Society will get the better of us unless we get the better of society. An individual has political authority when other people habitually obey him or her. The laws and commands of such individuals, when enforced by punishment or the threat of punishment, is a more tender organism than the body, and the face is but a reflecting surface for the soul. One’s recognition of the moral sanction enables an individual to understand that by being sovereign compels one to pay attention to those customary ways of behavior that embody the experience of the community about what makes for the general happiness, and so to allow for the part played in law by custom and tradition. It is through the command of the sovereign that custom has the force of law. Nothing is so easy as to lay down the outlines of perfect society. There wants nothing but money to set it going. The daringness of curiosity is seldom so adventurous as to attempt to penetrate into the mysteries of government. A state in which the power of the sovereign can be counterbalanced by that of his or her subjects is like a body without an head, and must necessarily fall to ruin.  #RyanPhillippe 1 of 6

No form of government has been yet discovered by which cruelty can be wholly prevented. You cannot make a life over—society would not let you if you would. No one can enjoy solitude better than an individual who is bent down with the burthen of age, and has made a wise use of one’s life. To a heart formed for friendship and affection the charms of solitude are very short—lived. Most words spoken by the masses refer to fictitious entities and not to real ones. To consider any part or aspect of a real entity in abstraction is to create a fictitious entity. There are thousand familiar disputes which reason never can decide. Hence qualities, relations, and classes are all fictitious: so are the abstract notions of time, place, motion, and substance. A fiction is nothing; and a quality of a fiction is equally nothing. Thus, most of our talk is strictly nonsense, though it can be given meaning by translating it into terms referring to real entities. The possibility of making such translations gives rise to definition by paraphrasis. Some words are best defined by translating the sentences in which they occur into other sentences in which all the words refer to real entities.  #RyanPhillippe 2 of 6

Examples of how to interpret definition by paraphrasis translation into sentences follows: “duty,” “right,” “power,” and “title,” which can be understood only by reference to such concrete situations as one man being punished by another. Legal and political fictions and the mental confusion that results from them are largely due to the failure to make such translations; men and women are caught in the shackles of ordinary language. Metaphysical speculations have as their objects understanding clearly what one is speaking of. Mathematics as concerned purely with fictitious entities and as being essentially a species of short hand, it is the concept of a postulate set in which the rules of the system itself must be sharply distinguished from the rules governing the application of the system. For instance, a common use of radicals occurs in applications involving right triangles. Recall that a right triangle is one that contains a right (or 90 degree) angle. The relationship among the three sides of a right triangle is described by the Pythagorean Theorem, which says that is a and b are the lengths of the legs of c is the length of the hypotenuse, then c = the square root of a square + b squared.  #RyanPhillippe 3 of 6

So, a softball diamond has the shape of a square with 60-foot sides. The catcher is 5 feet behind home plate. How far does the catcher have to throw to reach second base? Well, the distance from home plate to second base is approximately 84.9 feet. Because the catcher is 5 feet behind the home plate, the catcher must make a throw of 84.9 + 5 = 89.9 feet to reach second base. Many say God speaks in numbers and the Devil is in the details. There is also a distinction between the eulogistic and dyslogistic use of words, maintaining that the eulogistic and the corresponding dyslogistic term to refer to the same real entity. What is the difference between that luxury which all the World condemns, and that prosperity which all the World admires? To give another example, vanity, ambition, and honor, are different names for the same motive. In each cause the motive (what moves us) is the love of reputation, which is in itself neither good nor bad. Since actual existence, as distinct from the merely possible, is not an indeterminate, anarchic chaos, there must also be an initial creative, purposeful act, determining the pure possibility; this is God.  #RyanPhilippe 4 of 6

Through God, possibility becomes identified with potentiality; and one may speak of the tendency of freedom to become, or of freedom linked with cosmic aim. Insofar as this aim achieves existential embodiment, God is the Creator bringing value into being ex nihilo; that is, out of freedom. Let us supposed that one father slaves day and night to pay off his son’s gambling debts and so clear the family name, while another devotes his energies to marrying his daughter into a titled family. In saying that the former is moved by a sense of honor and the latter by ambition we are expressing a difference in our attitudes to the two men that is, on utilitarian principles, thoroughly justified, since the one course of action is more likely than the other to increase the general happiness. We are not, however referring to any difference in motive; for both men act from precisely the same motive, the desire that his family shall stand well in the general esteem. This activity, which in the phenomenal level is identical with the production and pursuit of the various forms of order and value, is termed the “theogonic process” (from Greek 0eos, God; yevw, to become, be born).  #RyanPhillippe 5 of 6

Since all existents (but especially human) participate in the determination of value, God and creatures are mutually related in the pursuit of the common goal of realizing maximum value. Due to this fundamental correlation, all beneficial value experience may be interpreted as the immanence of God. Contrariwise, all evil and frustration, as instances of unrealized potentiality, involve a separation between the divine purpose and the creatures’ actuality that may be described as the transcendence of God. The term for the creative process is Spirit; and since God and all other lesser Universal existents (which constitute World) are such processes, only spirit exists. Every existent, as a creative activity realizing value, is free subjectivity; that is, a unique, individual, self-determining process. Objectivity arises solely through objectification, which is the apprehension or hypostatization within some spirit of the past qualitative states of spirit. If you are not increasing your faith, you are not invoking everything God has in planned. Be like the best architect and build up your faith in God, make it the most beautiful temple around, and you God will perform supernatural miracles in your life. God can do things that are beyond your imagination.  #RyanPhillippe 6 of 6