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The Morning Star is the Evening Star
Life and the World around us is a painted veil, an illusion though which we penetrate to the reality behind. Religion and virtue seem in many respect to be so nearly related that they are generally presumed to be inseparable companions. We are so willing to think well of their union that we hardly allow it to be permissible to speak or even think of them separately. However, it may by questioned whether this attitude can be theoretically justified. We certainly do sometimes encounter cases that seem to go against this general supposition. We have known people who have the appearance of great zeal in religion, but have lacked even the common affections of humanity, and shown themselves extremely degenerate and corrupt. Others who have paid little regard to religion and been considered as mere atheists have been seen to practice the rules of morality and in many cases to act with such good meaning and affection towards humankind that one seems forced to admit that they are virtuous. In our everyday lives, our wiliness to have dealings with someone may depend on one’s answer to “What are his or her morals?” A person who is aware of the superior pleasures to be found in virtuous action will naturally prefer virtue to mere self-interest. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Our notions of God are projections of our own humor, as we are, so shall we think God to be. God must necessarily be good humored. However, we can never understand this quality unless we possess it ourselves. Hence, the necessity for permitting good humor in the discussion of religion. I give a lot of credence to the grace of God because much of what we do, in fact, more of what we do than we do not do has to do with our fortune and misfortune. And I think there are people who the miseducation has taken a greater toll on than me. And you know, but for the grace of God, I would have been confused about my identity. We cannot understand qualities of mind and character which we do not possess ourselves. The best foundation for rendering a just account of human nature is thorough knowledge of oneself. No one who knows oneself can possibly believe that all human action stem from selfish motives. God is a good-tempered, benevolent being who orders the World. Sincere the affection for virtue is natural, religion is unnecessary to its presence in us. However, theistic opinions about a benevolent God may reinforce the affection. Yet, so many the good example of others and rewards and punishment. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
When religion and morality are separated, a selfish interest in one’s own welfare is not all that is left to provide a foundation for morality. There is more than accounting for the possibility of morality than a simple choice of religion. It is the function of both poetry and religion to provide people with a coherent view of the World that will help them understand both themselves and their fellow human beings, and to provide it in a form that will kindle the imagination as well as the intellect. The ultimate solution is a community small enough for each member to know the other members as individuals. Such intimate person knowledge will bring understanding and sympathy, so that people will be prepared to cooperate for the common good, without the coercion of law. People will indeed value their neighbors’ opinions, but they will not take their neighbors’ opinion on trust. To do so would be useless, because even a true opinion is of little value unless one understands the grounds for holding it. It is only when people see things as they are, in all their intricate interconnections, that they will feel the right emotions and thus lead happy and virtuous lives. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
People see life as if through a veil—the veil of their own prejudices, which are imposed by social institutions. We must transcend their prejudices in order to understand and love our fellow humans. If we are to fear the wrath of God, then there must be some principle by which we regulate our fears. If we are to fear God’s blame, we must already know what is blame worthy. Nothing is blameworthy simply because it displeases God. God and human beings must share a sense of deformity which enables them to identify the morally odious. There is no divine monopoly here. Morality may arise independently of religion. Virtue is natural because human nature provides a foundation for virtue. Why should selfishness or self-interest be the only natural passion? Social feeling or sense of partnership with humankind may be natural. The social feeling must be natural, for how could there be society if this feeling did not exist first? If society is a set of conventional arrangements, then the existence of society implies the pre-existence of a disposition among people to make conventions. Thus, the selfish picture of human nature cannot be the whole story, for if selfishness were the only natural feeling, there would be no society. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
What is more, since the existence of a social feeling is sufficient to account for the origin of society, appeals to the religious sanctions for society are necessarily subsequent to the actual foundation of society and therefore of secondary importance. Virtue is the pursuit of the public interest. There is no real love of virtue without the knowledge of public good. We are disposed to act virtuously by our affection for virtue. This affection for virtue is called the moral sense. This sense is like a harmony in music and a sense of proportion in architecture and art. In a creature capable of forming general notions of things, not only the outward beings which offer themselves to the sense are objects of the affection, but the very actions themselves and the affections of pity, kindness, gratitude, and their contraries, being brought into the minds by reflection become objects. So that by means of this reflected sense, there arise another kind of affection towards those very affections themselves, which have been already felt, and are now become the subject of a new liking or dislike. One way we evaluate ourselves is to compare ourselves to others and to our own ideal self-image. If an ideal image cannot be met, it may have to be discarded or revised, but this is not easy to do. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Once we remove the veil of unreality, the World will be seen as a unity—both in the sense in which science may be said to be a unity (the truth about one field of study cohering with and illuminating the truth about another), and in the sense that a true understanding of our fellow humans will give rise to virtuous behavior. This is the indestructible order that it is the business of poetry to reveal. We live surrounded by an infinite multitude of mysteries. For God, all things are possible, even what one may considered a logical absurdity, that is, causing what has in fact happened not to have happened. The fundamental property of life is daring; all life is creative daring and this an eternal mystery, irreducible to anything finished or intelligible. In human’s very existence, thought has discovered something improper, a defect, a sickness, or sin, and has demanded that this be overcome at its foundation by a renunciation of existence. Disclosure by talking seriously and honestly together on an equal level is the necessary condition for reducing the mystery that one person is for another. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
We need to take better care of ourselves mentally, physically, and spiritually. Because the times that are coming up are going to be challenging times. Progress come both in the realization of the need for re-education and further in the re-education process itself. A good beginning to understanding and appreciating life fully is knowing that at some point it will end. Games prevent honest, intimate, and open relationships between the players. Yet people play them because they fill up time, provoke attention, reinforce early opinions about self and others, and fulfill a sense of destiny. We have to learn to make the time period between life’s only two certainties, birth and death meaningful and significant. Human beings place far too much stress upon defining the purpose in and of our lives. Our only purpose in life if purpose is needed, is to be what we are fully, vitally and in context of other people having the same right. We each need to find a purpose or goal in our existence but we should not dwell on it. People are known and respected for their commitment and dedication to the uplift of people. Each of us must know that others may try to push us down or disqualify us, but we will be able to fulfill our destinies. The rest of your life will be the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
We Love and Will the World as an Immediate and Spontaneous Totality
The mysterious process by which our Earthly life instructs us for another state of being is the informing act of the soul. Between soul and its powers, as well as between the powers themselves, there is only a formal distinction. What are American institutions? Everything is an institution. Having iced water to drink in every room of the house is an institution. Having hospitals in every town is an institution. Travelling altogether in one class of railway cars is an institution. Saying sir is an institution. Plenty of food is an institution. Getting drunk is an institution in a great many towns. Lecturing is an institution. This formal distinction, which obtains between entities that are not exactly the same and yet cannot be separated from other another, also obtains between being and its transcendentals, between animality and rationality in humans, between common nature and haeceitas (material and spiritual substance), between essence and attributes in God, and between the divine attributes themselves. The unique and absolute infinity of God is the attribute that best distinguishes him from creatures and constitutes his absolute perfection. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
While creation is primarily an act of the divine will, so that things exist and are good because God wills them, creation is also a rational act based on the divine intellect. Because of the essential contingence of creatures, God can dispense humans from those precepts of the natural law that concerns his duties toward our fellow creatures, but not from those concerning their relationship to God. Human’s ultimate end consists in love of, rather than in knowledge of, God, for it is the will and not the intellect that is the superior power in human beings. In recent years, philosophers have produced arguments designed to prove that not all human behavior can be predicted or otherwise known in advance, and these arguments have been taken to be relevant to the problem of freedom of the will as well as to the question whether there can be genuine behavioral sciences. Specifically, it is argued that in certain circumstances it is logically impossible that one should come to know decision, and actions for whose occurrence decisions are necessary conditions, in advance of the occurrences of such decisions. This have been interpreted as a refutation of determinism. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
It is a familiar fact that some prophecies and predictions are self-fulfilling in the sense that the prediction itself produced the predicted event—for example, when all the stock market tip sheets predict that stock x will drop sharply in the next few weeks. We also know, for similar reasons, that some predictions are self-defeating. For example, Jones predicts that he will, as usual, take the easy way out of a difficulty, but then, to prove to himself that he can do better, he does just the opposite. This prediction affected his deliberation and caused him to make a decision opposite to the one he had predicted. Now, the argument which follows does not maintain that person’s predictions of his own future decisions are necessarily or always self-defeating; instead, it maintains that it is logically impossible that by considering cause a person should come to know that his final prediction of what he will decide is not self-defeating, and it maintains that the attempt to achieve such knowledge involves an infinite regress. In other words, this antipredictive argument purports to prove that predictions of one’s own future decisions on the basis of antecedent causal conditions cannot possibly be scientifically complete. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
For some the strain of contemporary life is already too great. Medicine links the stress ailments—heart disease, mental aberration, ulcers—to the tempo of modern life. I am convinced there is a way to cope with any problem. It is first recognizing what the problem is in terms of non-verbal reality, then stating it so clearly and so concisely that you have directed yourself towards changing what can be changed. And when you have changed what can be changed, you learn to accept the rest. Most psychologist agree that the causes of emotional disorders are severe stress of conflict, overuse of the defense mechanisms common to all of us, and just plain loneliness and alienation from other people. These are elements present in the life of every person, to a greater or lesser extent. The difference between emotional health and illness, then, consists largely of differences in individuals’ ability to cope with these common factors—and perhaps in whether the methods used in coping are called normal by society. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
