of the Jewish Axial Age. They believed that the whole of Israel was called to be a holy nation of priests and that God could be experienced in the humblest home as well as in the temple. He was present in the smallest details of daily life, and Jews could approach him without elaborate ritual. They could atone for their sins by acts of loving-kindness rather than animal sacrifice. Charity was the most important commandment of the law. Perhaps the greatest of the Pharisees was Rabbi Hillel (c. 80 BCE– 30 CE ), who migrated to Palestine from Babylonia. In his view, the essence of the Torah was not the letter of the law but its spirit, which he summed up in the Golden Rule. In a famous Talmudic story, it was said that one day a pagan approached Hillel and promised to convert to Judaism if the rabbi could teach him the entire Torah while he stood on one leg. Hillel replied simply: “What is hateful to yourself, do not to your fellow man. That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. Go learn it.” 35 The Pharisees wanted no part in the violence that was erupting destructively around them. At the time of the rebellion against Rome, their leader was Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, Hillel’s greatest student. He realized that the Jews could not possibly defeat the Roman empire, and argued against the war, because the preservation of religion was more important than national independence. When his advice was rejected, he had himself smuggled out of Jerusalem hidden in a coffin in order to get past the Jewish Zealots who were guarding the city gates. He then made his way to the Roman camp and asked Vespasian for permission to live with his scholars in Javne, on the coast of southern Palestine. After the destruction of the temple, Javne became the new capital of Jewish religion.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  He did not have to fight a battle against his fellow gods when he ordered the cosmos; the sea was not a terrifying goddess, but simply the raw material of the universe; and the sun, moon, and stars were mere creatures and functionaries. Marduk’s creation had to be renewed annually, but Yahweh finished his work in a mere six days and was able to rest on the seventh. He had no divine competition but was incomparable, the only power in the universe and beyond opposition. 39 Israelites could be extremely scathing about other people’s faith, but P did not take that road. There were no cheap jibes against Babylonian religion. His narrative was serene and calm. Even though the exiles had experienced such violent uprooting, this was a world where everything had its place. On the last day of creation, God “saw everything that he had made, and here: it was exceedingly good.” 40 He also blessed all that he had made—and that, presumably, included the Babylonians. Everybody should behave like Yahweh, resting calmly on the Sabbath, serving God’s world, and blessing all his creatures. P deliberately linked the building of the tabernacle with the creation of the world. 41 In his instructions to Moses about the construction of this shrine, Yahweh ordered that the work should take six days, “but the seventh is to be a holy day for you, a day of complete rest, consecrated to Yahweh.” 42 When the tent of meeting was finished, “Moses examined the whole work, and he could see they had done it as Yahweh had directed him. And Moses blessed them.” 43 The exodus from Egypt was crucial to P’s vision, but he interpreted the story very differently than the Deuteronomists. P did not describe the covenant made on Mount Sinai, which had become a painful, problematic memory now that Israel had been exiled from the land that Yahweh had promised them there. 44 For P the climax of the story was not the giving of the sefer torah but the gift of the life-giving presence of God in the tent of meeting. Yahweh told Moses that he had brought the people out of Egypt “in order to live [skn] myself in their midst.” 45 In his mobile shrine, the divine presence accompanied the people of Israel wherever they were. The root word shakan, usually translated as “to live,” originally meant “to lead the life of a nomadic tent dweller.”

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Your 'things' realize all the consequences of the names by which you classed them. The modern mechanico-physical philosophy of which we are all so proud, because it includes the nebular cosmogony, the conservation of energy, the kinetic theory of heat and gases, etc., etc., begins by saying that the only facts are collocations and motions of primordial solids, and the only laws the changes of motion which changes in collocation bring. The ideal which this philosophy strives after is a mathematical world-formula, by which, if all the collocations and motions at a given moment were known, it would be possible to reckon those of any wished-for future moment, by simply considering the necessary geometrical, arithmetical, and logical implications. Once we have the world in this bare shape, we can fling our net of a priori relations over all its terms, and pass from one of its phases to another by inward thought- necessity. Of course it is a world with a very minimum of rational stuff. The sentimental facts and relations are butchered at a blow. But the rationality yielded is so superbly complete in form that to many minds this atones for the loss, and reconciles the thinker to the notion of a purposeless universe, in which all the things and qualities men love, dulcissima mundi nomina, are but illusions of our fancy attached to accidental clouds of dust which the eternal cosmic weather will dissipate as carelessly as it has formed them. The popular notion that 'Science' is forced on the mind ab extra, and that our interests have nothing to do with its constructions, is utterly absurd. The craving to believe that the things of the world belong to kinds which are related by inward rationality together, is the parent of Science as well as of sentimental philosophy; and the original investigator always preserves a healthy sense of how plastic the materials are in his hands. "Once for all," says Helmholtz in beginning that little work of his which laid the foundations of the 'conservation of energy,' "it is the task of the physical sciences to seek for laws by which particular processes in nature may be referred to general rules, and deduced from such again. Such rules (for example the laws of reflection or refraction of light, or that of Mariotte and Gay-Lussac for gas-volumes) are evidently nothing but generic-concepts for embracing whole classes of phenomena. The search for them is the business of the experimental division of our Science.