All of human experience is on a single continuum or scale. We need to understand all parts of that scale—including me and thee and those who are much farther up or down the scale of relative mental health than we are. Sometimes we endure more stress than we can handle and internalize it, but when you are sober, extremely tired, feel like you are drunk, weak, and have a headache, it is important to take a step back because you could be having symptoms of a stroke. When one feels sudden numbness or weakness of face, arm, or leg, especially on one side of the body, sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding speech, sudden trouble seeing in one eye or both eyes, sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination, and sudden severe headaches with no known cause, you could be in danger of having a stroke. So, contact your doctor and take time off of work and relax, or remove yourself from the troubling situation. We love and will the World as an immediate, spontaneous totality and we love it, give it affect, energy, power to love and change as we model and change it. This is what it means to be fully related to one’s World, so take care of yourself so that it will always be around for you. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Traumatized people often have enormous difficulty telling other people what has happened to them. Their bodies reexperience terror, rage, and helplessness, as well as the impulse to stand your ground, or escape, but these feelings are almost impossible to articulate. Trauma by nature drives us to the edge of comprehension, cutting us off from language based on common experience or an imaginable past. It is enormously difficult to organize one’s traumatic experiences into a coherent account—a narrative with a beginning, a middle, and an end. When words fail, haunting images capture the experience and return as nightmares and flashbacks. God, we have done all we know how to do. Now, we are presenting our case based on your word, knowing that you are faithful and true to what you said. God, you did not hide your light under a basket, but let it shine for the whole World, for all the centuries to see. We may not suffer torture in our lives the way you did, but we are still called to let the light of our Christianity illumine our daily lives. Please help us to have the courage to bring our Christianity into our work, our recreation, our relationship, our conversation—every corner of our day. The rest of our lives will be the best of our lives because of the greatness of God’s power. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Imagined Security is the Forerunner of Destruction
When each individual has subdued one’s own spirits, then there will be no war and no other enemies to conquer. Life and mind, being closely connected with the functioning of the body, must be conceived of in a way that does justice to the peculiar intimacy of this relationship. The fundamental issue in resolving traumatic stress is to restore the proper balance between the rational and emotional brains, so that you can feel in charge of how you respond and how you conduct your life. When we are provoked into states of hyper—or hypoarousal, we are pushed into an uncomfortable zone, where we are not able to tolerate as much as we usually are able to, and we are no longer in a range of optimal functioning. We become reactive and disorganized; we are not always able to hold back our emotions and may say things out of anger or react unusually. Sounds and lights bother us, unwanted images from the past invade our minds, and we panic, get nervous or become outraged. Our bodies may feel numb, our minds may slow down, and we may not be able to process information as easily, we may lose balance and have trouble standing, sitting, and walking because the chemistry in our bodies is in a state of shock. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
The noblest of all victories, that over ourselves. Human behavior falls under the concept of motion, which is widely applicable in the natural World. The soul is virtually the principal of all life, and there are different levels of life. The soul is that which keeps a person alive and it leaves the body when a person dies. It is connected with breathing. Spirit, on the other hand, is thought of as the generator of movement; it is connected with the movement of the limbs and with emotional states. The spirit is quite distinct both from the soul and from the mind, which is regarded as the source of images and ideas. In mathematics, the soul grasps forms that are eternal and nondeceptive. As like can be known only by like, the soul, in its rational aspect, must also be eternal. The slave is being made to remember what one had known previous to one’s embodiment. Reason, spirit, and desire represent different levels of being alive. To be alive is to possess a self-originating tendency toward an end. This is exhibited at the lowest level in nutrition and reproduction. Thus, plants have a low-grade soul. Animals have sensation, locomotion, and desire superimposed upon nutrition and reproduction. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Humans, in addition, have reason, or mind, by means of which a rule or plan is imposed upon desire. By mind is meant self-direction in accordance with a rational formula. The lower soul is a necessary condition for the higher and the possession of a higher type of soul also changes the way in which the lower functions. Because people are rational, they feed, reproduce, perceive and act in a manner which differs from that of animals. The rational soul is an active agency which inhabits the body for a brief period, it is located in the head because the head is round (the most perfect shape, and hence, an appropriate place for the seat of reason) and the part of the body nearest the Heavens. It makes contact with the brain, which is conceived as a kind of marrow encased in the skull. The irrational soul makes contact with the marrow of the spinal cord in its bony sheath. The better part of the irrational soul, spirit, inhabits the heart and functions in such manifestations of life as energy, courage, and ambition; the worse part, desire, functions below the diaphragm, in appetite nutrition, and reproduction. The rational and irrational parts affect each other through the liver, which acts as a sort of mirror of thought. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Over their passions and their weaknesses, mortals cannot keep a curb too strong. In sleep, the soul is shut up, and its motions subside. A few agitations remain, however, and produce dreams. Usually dreams are the expressions of desires which are suppressed. The good person controls their desires sensibly and so is not unduly disturbed by them in sleep. In sleep, the rational soul, if not troubled by irrational desires, can attain truths not otherwise revealed. It is not the dream that creates the phantasy, but the activity of unconscious phantasy that plays the leading part in the formation of the dream-thoughts. Almost everything that is ascribed to the dream-work is attributable to the activity of the unconscious during the day, which instigates dreams no less than neurotic symptoms. We have involved ourselves by our advance into the dark regions of psychology. This proves that the most complex mental operations are possible without the cooperation of consciousness—a truth which we have had to learn anyhow from every psychoanalysis of a patient suffering from hysteria or obsessions. These dream-thoughts are certainly not in themselves incapable of consciousness; if we have not become conscious of them during the day, this may have been due to various reasons. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
The act of becoming conscious depends upon a definite psychic function—attention—being brought to bear. This seems to be available only in a determinate quantity, which may have been diverted from the train of thought in questions by other aims. If we want to change posttraumatic reactions, we have to access the emotional brain and do limbic system therapy: repairing faulty alarm systems and restoring the emotional brain to its ordinary job of being a quiet background presence that takes care of the housekeeping of the body, ensuring that you eat, sleep, connect with intimate partners, protect your children, and defend against danger. Learning how to breathe calmly and remaining in a state of relative physical relaxation, even while accessing painful and horrifying memories, is an essential tool for recovery. We believe that a certain quantity of excitation, called cathectic energy is displaced from a purposive idea along the association paths selected by this directing idea. The only way we can consciously access the emotional brain is through self-awareness, i.e. by activating the medial prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that notices what is going on inside of us and thus allows us to feel what we are feeling. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Most of our conscious brain is dedicated to focusing on the outside World: getting along with others and making plans for the future. However, that does not help us manage ourselves. Neuroscience research shows that the only way we can change the way we feel is becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going on inside of ourselves. Sensation is a transmission of motions. The human body receives an impression from without and responds with an inner motion. Some parts of the body—for instance, the hair and the nails—are subject to shock but do not respond with inner movements. Sense organs, however, are good conductors of motion. Thus, hearing, for instance, is the end product of a kind of shock. By means of air in the cavities of the body a blow transmitted through the ears to the blood and brain and then the soul. Knowledge does not consist just in sensation, but in the activity of the soul in relation to what is transmitted. This transmission is complicated by the intervention of memory, imagination, feeling, and association, all of which act as intermediaries between reason and sensation. Emotional regulation is the critical issue in managing the effects of trauma and neglect. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Love is the Beauty of the Soul—All Love in Not Created Equally
I meant to be uncommonly cleaver in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one’s genius, such an opening for wit to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying anything just; but one cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty. There is no such thing as moral responsibility for past acts, no such thing as real justice in punishing them, for the reason that human beings are not stationary existences, but changing, growing, incessantly progressive organisms, which in no two moments are the same. Therefore justice, whose only possible mode of proceeding is to punish in present time for what is done in past time, must always punish a person more or less similar to, but never identical with, the one who committed the offense, and therein must be no justice. The World, being in the constant commission of vast quantities of injustice, is a little too apt to comfort itself with the idea that if the victim of its falsehood and malice have a clear conscience, he cannot fail to be sustained under his trials, and somehow or other to come right at last. Internal graces conquer the souls of the judicious. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
I hate the man in whom kindness produces no responsive affection, and injustice no swell, no glow of resentment. Nothing, humanely speaking, can deserve higher respect than a profession in which a person devotes the labors of one’s life to the support of justice. The term eros (Greek erasthai) isused to refer to that part of love constituting a passionate, intense desire for something; it is a common desire that seeks transcendental beauty—the particular beauty of an individual reminds us of the true beauty that exists in the World of Forms or Ideas. One who loves the beautiful is called a lover because one partakes of it. The love we generate for beauty on this Earth can never be truly satisfied until we die; but in the meantime, we should aspire beyond the particular stimulating image in front of us to the contemplations of beauty in itself. Ideal beauty is reflected in the particular images of beauty we find, and becomes interchangeable across people and things, ideas, and art: to love is to love the form of beauty—not a particular individual, but the element they possess of true (Ideal) beauty. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
Reciprocity is not necessary in the view of love, for the desire is for the object (of Beauty), then for, the company of another and shared values and pursuits. Reason is peculiar to humanity (and presumably to higher beings, if there are any). Love is an intrinsically higher value than appetitive or physical desire. Physical desire is held in common with the animal kingdom. Hence, it is of a lower order of reaction and stimulus than a rationally induced love—that is, a love produced by rational discourse and exploration of ideas, which in turn defines the pursuit of Ideal beauty. Accordingly, the physical love of an object, an idea, or a person in itself is not a proper form of love, love being a reflection of that part of the object, idea, or person, that partakes in Ideal beauty. Real love entails a fondness and appreciation of the other. The motivational distinctions are derived from love for another because the friendship is wholly useful as in the case of business contracts, or because their character and values are pleasing. If we wish to provide a rational reconstruction of our knowledge of the World, we must recognize the logical arbitrariness of the epistemological base. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
Things that causes friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing them unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done. The kinds of things we seek in proper friendship are those who share our dispositions, who bear no grudges, who seek what we do, who are temperate, and just, who admire us appropriately as we admire them, and so on. Friendships cannot emanate from those who are quarrelsome, gossips, aggressive in manner and personality, who are unjust, and so on. The best character, it follows, may produce the best kind of friendship and hence love: indeed, how to be a good character worthy of friendship is to be rational. The most rational people are the happiest. We must learn to live in the time current than from the past. The soul’s connection with the time current from the future, with what is coming-to-be rather than what has already been, is the soul’s connection with the World and God. Anyone who love lives in this time current from the future. While one is in love, the past is forgotten; one forgets the inbuilt limitations steaming from the past. All seems possible, and one sees only the future because it is right before your eyes, and you know the rest of your life will be the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
The gift of love is the truth, not only the truth of seeing another human being, but the truth of the World. Through the activity of love, we learn our own darkness as well as that of the beloved. And the greatest secret of love is that continuing to love in the face of such darkness. Love is a therapy that makes one want to change and become a better person and that is why a lot of people start going to church and therapy to consciously work toward this new kind of love. It is a complex character in relation to the World. However, when you learn to love that human instinct feels a connection to God and wants to be in his good graces. This connection ensure that love will not abandon the physical realm. Also, the work that is done between two souls has is true and circulates creating a dreamy state. This kind of love is a desire for perfection, you know you want to live right, be at peace and harmony and feel safe and comfortable. It is like when you wake up in the morning, you want a sense that everything is right. It is the American pie life. Your wife and her friends are talking about the cupcakes they baked, your daughter is picking flowers and son playing with his truck. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
When you go to your den to read the morning paper, the sound of the bird singing in the tress is relaxing, as you sip your coffee with the scent of fresh laundry and lilac in the air. Love is not invented for love’s sake, but for life. Love makes the will strong and generally allows one to pull out of any negative situation. You think about the World and how you want your kid to grow up in a place where they are safe and this makes one live by the laws of God and obey the laws of man and set a good example so other can follow. God has made the soul’s journey in a practical way that is good and perfect and natural love is very much part of this journey. Love defines the experience of life and their efforts are to be respected and admired for it is the privilege and soul right of every individual to partake in God’s beautiful creation. This opportunity of love is the soul’s way of freedom, and without love, peace, and harmony, there would be no reason to exist. People ask why then is their suffering in the World, and it is because God wants us to be free, he does not want us to be slaves and be forced to do things the way he wants, it is a choice. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
And with this freedom of will we have a choice to love God and do what is right and because not everyone loves God, there is evil in the World. If we all loved God and lived how we were supposed, there would be no problems on Earth and that is what God wants us to understand. These problems are not because of the Fall of Man, they are not caused by the Devil. All evil comes from humanity and what is in your heart. While on Earth and as you participate in your Divine Love experience, the natural love will always be part of your experience because you are a child of God, and it very much part of your soul force, part of the evolutionary experience of life. God wants us to help those around us to learn the Divine Love and to do this well. Place God like a deal over your heart, like a seal on your arm, for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of his or her house for love, it would be utterly scorned. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD and turned their backs on him. Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness—only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandages or soothed with oil. Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your fields are being stripped by foreigners right before you, laid waste as when overthrown by standers. And it is all because you guys do not know unity, you do not take care of your own families first. You protest about injustice to foreigners, that is why your own people are being abused and killed. You ever stop and think about the people who get killed at work or going to work to provide a house for their family and paying their taxes? You ever stop and think about the veterans who have given their lives for their country and not here to protect their children? Where can their children run and hide for protection and shelter? #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
God does not want your burnt offerings in the blood of the innocent. When you come to appear before God, who has asked this of you, this trampling of his courts? Stop bringing God your meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to him. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—God cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts, his soul hates. They have become a burden to God; he is weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, God will hide his eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, he will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow, say the Lord (Isaiah 1.16-17). Come now, let us reason together says the LORD. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; through they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. Of you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in this city—but now murderers! Your silver has become dross, your choice wine is diluted with water. Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them. Therefore, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, the Mighty One of the Universe, declares: Ah, I will get relief form my foes and avenge myself on my enemies. I will turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities. I will restore your judges as in days of old, your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City. America will be redeemed with justice, her penitent ones with righteousness. However, rebels and sinners will both be broken, and those who forsake the LORD will perish. You will be ashamed because of the sacred oaks in which you have delighted; you will be disgraced because of the gardens that you have chosen. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
Those who you who wish to keep living foul and sinning will be like an oak with fading leaves, like a garden without water. The mighty man will become tinder and his work a spark; both will be burned together with no one to quench the fire. Prudence is a virtue, equally with generosity; and people may be unjust to oneself, no less than to another. Would it not be justice to oblige every person who proposes a medicine to sale, first to make proof that it is harmless at least, by taking it? Offended justice is diligent in detecting the breakers of the law. Strong minds perceive that justice is the highest of the moral attributes; mercy is only the favorites of the weak ones. No love is more consuming and passionate than that one has for God. And nothing is more beautiful than that love. How much better it is to be useful than rich or fine; how much more amiable to be good than great. To do a kindness to a bad person is like sowing your seed in the white squall. The greatest merit anyone can have is to be good and useful. True love is the complete merger of two souls and when that happens all other aspects of life succeed. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
Love is that intense pressure which you feel in your heart always latent, that appears to be dormant or lost when your mind’s impure thoughts overpower your emotions and you disconnect from love. Never dilute love with foreign matters and negative emotions. Impure love is no love. When you change or disguise the nature of love, you stop loving. There starts all the problems. The absence of love creates misery in every form. The deep feelings, the desire for a true connection is the union creates in love. Love occurs when you truly know someone. Finding someone attractive, liking, admiring, appreciating someone may not be love, but infatuation. To really love someone, first you must know yourself completely, love yourself, and be emotionally available. Love is a natural process which just occurs. Soul connections are eternal. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. To have a soul mate, you have to love someone’s soul, and that means seeing beyond what they can offer you or how they look, where they shop or live. Your soul mate makes you feel entirely intact. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
We cannot speak of a direction for time as a whole, but only for certain segments in which relatively isolated (branch) systems undergo thermodynamic changes. For some segments (those in which processes may occur in such a way that entrophy decreases), we shall have to recognize the peculiar possibility of a reversal in time direction. People will flee to caves in the rocks and to holes in the ground from dread of the LORD and the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to shake the Earth. In the day people will throw away to the rodents and bats their idols of silver and idols of gold, which they made to worship. They will flee to caverns in the rocks and to the overhanging crags from the dread of the LORD and the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to shake the Earth. Stop trusting in humans, who has but a breath in their nostrils. Of what account is he? Surely, if one lives merely for one’s self, one pays a terrible price for doing so. Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays. Unsought self-possession is a sure sign of good breeding. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this World’s or mine own. Yet this is nothing; I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God? God is in America. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Is the Sun of Blue Heaven Guilty of the Shadow it Casts?
The beauty and loveliness of friendship is too strong for dim eyes. The soul is form giving being to humans, and it assists in operation of the body and mind as a sailor presides over the operation of an already formed ship. It is important to control the mind, and for an individual to have a rapport with nature. God is identified with the regularity governing the World, and must be thought of as the essence or embodiment of regularity in general; as the totality of logical regularity, of natural laws, and of the laws of mental and spiritual life. All moral values disappear if God does not exist. Therefore, it is important for people to believe in God. Christ and his disciples through the ages have experienced the divine presence of God the loving Father and with it a sense of moral repentance and an inner energy of the spirit. As with all personal experience, no symbolic structure can act as substitute. Such structures are, in every field, merely hypothetical attempts to grasps experience. God lives in human’s consciousness. Before a new direction is sought, it is necessary to discern the error of the old and awaken a desire to transcend that error. This requires courage and fearless honesty. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
The recovery from many serious and incurable, potentially fatal disorders is based on the willingness and capacity to face the truth and choose a different pathway. To break down denial and admit the truth takes one above the lower levels of humanity. Spiritual awakening is fostered by a desire for salvation and peace. The Human need for and experience of God’s presence proves his existence. Science and philosophy are masters of their own proper domain. Thus, God is the final reason of everything, but not necessarily the scientific explanation of anything. The idea of God is so embedded in the consciousness of human beings that we find some version of it in most legends. One knows but little of human nature who has not discovered that, to all who rise one step above the brutes, it is far pleasanter to starve and freeze after their own fashion than to be fed and clothes and worked upon compulsion. Friendship is a mighty pretty invention, and, next to love, gives of all things the greatest spirit to society. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
We lie in nature very close to God; and though, further on, the stream may be corrupted by the banks it flows through; yet at the fountain’s rim, where humankind stand, there the stream infallibly bespeaks the fountain. Whatever the number of a person’s friends, there will be times in one’s life when one has too few; but if one has only one enemy, one is lucky indeed if one has not one too many. In life, however, it is sometimes difficult to say who does you the most mischief, enemies with the worst intentions, or friends with the best. Friendship is a passion. It entrances the being; it tears the soul. All loves of after life can never bring its rapture, or its wretchedness; no bliss so absorbing, no pangs of jealousy or despair so crushing and so keen! Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud. What we say is important for in most cases the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Equality is the soul of friendship. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
When I do entertain, in the Summer, which is rare, I receive my guest on the front porch, set up wicker trays found at Draper James, and serve ice cold sweet tea, cucumber finger sandwiches, and miniature chess pies. The ice tea is so delicious that it can stand alone as a refreshment, but we like to embellish things a bit. There are different reasons for receiving guest. Visits of congratulations are paid after the birth of an infant; when it is also customary to send tasteful and elegant baskets or bouquets of flowers. Also, upon friends who have received an appointment to any office or dignity in the community, state, or government. If a friend has published a book, you call to congratulation him or her upon its success; or if one has delivered a lecture, sermon, or oration, which has elicited your applause, you express your high estimation of the discourse. A good orator is pointed and impassioned, and they get their subjects into the heart of the audience. It is also a good idea to pay visits of congratulation when you hear that your friends are intending to marry, and take upon themselves new responsibilities. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
There are times when people must act as though life were equally sweet in any company. In this World, sometimes we experience sickness, sorrow, and bereavement, visits of condolence must occasionally be made; and, if possible, they should be paid within a week after death has entered the family circle. If your acquaintance is ceremonious, it is the custom, however, to wait until the family has appeared at church. One should send up your card, and ask if your friends will receive you; and it is in good taste for ladies to be attired in quiet apparel, rather than in bright, beautiful colours. And you do not necessarily have to wear black. In formal visiting, a card can be left in lieu of a call. In many places, it is customary to send invitations to friends to attend a funeral, and only those receiving cards are expected to attend. Notes are also usually sent to those who are requested to serve as pall-bearers. One should always leave it to those who are in affliction to make the first allusions to their bereavement. Grief is an experience common after the passing of a loved one. There is a crying for someone to help because we cannot do anything about it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation. That is the best. When calling upon friends at hotels, or boarding houses, always send up by an assistance, a request to see them; and never enter a room until you have received an invitation to do so. When a gentleman calls upon a lady, and finds a lady friend also visiting her, he should rise when she takes her leave, and accompany her to the hall door; and is she has a carriage, should hand her into it. Also, when arriving at someone’s house, do not blow the horn of the carriage, nor holler and scream like you lost your mind for them to open the door. Get out of the carriage, and ring the doorbell like a well-bred person with sanity. People generally want to keep their communities as quiet and peaceful as possible. Gentlemen should always carry their hats in their hands when paying morning or evening calls, but should not place them on the chairs or parlor table. Every well-bred man knows that a hat can be made a very graceful part of his attire, especially if he knows how to hold it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
In our country, we are allowed considerable freedom in receiving and paying visits, and can appear, in the daytime, in all public places. It is actually becoming proper for ladies and gentlemen to have brothers, husbands, or friends of either gender attend meetings with them for safety reasons. It was a common practice for women, in the Victorian ages, but people are now always preying on men. I had a friend who went to meet up with people I thought he knew well, and he came back with a missing tooth. I did not expect he would actually keep company with someone he was unfamiliar with, and thought it was some kind of skit. Nonetheless, it was not my business to advise him. People used to be able to attend public exhibitions, libraries, etc., and appear on the promenades alone, but this may no longer be the case. If you attempt such proceedings in a World class city, or even a small rural town, you may expose yourself to indignities which would annoy you sadly. In the United States of America, women and men, who behave with discretion, can go wherever they please without molestation; but an escort is always desirable, especially in the evening. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
There is no light without its shade, no good without its inconvenience. It is not considered comme il faut for the lady of the house to accompany ceremonial visitors to the door; she merely rises from her seat, bows, or shakes hands, according to her intimacy when the persons, and if her ménage supplies a parlor assistance, she rings the bell to summon him to open the outer door. With intimate friends, one can do as they please, either accompanying them to the door, or leaving them to find their way out of the house alone, or calling an assistant to escort them. However, in these modern times, with people changing like the seasons and acting all brand new when you least expect it, it is best to be safe and see your guest find them way out. In almost everything, we act on probabilities. Good sense will shew you the power of self-conquest, and point out its means. It should be the desire of us all to be well-bred, but it is not a veneering that can be applied, or laid aside at pleasure. Keeping witty company sharpens the apprehension. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
More light a candle and fewer to curse the darkness. We should carry our good manners everywhere; and unless we cultivate them constantly, and exercise them upon all occasions, and towards all persons, they can never become a part of ourselves; and when we try to assume them, they will often fail us at our greatest need. If you are impolite to your washerwoman, or to your maid, you are in great danger of being so to those whose good opinion your desire to possess. Life is full of the saddest and the strongest contrasts. The charm which true politeness sheds over its possessors, is not easily described; yet, it is felt by everyone, and invariably responded to by the best feelings of their nature. It is the secret sympathy, the silver link, like the silken tie, which heart to hearts, and mind to mind, in body and in soul can bind. A companionable man or woman will put up with many inconveniences for the sake of enjoying agreeable society. The wine cannot be bad where the company is agreeable. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
Glorious Father in Heaven, filled with compassion for those who invoke you and with love for those who suffer, heavily laden with the weight of our troubles, we cast ourselves at your feet and humbly beg you to take the present affair which we recommend to you under your special protection and make the rest of our lives the best of our lives. When we realize God’s favor is upon you, you will accomplish your dreams faster than you ever thought possible. telling yourself the wall is too big, the dream is too great, or the obstacles are too high. It will not happen in your own strength. It will not happen in your own powers. It will happen because Almighty God favors you. Try claiming God’s blessing instead of longing for them. The humblest painter of real life, if he could have his desire, would select a picturesque background for his figures; but events have an inexorable fashion of choosing their own landscape. Success if for everyone and your life becomes better the moment you become better. There is no success without sacrifice. You will be as small as your controlling desire, as great as your dominant aspiration. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Opportunities are a Lot Like Work—they are Everywhere
Difficulties and sufferings help to forge the human soul. Without effort and sacrifice nothing really great can be accomplished; even a good song cannot be created without pain, have you heard The One I gave my Heart to by Aaliyah? So, people should not hesitate to fight against evil and tyranny and to overcome fear. There are objective laws governing social progress but they depend on the laws of human nature, which can be discovered by an analysis of the history of humankind. Genuine intellectuals help their people to become aware of their sufferings and their real needs and to produce a radical change in their conditions. A social revolution, therefore, presupposes the total intellect power of the people. Education is a revolutionary act and leads to the growth of civilization and an increasing social justice and the elimination of irrationality in human life. Thinking consists of both abstract and concrete concepts; it is not only generalization of the experience, but also immediate consciousness of reality. Behind me is infinite power. Before me is endless possibility. Around me is boundless opportunity. Why Should I fear? #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
Perception and cognition are not a mere reflection of the external World, but a creative interpretation and transformation of data in the light of language, previous experience, and the practical needs and values of the subject. Knowledge is therefore a historical category and contains subjective, human elements. It is a picture of the World in the perspective of a limited cognitive apparatus and a limited set of goals. However, whenever human practice is repeatedly and intersubjectively successful, this can be explained only on the assumption that in all such cases it was guided by an objective knowledge of the corresponding parts of the World. There is a real possibility for humans to become a free creative being who rationally controls natural and social processes and lives in solidarity with other people in real human community. In the contemporary World humans have lost control over the products of their physical and mental activity (the state, political parties, nuclear weapons, religion). They have become enslaved by dull imposed labor and has reduced all the richness of life to an artificial need to possess as many objects as possible and other people to the status of things to be used. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
Humans are alienated: they are not what people could be and ought to be. The supreme value for contemporary philosophy is therefore desalination, the progressive liberation from all forms of slavery and poverty, both material and spiritual, and the fulfillment of all the potential of the individual. Humans live in a World where there is both order and change, and they can therefore behave as a relatively free agent insofar as one becomes aware of external and internal compulsions and is ready to resist them. From this conviction that within certain objective limits humans can be free and can create history, contemporary philosophers are led to a profound optimism and activism. There are various kinds of visits: visits of ceremony, visits of condolence, visits of congratulations, and visits of friendship, and each has its different custom or etiquette. These visits, however, are all essential, in order to maintain good feeling between the members of society; and, therefore, they should be carefully attended to, even if they do occupy a large portion of your time. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
Visits of ceremony, are those which are paid after receiving attentions at the hands of your acquaintances; after dining, or supping at a friend’s house; after attending an evening party; etc.; and they should invariably be of short duration; and one should never take either children or dogs when making them. Hand your card to the assistant at the door, and ask if the lady or ladies are in. When other visitors are announced, it is better to wait until they are seated, and then rise from your seat and take leave of your hostess, and bow politely to the guests; but never leave while others are entering the room, as it produced a needless confusion. Many well-bred persons do not introduce their visitors to each other; but if you are left in the parlor with strangers, while the servant summons his mistress, it is not impolite to enter into conversation with them, and when the lady enters, the conversation would be mutual. You should always call at an hour when you would expect to find ladies prepared to receive visitors, and not at lunch, or dinner-time. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
In most cities, regular reception days are a la mode, and are engraved upon the visiting cards, thus – “At home Mondays, from 12 o’clock till 4.” And then it is needful to call upon that day, and between the hours prescribed. Only very intimate friends would call at any other time. After attending a dinner-party, or a ball, you should call within the week upon your hostess. When you are going to be absent from your house for months, or years, you should call upon all your friends and acquaintances, or send your card, enclosed in an envelope, with the letters, T.T.L. (“to take leave”) or P.P.C. (“Pour prendre conge), written at the right hand lower corner. In taking leave of a family, you send or leave as many cards as there are members; but if the call is upon intimate friends, you need only turn down the left-hand edge. If, previous to a long voyage, or absence, or on the occasion of your marriage, you omit to call or send a card to your friends, it is understood that the acquaintance ceases. When you return to the house, those to whom you have sent cards, or paid visits, will pay the first visit to you. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
When a lady intends to give a large party or ball, she calls or leaves cards at the houses of those whom she intends to invite, from ten days to a week before the invitations are issued. A slip of thin card-board with the name, and the number of residence and street engraved upon it, is accepted as a substitute for a ceremonious visit, and its shape and lettering varying with the fashion. It is usual, however, to prefix the titles of Mr., Mrs., and Miss to the name, but young gentlemen omit the Mr., and; the professional ones, such as Right Rev., Rev, and Dr., are also given, but we omit the prefix of Hon. and Excellency. Military and naval titles are added to the cards of those in the service of the United States of America. A card can be left or sent by an assistant, in lieu of a formal visit; but it is not well-bred to send it through the post. In leaving your card for a stranger, you may not want to add your address, but it used to be custom to do so. Keep an account of your ceremonial visits. A visiting-list, or book, is indispensable if one possesses a large circle of acquaintances. This is needful, because time passes so rapidly; and then you note down at what time your visits were returned. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
And you can graduate your visits by it; yet there may be circumstances, such as ill healthy, or age, which would render it desirable for you to call again without reference to the return of your visits. The courtesies of society should ever be respected among the nearest friends, and even in the domestic circle; but among relations and intimate friends, visits of ceremony are not needed. Yet, one should endeavor to pay even social visits at suitable hours, and never make one’s self a bore by staying too long. To continue working with the crochet needle, typewriter, telegraph machine, telephone, or television when visits of ceremony are paid, would be extremely uncourteous; but when intimate friends are present, it is not always necessary to lay aside any light kind of work which does not interfere with your conversation. However, you guests are not indentured servants. It is decidedly inconsistent, however, with good-breeding to have your eyes fixed upon a crochet, or worsted pattern, and attempt to count its stitches while receiving a call from the most intimate friend. If your visitors come from a distance, be sure to offer then some refreshments, or urge them to remain to lunch; and is those call who are ill in health, offer a glass of wine, with a biscuit or cracker. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
We admire learning in a pig; and undervalue it in a human. We once heard a lady say:– “I never attempted now to pay visits in the downtown or midtown of this city, because it entails upon me long drive, traffic, difficult parking, and something of a walk into the bargain, and as few ladies ever think of offering their friends either a glass of wine or a cup of coffee or tea, with a biscuit, scone, biscotti, or a bit of cake, I should return to my house half famished, and a severe headache would be the result. I am always glad to see my friends, but I cannot return their visits.” A slight lunch would be always agreeable after the exertion. In the same town or village, of course, such an attention is needles; yet, if aged persons call, it is pleasing courtesy to them. Do not pass gas in the phone booth, and it is polite to have a stool only in your own bathroom, if possible. And it is important that you never date more than one person from the same family. Never make fancy with the former romantic interest of your friends, and never date more than one person at a time. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
Find your own vision. Three important rules for breaking up. Do not put off breaking up when you know you want to. Prolonging the situation only makes it worse. Tell him honestly, simply, kindly, but firmly. Do not make a big production. Do not make an elaborate story. This will help you avoid a big tear-jerking scene. If you want to date other people, say so. Be prepared for the man to feel hurt and rejected. Even, if you have gone together for only a short time, and have not been too serious. There is still a feeling of rejection when someone says she preferred the company of others to your exclusive company. However, if you are honest, and direct, and avoid making a flowery emotional speech when you break the news, the man will respect you for your frankness and honesty. And honestly, he will appreciate the kind of straightforward manner in which you told him your decision, unless he is a real jerk or a crybaby, you will remain friends. When you face situations that seem impossible in your everyday life, pray. When you ask, God releases favor and angles to go to work and strongholds are broken. You will see the greatness of God’s power and the rest of your life will be the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
A Vital Doctrine—God Manifest in the Flesh
Never in a human head was contemplation more separated from desire. The Architects and advocates of the modern English translations of the Holy Scriptures unequivocally declare that Christ was God manifest in the flesh. He appeared in body. Two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one Person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and human beings. The Westminster Divines evidently regarded this verse as one of the essential proofs of the Trinitarian doctrine of the Bible, that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. The first Reason, why the then Greatness of the Roman Empire was a fit Circumstance of Time for the Mission, of Christ, is that he might better manifest his Divine Authority and Commission to the civil Powers of the World. Hell, Satan, and the devils are in reality sates of the mind. However, some events can never be explained. When we limit the mental to the realm of conscious events (the actual), it is called psychology without a soul. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
Faithfulness to fact is raised to the level of genius. Behavior at the house is one of the best touchstones of good manners; for many persons will appear well abroad, and yet cannot exhibit any degree of ease at their own fireside table. However, to entertain company without embarrassment or excitement, is an art which it requires some usage to perfect. Company, various company, is the only school of this knowledge. Nothing forms a young person so much as being used to keep respectable and superior company, where a constant regard and attention is necessary. It is true, this is at first a disagreeable state of restraint; but it soon grows habitual, and consequently easy; and you are amply paid for it by the improvement you make, and the credit it gives you. Hospitality is also a Christian duty, and all homemakers should exercise it to some extent. We were not designed to live alone, to shut ourselves up in our houses, and enjoy the blessings up in our houses, and enjoy the blessings which have been given us in a spirit of exclusiveness. The idea is therefore essentially the divine nature and formally the ratio according to which God intelligizes creatures. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
These ideas make up the creative mind of God. In a parallel fashion the universal (on human level) is its singular. The singular participates in its universal, which is by nature a projection of an idea in the mind of God. As a creation of God’s mind, the singular is incapable of annihilation. For God to allow a singular to be annihilated would be to permit the annihilation of a part of himself—an obvious impossibility. Nature teaches us a lesson in this direction. She keeps open house for innumerable winged and creeping insects, and their banquets are always spread among the beautiful, fragrant flowers, whose hospitable abodes are every filled with guests, from the bees and the butterflies to the tiniest winged fairy. Elegant hospitality can be exercised at a moderate expense; and those of us who cannot afford to give costly dinner or evening parties, can surely entertain a few friends at tea or coffee, or of an evening, and this promote a social feeling among neighbors and acquaintances. It is not well for young persons to entertain too much company when they first commence housekeeping, but neither is it well to pay no heed to hospitality. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
God’s intellection, his knowledge, his will, the Trinity, his ideas and his power to create outside himself is the grand design. Young people should live frugally and you will live happily; shut not your doors or hearts against those who have a claim upon your hospitality;–but remember, that if they really esteem and love you, they will come not to look at your table or your furniture, but to enjoy your society. Psychology is the common basis for all scientific and cultural knowledge and the bond uniting all the individual sciences, and therefore as the science directly preparatory to philosophy. Certain knowledge is possible for humans of one realm but not of the other, where only opinion is possible, although God may be able to have the knowledge of both. The chief art of pleasing is to make everyone feel at home; that is, at one’s ease. And if anything has occurred in your ménage to ruffle your temper, do not annoy your guest by telling your grievances. Of course, they cannot be interested in such petty details; and the relation may tend to mar their pleasure. We can improve our understanding, but this will always fall short of knowledge. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
The most perfect being must owe one’s exemption from vice to the absence of temptation. We never quite understand why another dislikes what we like. There are those who are born with the faculty of rendering everyone happy who comes in contact with them, and they seem endowed with great discernment of character, and can encourage the timid, repress the encroaching, and call forth the peculiar talents and perfections of all. Such persons can always make themselves agreeable; while there are others who, strive as they can, can never attain to the same position. Yet, a desire to please—a desire to entertain one’s guest, will usually prove successful; and if you are cheerful, animated and pleasant yourself, you cannot fail to shed a halo of pleasure upon those around you. People of an enormously strong moral character have an unselfishness and self-control. It is important to be ambitious generals and politicians to acquire knowledge, and draw analogies to show that all skills must be learned. The significance of your knowledge can be usefully increased by deeper understanding of the purposes of your various crafts. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
If your friends become your guests for awhile, it is well to give them some insight into your mode of life. Then they will readily comprehend your duties, and will often think it advisable not to encroach too much upon your morning hours, which may be required for some domestic occupations. After luncheon, or early dinner, your time, however, should be given up to them; either to drive out, walk, shop, or in some entertainment in the house. Of course, you will always attend to the arrangement of their sleeping-rooms, and provide everything that is essential for their comfort before they arrive, unless you are blessed with a most superior housekeeper. It is merciless to invite friends to visit you in cold weather, without providing a fire in their bedroom or dressing-room (heat). Neither is it courteous to wait until they arrive, and then inquire—“Would you like a fire?” Therefore, if you cannot afford to make your friends comfortable, do not invite them; at least in the wintry season. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
There are temptations which it is not in the power of human nature to resist. Let your guest see, by your manner, that their presence is a decided pleasure to you; and make it also an incentive to recreations and amusements which do not belong to the common routine of your life. One should try to make their visits as agreeable as possible, but without any apparent effort; so that they many not think that you are putting yourself out of the way to afford them pleasures in which you do not often indulge. It is your duty to endeavor to make the time pass pleasantly, but if your visitors perceive that you are altering the daily tenor of your life on their account, it will detract greatly from their happiness. Mental training is paramount; serenity, sincerity, magnanimity, introspection, and self-restraint are the virtues to be cultivated. An ethical formula of devotion within, righteousness without is a virtue to be cultivated. Learning is knowing and practice. Therefore, we must rely on intelligence rather than strength. Intelligence is a great asset in the struggle for existence. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
We do not injure others, nor harm ourselves in the pursuit of fame, wealth, and rank. These are to be avoided as temptations external to one’s nature. On the other hand, there is inherent in human beings a craving for the pleasures of this World. To seek the gratification of one’s desires for such things as fine food and beautiful objects is to yield to one’s original nature and in this way to work for its completion. We must seek happiness to our heart’s content, as well as longevity and immortality. One should not unnecessarily shorten one’s life. It is a good plan, when inviting guests to visit you, to state a given period for their visit. Mention the day when you would be happy to receive them, and the length of time of their visit. Perhaps a young lady is invited to make a visit in the country, or in the city, and no mention is made of days, weeks, or months, for its limit, and, therefore, she is utterly at a loss to know what amount of clothing to bring. It is impossible to study the human frame without a little studying the human mind. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
The imprudence of our thoughts recoils upon our heads. When your guests intimate their intention of leaving you, if you really desire them to remain longer, say so frankly, and urge them to prolong the visit; but if you do not care for their society any longer, do not be so insincere as to urge it; or, on the other hand, if they cannot prolong their visit, do not worry them by your pertinacity in urging them to do so—but, while you invite them to renew their visit at their earliest convenience, facilitate their departure by every means in your power, and give them all needful information as to routes, times tables, etc. Of course, no guest will leave a friend’s house without some expression of regret and good-will. A good warm heart will, however, dictate the forms of speech requisite upon such occasions. And when you are at the house, be sure and inform your friends of your safe arrival, and express the gratification you have received from your visit, and gracefully allude to different members of the family, while you thank them for their kindly hospitality. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
The transcendental knowledge attained involves a vivid awareness of the nature of the soul and its essential distinctness from the psychophysical organism. This bring liberation. No well-bred person will ever fail to acknowledge your hospitality and charming family; and a failure to do so, is a decided mark of ignorance of both etiquette and politeness. Guests will never take the part of either host or hostess in any trifling disagreement or opinion. As visitors, they can express their ideas upon various matters, of course; but shun any partisanship. And they will also scrupulously respect the rights of their entertainers, and never criticize their surroundings and manners to other persons. A house guest never speaks ill of those whose food one has tasted; and well-bred persons will never repeat what Mrs. Hearst said, nor tell what Mr. Hearst. did, when they were visiting. There has been some investigation of the physiology, and there seems little doubt that a kind of hibernation can be achieved and that the control over lungs, heartbeat, and the viscera organs is, by ordinary standards remarkable. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
Some of the ore spectacular physical claims, however (such as levitation), are unconfirmed, and some of them are mythological in style. The ascription of magical powers to the host or hostess is part of the traditional tendency in India to think that with austerity and mental discipline can create a force which can even threaten the gods. This in turn both reflects and generates the view that mystical experience is the supreme religious goal, transcending the cult of supernatural beings. Such discrepancies of good manners are perfectly unendurable, and no respectable person will excuse them. Visitors should always give the housekeepers who waited upon them some little presents, either in money or its equivalent. They have had extra work in waiting upon them, and, therefore, deserve extra compensation. The chain which binds society together is composed of innumerable links, and it should be the part of hosts and guest to keep them uniformly bright; and to let neither moth nor rust corrupt them. There is nothing so difficult as to manage the public mind. The rest of your life will be the best of your life, which is socially engaged, but still retains its intellectual independence and freedom of social criticism. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
Seeing may be contrasted both with hearing and with feeling by touching. One way in which seeing differs from hearing follows from the truth of our language that we hear an object if and only if we hear a sound which is made by the object. There is no comparable linguistic practice in the case of seeing. This may lead us to think of sight as presenting objects to us directly, hearing only indirectly. One way in which seeing differs from feeling by touching is that if we feel something by touching it, our experience is of feeling it with a particular part of the body. Our visual experience, however, is not of seeing with our eyes. We can imagine a disembodied mind having visual experiences but not having tactile ones. Sight does not require our being part of the material World in the way in which feeling by touching does. One way in which seeing differs from both hearing and feeling by touching is in respect to time. It takes time to hear a tune or to feel the shape of a statue, but one seems to be able to see a landscape instantaneously. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Sweet pliability of a human’s spirit, that can at once surrender itself to illusions, which cheat expectations and sorrow of their weary moments! Thus, the directness of seeing when contrasted with hearing, its noninvolvement with its object when contrasted with feeling by touching, and its apparent temporal immediacy when contrasted with both hearing and feeling by touching are features that may partly explain the belief that sight is the most excellent of the senses; this envied in the use by ancient and modern philosophers of predominantly visual metaphors to describe intellectual apprehension. Pray that we may finally receive the consolations and the succor of Heaven in all our necessities, tribulations and sufferings, particularly in Sacramento, and that we may bless God with the Elect through eternity. As mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyze the manner of its composition, so sublime intelligence may read in the feeble shining of this Earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
There is No Secret of Success—Success is for Everyone
No advice on success works unless you do. Your life becomes better only when you become better. Beware of the barrenness of an overcrowded life. The secret of the heart is its pressing love of self. The purpose of history—what happens at any time is not simply or wholly the effect of what has already happened; and event is dependent upon its past as the material upon which activity may be expended, but it is also a new and fresh expenditure of activity upon that material. What occurs is reconstruction, transformation, remaking. What was is thus pushed back into the past, and what becomes takes the place of what was. Time does not move from past through present to future; rather, it moves from the possible to the actual, that is, from one of the potentialities of what formerly was to a single actuality which is brought into existence by an action (whether that action be unconscious chance or conscious choice) upon what was. What comes to us from the past offers us opportunities and often imposes cruel limitations, but it does not make our choices for us. Rather, it allows us to realize our ends insofar as we have understanding of the potentialities it contains. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
History has no one end; it includes many processes with their many, often incompatible, ends. And human choices, insofar as they are intelligent, may well be effective to some degree. A naturalistic theory of nature thus issues in a humanistic theory of man. Habitual inattention is sometimes attributed to great genius, but we cannot endorse that idea. Such a peculiarity of manner is subversive of all politeness, and tends to shut a person within oneself, and make one of little importance in life. There are some young persons, however, who delight to pass for geniuses or originals, and they think it very interesting to appear as if in a “brown study” while in the company of others. They like to seem entirely absorbed, and are delighted if anyone observes their eccentricities. Such manners are entirely at variance with good-breeding. If a person speak to you ever so foolishly or frivolously, it is the height of ill manners not to heed what he or she says; and if he or she every forces conversation upon you, it is unkind, to say the least, to assume a perfectly indifferent demeanor. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
Besides, you cannot offer anyone more flattering attention than by that pleasing deference which, though it may involve somewhat of a sacrifice yet, is worth making. It is a good rule to endeavor to please everyone as far as is possible for us to do without too great a breach of sincerity. In this country, free and easy manners are too prevalent; but space would fail us to particularize all the little trifles in which even well-bred persons sometimes fall short. We will, however, briefly remark, that nothing can be more adverse to good manners than the habit of sitting with the hat on in the house—be it in the parlor, dining-room, kitchen, store, or office; or then yawning and whispering in company, lounging upon the chairs, by tipping them back upon two legs; taking the best seat in the room, and keeping them when your elders enter; or standing with the back to an open fire, when other persons are near it; and last, but not least, spitting into the fire, etc. These practices are deemed almost peculiar to our country, and have been severely animadverted upon by European travelers in our midst. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
Not only that, but during police investigations, when people are suspected of crimes and refuse to give a DNA sample (in order to match the blood or body fluid to a crime scene) investigators will be undercover, watching you and waiting for you to spit on the ground or drop a cigarette so that they can collect your DNA and tie you to the crime. They will photograph or video tape you so they can prove that they legally obtained the same from you, even without you knowing. The evidence can be disputed. However, if you do not know the victim, then your DNA has no business being at the crime scene. And if you know the victim, you better hope you have a good reason for living your DNA behind. So be care when you spit or liter, and realize there is usually a witness to everything that happens. A man or woman may have virtue, capacity, and good habits, and yet his or her lack of good-breeding may made him or her unendurable to those who are well-bred. There are three classes of people; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. If a person neglects education, one walks lame to the end of one’s life. The style and manner which we neglect as too trifling for us to heed, are often the things by which the World judges us. There are many little matters of personal bearing and conduct which must be attended to, if we desire to be agreeable to society. It is useless to say that such a man or woman, whose attire is neglected, whose whole appearance bespeaks the sloven, is a good and able man or woman and therefore must be agreeable and pleasing. His or her ability and goodness are, doubtless, desirable qualities, but the personal juxtaposition of the individual is insupportable to those who are accustomed to cleanliness and refinement. Not that it is essential that every person should be externally elegant, or an adept in the rules which constitute good-breeding; but no one can hope to be admired and sought after, who is addicted to conspicuous uncleanliness, the special tendency of which is to inspire painful feelings in those around him or her. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
Never by monkeyish or clownish—attempting to introduce the manners of the circus into the house. Some rude boys and girls seem to ride themselves upon their exhibitions of low, vulgar tricks, antic gestures, foolish jests, and odd, slangy expression. This is an example of the contrast between the brilliant skill, ingenuity, and care bestowed upon observation and experiment in biology, and the almost complete neglect of caution in regard to the definition and use of etiquette and good breeding. The effect of this has been to arrest the development of the life sciences. They cause chronic controversies and antitheses of biology, such as those between mechanism and vitalism, preformation and epigenesist, teleology and causation, structure and function, organism and environment, and body and mind. Such low, shameful vulgarity may excite the laughter of foolish persons, for the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness; but no one possessing common sense can see such behavior without disgust and abhorrence. And every person that acts like the buffoon puts oneself on the level with a clown, and lowers oneself in the estimation of the good and the wise. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue. Be polite, respectful and modest to all, and especially to your elders and superiors. There is nothing more disgusting than a youth who assumes an air of disrespect and self-importance towards one’s superiors, equals, or inferiors. Never stare people in the face. It is exceedingly impolite, and a certain mark of ill-breeding to stare idly at strangers or anyone, as though you were entirely unused to seeing visitors. In conversing with anyone, however, it is right to look him or her in the face, with cheerful, dignified and respectful assurance. Never jerk, twitch or slam doors or window blinds; but endeavor to be cautious and gentle in all your motions. No well-bred child will ever slam a door in anger, or even give it a strong twitch. Never enter a house or parlor with your boots all mud and slush, or sit down with your hat or cap on. Never go up and down stairs, or about the house, with the speed or a trotting horse and the tread of an elephant; step lightly, quickly, and orderly. Never be rude and boisterous with your young friends. You can share in all kinds of sports, and yet never lose the command of yourself so as to become hoydenish and bold. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. Avoid loud screaming and rude merriment. Remember what Lear says of Aaliyah: “Her voice was ever sweet, gentle and low; and excellent thing in a woman. If we will study to introduce home etiquette into our families; to learn to be always courteous—always conciliatory—always well-bred—we should find that we had gained an immeasurable amount of happiness and the rest of our lives will be the best of our lives. Negligence and carelessness with regard to the little amenities of life, are the fruitful source of much domestic unhappiness. Good manners are to the family, what good morals are to society, their cement and their security. We think not that we daily see about our hearts—angels that are to be, or may be if they will, and we prepare their souls and ours to meet in happy air—a child, a friend, a wife whose soft heart sings in unison with ours, breeding its future wings. We should continue to turn to God as children, being continuously converted every day of our lives. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
Almighty God, who, when the hearts of your people have grown cold, send your Holy Spirit to relight the flame of your love in their hearts, and raise up faithful ministers to recall your people to their former devotion and service. Mercifuly grant that we, following the teachings and example of Teresa of Avila, may be filled with your Holy Spirit, may be aflame with zeal for your glory and love for your goodness and hunger for your love, and that our feet may be set upon the path that leads to true holiness. We ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Bless it be. You may be discouraged because your plans did have not worked out, but those closed doors were not an accident. That was God directing your steps. The reason God closed them because he has something better in store. Will you trust God? Gods ways are not our ways, they are better than our ways. There will be times when you do not get what you want, and you cannot understand why not. You may be experiencing that right now. Will you stay in faith while you wait to see what God is up to? #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
Our first scrape generally leads to our first travel. Disappointment requires change of air; desperation change of scene. God is wonderful in his design and excellent in his process and projects and houses. Believer, God overrules all things for your good. Your course is mapped out by your Lord. Nothing will take God by surprise. There will be no novelties to God. Real satisfaction comes not in understanding God’s motives, but in understanding his character, in trusting in his promises, and in leaning on him and resting in God as the Sovereign who knows what he is doing and does all things well. Perhaps there is a pattern set up in the Heavens for one who desires to see it, and having seen it, to find one in oneself. Time—I see it not, I feel it not: it is but a shadowy name—a succession of breathings measured forth by night by the clank of a bell, by day by a shadow crossings along a dialstone. Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievements. Protect your dreams. Feed them. Nurture them. Encourage them to grow, Care for them. For someday, they may take care of you. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Chicken, Chicken! why did you Not have Beef or Moose Meat Stew?
Living bodies are machines, but machines directed toward the fulfillment of God’s purposes. My father was a business man and I am a business man, too! I want this philosophical work to be businesslike, to settle things. Sometimes, lighthearted moments become somber, when one is dismayed by the insincerity, vanity, and coldness of the human heart. Two people can be friends only if both of them are pure, so that they can be completely open with one another without causing offense. A relationship founded on hypocrisy, censorious, suspicion, and demands is intolerable. Human kindness and human concern are more important attributes in a person than intellectual power or cultivated taste. Many people have an acute need for friendship, and it is striking when one can meet a friend who displays generosity. Children and assistants are greatly influenced by the demeanor of masters and mistress of the house; and the husband who addresses his wife, in their presence, in a derogatory manner, does both himself and her a decided injury. While the wife, on her part, is equally bound to show all due respect to her husband. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15
Every human being possesses an innate perception of what is right. Children and servants are not exceptions to this general rule; and those of us who indulge in unkind expressions towards each other, lower ourselves more than we can, perhaps, understand in the opinions of those about us. Empirical psychology studies the powers of the soul as they are discovered by inner senses. There are two general fields of the soul—the cognitive powers and the will (which includes the feelings of pleasure and pain). The cognitive powers begin with the inferior faculty, or sensibility, because knowledge comes only from sensation. There is a pre-established harmony of soul and body. The soul is an immaterial substance possessing the power of representing the Universe and free will. Rationally, the soul is simple and immortal. The structure of the World and the objects in it are aimed at the fulfillment of God’s wise ends and the study of this method is a good method of studying nature. Good is what increases our perfection and evil is what diminishes it, and perfection is an objective metaphysical concept. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15
Therefore, moral and juridical laws do not depend on God’s will, but on the structure of being. They can be discovered by natural reason independent of Christian revelation. In many cases, a feeling of dislike is engendered, which no after circumstances can obliterate—a feeling near akin to contempt, also; for who can cherish respect for individuals who cannot govern themselves? Human beings are moved to acts by the rational representation of perfection and obligations or duties independent of rewards and punishment for carrying them out. Sin arises when sensibility prevails over reason; but sensibility is ruled by free will. A generous-minded boy will never forget the unkind and taunting words which he has heard an irritable and ill-governed father address to his dearly loved mother; nor will either girls or boys forget similar breaches of politeness and good-breeding exhibited by their mother towards the father. Truly, we have need of patience! and in the family circle it is one of the brightest virtues. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15
Ethics are based on an empirical psychology that describes the virtues, passions, and practical customs. Theology and ethics entirely are the foundation of natural reason. By reason, we mean scientific thought rather than common sense. The human intellect must be extended beyond the limits traditionally set for it by the German philosophical schools. “Cannot you both have patience?” murmured a little gentle boy once in our hearing, while his parent were indulging in unseemly bickerings, and there was a whole volume of reproof in that one sentence. William Wirt Winchester, a pattern of good-breeding, tells his son that—“The most familiar and intimate habitudes, connections and friendships, require a degree of good-breeding both to preserve and cement them. The best of us have our bad sides; and it is an imprudent as it is ill-bred to exhibit them. I shall not use ceremony with you, it would be misplaced between us; but I shall certainly observe that degree of good-breeding which, I am sure, is absolutely necessary to make us like one another’s company long.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 15
This is the best advice which can be given to husbands and wives, parents and children, and also to relatives and friends. The foundation of religion consists in moral distinctions among the acts of humans, whether they be good, evil, or indifferent, is an intelligent and free agent. Truth is the expression of things as they are, and vice constitutes a rejection of the truth; to deny things as they are is virtually to deny the existence of God. To follow nature is to follow God. This does not mean, however, that one should follow exclusively the inclinations of one’s individual nature. Since no one is purely rational, each individual must consider the nature of others. The great law of religion is for each person not to contradict truth, but to treat everything as it really is. Happiness is based on the pleasure—pain thesis, pain being a real evil, pleasure a real good. Ultimate happiness is the excess of pleasure over pain, and it is the duty of everyone to make oneself as happy as possible consonant with the happiness of others. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15
The habit of bantering, which is so often adopted by married people before children and assistances, is very undesirable, and frequently leads to serious consequences. How does a man know what is true? The husband will give a ridiculous appellation to the wife, which will raise a laugh at her expense; but in the end, it may lower him far more than the mother in the opinion of the children; and in their turn, they will often feel more respect and affection for the mother than for the father. Nothing can be more injurious, or inconsistent with true politeness and good-breeding, than the constant habit of fault-finding concerning little petty trifles, when indulged in by either husband or wife, in the presence of others or by themselves. There are men who never come to the table but they will find fault with the dishes served upon it. If roast beef is the chief dish, they will say:–“Chicken, Chicken! why did you not have beef or moose meat stew? I am tired of this everlasting chicken!” #RandolphHarris 6 of 15
Or vice versa. No matter what the wife may have provided, such a man will always evince a desire for something else. We reason about particulars, or from them; but not by them. Action according to right reason and action according to truth are identical. This is the general law laid down by the author of nature, and this constitutes the religion of nature. The senses are inferior to reason but are to be followed, nevertheless, when not contrary to reason. In instances where certainty concerning the truth is unobtainable, one may act on probability but always under the guide of reason. The necessity of education by the cultivation of reason is thus demonstrated. Man’s desires, his passions, must be submitted to reason. Since man is individual and the principles of reason are universal, the laws of nature forbid the individual to transgress the rights of others. All injustice is wrong and evil, and compassion is one of the highest virtues. Man is to be regarded not only as an individual, but also as a social creature, and the purpose of society is common welfare of all the people. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15
Human-made laws are not infallible, but may require alteration from time to time, and no human-made law should contradict a law of nature. Since mutual defense is one of the great ends of society, war against aggression is legitimate and necessary. Now, were the gentleman accused of fault-finding, he would indignantly deny it; and he may be a kind and good and true husband and father, and only have inadvertently fallen into this habit of not being satisfied with what has been provided. A good way to cure him, would be for the wife to hand him a pencil and a card every morning as he leaves the house, and request him to put down what he desires for dinner; so that the daily fault-finding can be, in measure, averted. This would convince him of his practice of picking flaws in the menage; and go far towards effecting a reformation in it. Half of us find fault from habit; but some of us, we fear, do so from an inborn ugliness of disposition. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15
Of the latter class we have little hopes; but the former can cure themselves—and it pleases them. Bad habits are very easily acquired; therefore, young persons must take special pains to avoid them. We are always disgusted with sons and daughters who do not show a marked respect to their parents, elders, and superiors; and who do not scruple to contradict them, and set up their own opinions, with the utmost pertinacity, against those of their parents. And why should our young men put aside the honored name of “Father,” and substitute for it the objectionable words “Governor” or “Old Man?” Some persons may reply, “What signifies a name?” A great deal; and Father is a holy name, given to us directly from God, the Father of all humankind; and he who attains to that rank and stands as a father of the family, occupies a high position, and his children should recognize his sacred office and give him the name assigned to it. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15
No one thinks of calling his mother “Governess” or “Mrs. Governor.” If a daughter should attempt it, it would be esteemed highly irreverent and ridiculous; yet it is not in reality any more absurd a practice. Young persons often fall into erroneous habits from want of thought; therefore, it is needful to remind out young friends of certain little discrepancies regarding good-breeding, which they should carefully endeavor to avoid. Good manners are taught in the house, by line upon line and precept upon precept. Undoubtedly, a well-bred father and mother will not have so much difficulty in rearing polite and well-mannered children as those who are the reverse—not because they ae born so, perhaps; but because, as we have said before, good manners are learned by imitation more readily than by precept and rule. It follows from God’s perfect justice that humans are immortal and that the iniquities and evils of this World will be corrected; a particular providence and a future state necessarily exist. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15
And the God of nature, who is the God of reason and the God of justice, is to be worshipped. Let brothers and sisters be taught to respect each other’s rights; be as thoughtful to please, and as watchful to avoid anything which will perplex and annoy each other, as they would be to a young guest whom they desired to honor; and they will then learn a due observance of home etiquette and politeness. Rude and rough boys are often allowed to treat their sisters in a very disagreeable, overbearing manner, and annoy them on every occasion, by breaking up their baby houses, cutting their hair off their dolls, and destroying their playthings, and speaking very slightingly of “the girls.” We consider such behavior as exceedingly reprehensible, and entirely at variance with all rules of good-breeding. Such boys will also make unkind and rude husbands; for by being permitted to exhibit and indulge such traits of character in their youth, they will be likely to indulge in them in their manhood, and pursue the same pleasing pastimes in their own families. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15
A sister is the best judge of a brother’s abilities in playing the role of a good husband. And a brother can estimate very fairly the position which a sister would hold in a husband’ home. We delight in the freedom of childhood; in its merry—quips and cranks and wanton wiles; and in the cheerfulness of youth, and its many delights and pleasures; but still more charming is the gentlemanly demeanor of brothers toward their sisters. Boastful persons, and such as disregard truth in their statements, are usually to be avoided; these sins, in the lowest point of view, are decidedly against the etiquette of god society. No woman can either resect or love a man who is in the habit of deceiving her; nor can a man esteem or love a woman whose statements do not possess the virtue of truth. Life and mind are products that develop, here and there, in the course of the manifold developments in the natural World. Mind, life, consciousness, and soul are activities of certain types of bodies; they never appear apart from those bodies, although mind, once is has emerged in Nature, may come to guide and thus to master some of the occurrences in the World about it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15
Men will sometimes conceal from women the realities of their lives on the plea that they are too narrow minded, weak, or simple to understand them; while women, in their turn, conceal the details of their daily life on the score that they do not wish to e interfered with; or for fear lest their hidden pleasures be denied them. Hence arises the theory that wives must be kept in the dark concerning their husbands’ pursuits; and that men must be managed so that they shall not forbid this, that or the other desired pleasure. And this is styled diplomacy in the house circle. Of course, this state of affairs is very uncertain and slippery; and an expose will be threatened daily. Consciousness, far from being the source of the objective World, presupposes it existence. In all this realistic position, both husband and wife feel that they are deceived, yet cannot tell exactly how, when or where; cannot place their hand on the very spot—cannot prove what they suspect. Nature indicates a norm of perfection which the historical processes in this World seldom bring to fulfillment. It is contrasted with an allegedly superior spirit or supernature. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15
Men always know that they are managed even when they cannot see the way; women understand they are deceived;–are sure that excuses given for uncalled-for absences are not the right one—even though they cannot discover the truth. Such things go in the air, and consciousness is evolved even in the senses reveal naught. Such houses, however, are but the stepping-stones to a deeper abyss of woe. A love of truth, a high sense of honor, delicacy of manner, and strict adherence to correct principles, are the chief essentials of home etiquette. Be careful to avoid the habit of sauntering into a room without attending to anything that passes there;–thinking, it may be, of a trifling affair that need not occupy the attention, or very likely not thinking at all. In this way some persons trespass upon the rules of politeness which enjoin that each one should do one’s part in society. Let Nature be, as I love to put it, Heaven and Earth, the Sea, and all that is in them is, and I do not see how one can here complain of ambiguity. Make it a rule wherever you are, to take an interest in all that passes, observe the characteristics of the persons you meet, and listen to and take part in the subjects of their conversations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15
Nature is what we find around us, whether we are looking on a top closet shelf, or through telescopic instruments at stellar Universes that are distant in both time and space, or at the evidences for ancient cities that long ago disappeared from view. Daily life, technical science, and history alike presuppose. Nature; that is, all these kinds of quests for knowledge presuppose simply that there is much to investigate. As we bring every part of our natural bodily life into harmony with the new life God has placed within us, he will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. God has a bank vault of blessings stored up for you. Something new and good is going to happen and the rest of your life will be the best of your life. God has extraordinary miracles coming your way. Angel of God, my Guardian, to whom his lobe commits me here, ever this day and night, be at my side to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15
I Have a Sweet Little Angel
The contemplation of beauty causes the soul to grow wings. Beauty is indefinable—it is one of the greatest mysteries of nature, and beyond the limits of human understanding. (There is nevertheless an absolute standard of taste. However, this cannot be deduced; it must be grasped through a deeper insight into actual works of art.) Beauty maintains a glorious elasticity in its own ecstasies of hope, provided you do not crush it with a doubt of its own purity. Expression is a lower stage of beauty. It is a lively imitation of both the soul and the body as passive and active. Pure beauty is reached through the stillness of this feeling of life. To one that lives well every form of life is good, nor can there be given any other rule for choice than to remove from all apparent evil. The highest stage of beauty arises from the unification of expression and pure beauty in grace. By this unity beauty becomes an appearance of divinity in the representation of a sensible object. The unity of art arises mainly from simplicity and measure, or the harmony of opposing traits—for instance, understanding passions. When a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has the eye to contemplate the vision. #RandolphHarris 1 of 12
This process of unification corresponds to the rise from sensible to ideal beauty, or from the imitation of nature to the creation of higher nature. The observation of nature gives us the means of overcoming spurious standards of beauty and a set of samples to be used by the intellect in creating the higher nature. Beauty is felt by the senses, but it is understood and created by the intellect—which is the faculty of ideas as well as of distinct concepts. The ideal (Das Ideale) or spirit (Geist), is the most important and controversial notion of aesthetic. One kind of ideal is created when an artist combines in one unique whole elements of beauty among different natural objects—for example, by constructing a perfect female figure from separate parts imitating parts of different women, each of which is the most perfect of its kind. A superior kind of ideal arises when the choice of parts is directed not only by a feeling for proportion, but by a supernatural idea translated into matter—for example, the superhuman perfection of a particular human type or quality such as the combination of attractive manhood and pleasing youthfulness in the Apollo del Belvedere, or of enormous pain in a great soul in the Laocoon. #RandolphHarris 2 of 12
The power of the good has taken refuge in the nature of the beautiful and the ideal is not abstracted from experience, but is derived from an intuition of the beauty of God himself. It is realized through a creative process like that of God creating his own image in man. Ideal beauty of the second kind must show noble simplicity and quiet greatness (edle Einfalt und stille Grosse). Because beauty in its highest form is spiritual, it must suggest a deeper ethical meaning. These ethical thoughts are the content of real art. Art makes them intuitively known through allegory. Nature also presents allegories to humans; and humans themselves spoke through images before they spoke in rational language. Painting, sculpture, and poetry all express through allegory invisible things; and thus allegory is the foundation of the unity of the different fine arts. Simplicity, or unity, gives distinctness (Deutlichkeit) to a work of art. Therefore, there is an intuitive, or sensible, distinctness, whereas the then current psychology admitted only intellectual distinctness and allowed only clarity to sensibility. #RandolphHarris 3 of 12
Greek art is the standard of ideal beauty. The Greek man was the most spiritually and ethically balanced, and therefore the most physically perfect, because of various climatic, geographical, historical, social, and political conditions. Greek artist could therefore use the beautiful human specimens as models; and they should be imitated by modern artists. Imitation of nature and imitation of the Greek is the same thing. However, in a recent address made by the Bishop of Manchester, England, he said “Some people think a gentleman means a man of independent fortune—a man, who fares sumptuously every day; a man who need not labor for his daily bread.” Yet, none of these make a gentleman—not one of them—nor all of them together. I have known men when I was brought closer in contact with working men than I am brought now; I have known men of the roughest exterior, who had been used all their lives to follow the plough and to look after horses, as thorough gentlemen in heart as any nobleman who ever wore a ducal coronet. I mean, I have known them as unselfish, I have known them as truthful, I have known them as sympathizing; and all these qualities go to make what I understand by the term a gentleman. #RandolphHarris 4 of 12
It is a noble privilege which has been sadly prostituted; and what I want to tell you is, that the humblest man in Leeds, who has the coarsest work to do, yet, if his heart be tender, and pure, and true, can be, in the most emphatic sense of the word, a gentleman. We all know that there are those in our midst who object to politeness, or polite phrases, because, as they say, the language is false and unmeaning. And company manner is scornful terms frequently applied to the courteous demeanor, and may polite sentences which are often uttered, and are so very desirable, in well-bred society. When people are kind and say nice things from the heart, it makes them more attractive. When people are rude, mean, gossip and harass others, it has the opposite effect. Children and animals recognize this truth quite as readily as adults. A baby will cry at the sound of harsh language; and your horse, cow, dogs, bird, cat, fish, deer, or moose, are all most amenable to kind words and caressing motions. And although:–it is only humans words create, and cut the air to sounds articulate by Nature’s special character, yet kindness is a language which the unwise can speak and the hearing impaired can understand. #RandolphHarris 5 of 12
We can convey the plainest of truths in a civil speech; and the most malignant of lies can be also wrapped in specious words. However, we cannot consider a love of truth any apology for rude and uncouth manners; truth need not be made harsh, unlovely and morose; but should appear kind and gentle, attractive and pleasing. Roughness and honesty are, however, often met with in the same person; but we are not competent judges of human nature; if we take ill-manners to be a guarantee of probity of heart, or think a stranger must be a knave because he possesses the outward seeming of a gentleman. Doubtless there are many wolves in sheep’s clothing and snakes in suits in our land, but that does not decrease the value of gentleness and courtesy in the least. Good manners and a good conscience are very often twin-sisters, and are always more attractive for the companionship. Bad manners are frequently a species of bad morals; and there is no outward sign of courtesy that does not rest on a deep moral foundation. #RandolphHarris 6 of 12
Good manners are a very essential characteristic of religion also, as well as a fundamental part of civilization; and we are all in duty bound to treat those with whom we come in contact, with consideration, respect and deference. Good manners were given to humans from high authority. The Greeks and Romans, to be sure, were strictly devoted to etiquette—but it was not the kind that springs from a conscience void of offence against God and man. The customs of salutations, of visiting, of eating, of making presents, of introductions, writing letters, and the like, are all strictly defined, and they are enforced like our laws—no one being permitted to transgress them. We may define politeness, though we cannot tell where to fix it in practice. It observes received usages and customs, is bound to times and places, and is not the same thing in the two genders or in different conditions. Wit along cannot obtain it; it is acquired and brought to perfection by emulation. Some dispositions alone are susceptible of politeness, and others are only capable of great talents or solid virtues. #RandolphHarris 7 of 12
It is true, politeness puts merit forward, and renders it agreeable, and a human must have eminent qualifications to support oneself without it. Politeness may also be said to be in the embodiment of the golden rule; and without its assistance, without the amenities of society, life is an arid waste, a barren plain. Gold will not supply the deficiencies of a pleasing deportment; and we can assure our readers that they will find courtesy in all times and at all places the cheapest and most available of commodities. In Europe, good manners are most highly esteemed, and most assiduously inculcated both in the highest and the lowest classes; and the children are taught that it is very essential for them to show respect to their superiors and elders, and to be always kind and courteous to their inferiors. In America, politeness and etiquette are well taught in those families who possess culture and refinement; but among the masses rarely taught at all. Our district schools were nurseries of good manners thirty or forty years ago, compared to what they are at the present day. #RandolphHarris 8 of 12
Then the country children were taught to bow to strangers passing by; now they would be more likely to salute them with profanity or vulgarity. Good manners are surely a discount in the United States of America. We cannot disguise this fact—it Is seen by all who travel through the country, who frequent the city, who sail upon our rivers, and our lakes, drive on the roads, fly on the planes, or whirl rapidly along our railways. This savage behavior is also daily displayed on the news for the World to see. The lower officials are often cross and surly—the higher sometimes extremely discourteous; and the want of good-breeding is everywhere noted. Surely, we should ask ourselves the question—“Whence has this condition of affairs arisen?” Many would say it is since we removed prayer from the schools and removed public acknowledgment of God. This country was founded on Christianity and we are allowing people to remove the structural beams of Christ, which has kept this architecture so secure and sound. #RandolphHarris 9 of 12
Our democratic principles should not be allowed to lead us to indulge in discourtesy, and thus throw a shadow of disgrace upon our institutions. And those who consider the rules which regulate society needless and absurd, would, if they were laid aside, soon desire their restoration, as they are a needful barrier against rudeness and vulgarity. There are, doubtless, many eccentricities of fashion, yet they soon pass away; but some prescribed regulations for conduct are essential for the preservation order and dignity. We cannot let society get all loosey goosey, foolish and goulish, nor roguish and thuggish. Etiquette is intended to guard us from some of the inconveniences of large acquaintance, and by settling certain points, it permits us to maintain a ceremonious acquaintance with a circle much too large for social visiting. Therefore, let us:–study with care, politeness that much teach the modest forms of gestures and of speech; in vain formality, with matron mien, and pertness apes with her familiar grin; they against nature for applauses strain, distort themselves, and give all other pain. #RandolphHarris 10 of 12
Etiquette is a comprehensive term, for it embraces not only all observances connected with social intercourse, but such as belong particularly to the home circle. To obtain fireside comforts, and home-born enjoyments and happiness, something more is requires than a handsome horse, a beautiful emerald green lawn, shade-tress, and a garden filled with flowers arranged in the most artistic order. Family bickerings and strife; a lack of politeness, good-breeding and etiquette, would turn the loveliest Eden into a barren waste. It will avail us little to furnish our houses with all the elegancies which the upholsterer’s art can afford, and to cultivate the grounds with the utmost skill, if our hearts and minds are uncultivated, rough, uncouth and uncivilized. The members of one family must unceasingly interchange kind offices; must rejoice and mourn, hope and fear, smile and weep in unison; and must exchange sympathetic emotions, with due regard to each other’s feelings, or the charming delights of the domestic circle will lose much of their relish, or will be broken up and become totally devoid of interest. #RandolphHarris 11 of 12
And it cannot be too strongly impressed upon the mind, that mutual respect is the basis of true affection; and, although it may seem a trifling matter in the family whether this or this mode of speech is adopted, in reality it is a very important thing. Enlightenment happens in the present moment and is outside of time, history, or geography which are therefore irrelevant. Music, sweet fragrances, and architectural beauty is inspirational and uplifting to activate aspects of the consciousness which progressively becomes empowered by compassion, devotion and the power to overcome oppression. God has great things in store for his people; they ought to have large expectations. The rest of your life will be the best of your life. Leaders of the Heavenly armies, we beseech you that with your prayers you may encircle us with the protection of the wings of your angelic glory. Watch over us as we bow low and earnestly cry out to you: Deliver us from trouble, princes of the Heavenly armies. I have been in love with you baby, honey before I learned to call your name. #RandolphHarris 12 of 12
Randolph Harris II International Institute 