‘I meant to,’ she said, ‘until I smelt the wind. Then it was impossible. I should not care if every book in the world was burned, I think. And you, not at the Cathedral this morning?’ "What is the use of writing up our Canton experiences," said Frank, "till we know what we are to do? If we go home by San Francisco, we will have plenty of time on the steamer; and if we go on to the west, we will have to go by steamer too; and then we will have time enough between Hong-kong and the first port we stop at. Why should we be in a hurry to write up our account, when, in any case, we shall have the time to do so while we are at sea?" "What things?" enquired the Clockwork man. 2. The speed at which the transmitting machinery must move. Of a heavy heart, however, there was not a trace. In the previous chapter I described how beastly they behaved during the destruction of Visé; how the soldiers drank immoderate quantities of alcohol, and then jeered at the wretched refugees; how they indulged in unmitigated vandalism, and wrecked by hand things of which they knew that by and by would be destroyed by fire. My motor whirled along the gloriously fine road148 to Huy. It is a delicious tour through the beautiful valley of the Meuse, along sloping light-green roads. Had the circumstances not been so sad, I should have enjoyed it better. And the causes whence it springs, The scepticism of Protagoras went beyond theology and extended to all science whatever. Such, at least, seems to have been the force of his celebrated declaration that ‘man is the measure of all things, both as regards their existence and their non-existence.’67 According to Plato, this doctrine followed from the identification of knowledge with sensible perception, which in its turn was based on a modified form of the Heracleitean theory of a perpetual flux. The series of external changes which constitutes Nature, acting on the series of internal changes which constitutes each man’s personality, produces particular sensations, and these alone are the true reality. They vary with every variation in the88 factors, and therefore are not the same for separate individuals. Each man’s perceptions are true for himself, but for himself alone. Plato easily shows that such a theory of truth is at variance with ordinary opinion, and that if all opinions are true, it must necessarily stand self-condemned. We may also observe that if nothing can be known but sensation, nothing can be known of its conditions. It would, however, be unfair to convict Protagoras of talking nonsense on the unsupported authority of the Theaetêtus. Plato himself suggests that a better case might have been made out for the incriminated doctrine could its author have been heard in self-defence. We may conjecture that Protagoras did not distinguish very accurately between existence, knowledge, and applicability to practice. If we assume, what there seems good reason to believe, that in the great controversy of Nature versus Law, Protagoras sided with the latter, his position will at once become clear. When the champions of Nature credited her with a stability and an authority greater than could be claimed for merely human arrangements, it was a judicious step to carry the war into their territory, and ask, on what foundation then does Nature herself stand? Is not she, too, perpetually changing, and do we not become acquainted with her entirely through our own feelings? Ought not those feelings to be taken as the ultimate standard in all questions of right and wrong? Individual opinion is a fact which must be reckoned with, but which can be changed by persuasion, not by appeals to something that we none of us know anything about. Man is the measure of all things, not the will of gods whose very existence is uncertain, nor yet a purely hypothetical state of Nature. Human interests must take precedence of every other consideration. Hector meant nothing else when he preferred the obvious dictates of patriotism to inferences drawn from the flight of birds. Jeff called and signaled that all was ready. Larry summoned Sandy but the latter lingered, while Dick, a little sorry he had taunted so much, followed Larry toward the waiting airplane. But Sandy, scowling, hesitated whether he would go or be angry and refuse to join the Sky Patrol. Then, as he clambered onto the forward bracing of the under wing and leaned on the cockpit cowling, his face assumed a startled, intent expression. CHAPTER VIII SANDY MEETS A “SUSPECT” "I have been cheated." In the department of philosophy flourished also Bishop Berkeley (b. 1684; d. 1753), author of "The Principles of Human Knowledge," whostartled the world with the theory that matter has no existence in the universe, but is merely a fixed idea of the mind; Dr. Mandeville, a Dutchman by birth, who settled in London, and published various medical and metaphysical works of a freethinking character; Hutchinson, an opponent of Dr. Woodward in natural history, and Newton in natural philosophy; and David Hartley, author of "Observations on Man." Bishop Butler, Warburton, Hoadley, Middleton, author of "A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers of the Church," and Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, were the leading theologians in the Church; but Dissent could also boast of its men of light and leading in Dr. Isaac Watts, author of a system of Logic and of the popular Hymns; Calamy, the opponent of Hoadley; Doddridge, and others. "A lot," Dodd said. "I want—oh, God, I don't know what I want. Too much. Too many ideas ... trapped here being a master, and that's no good." When the doctor arrived an hour later, his services were needed after all. For Naomi gave birth to a little boy at dawn. The Tories were a little disconcerted—the toll-gate did not fit into their campaign. Tolls had always been unpopular in the neighbourhood, even though [Pg 180]Government-owned, and it was catastrophic that the enemy should suddenly have swooped down on the Colonel's private venture and rhymed it so effectively. But sometimes what kept him from her more than the thought of her humiliation was the thought of his own. For sometimes it seemed almost as if she had humbled him more than he had humbled her. He could not tell whether this sick feeling of shame which occasionally swamped him was due to the fact that he had so nearly surrendered to her or to the fact that he had not quite done so. Sometimes he thought it was the latter. The whole thing was ridiculous and perplexing, a lesson to him not to adventure into subtleties but to keep in communion with the broad plain things of earth. HoME伦理福利主播视频ENTER NUMBET 004www.75378.com.cn www.meiye2004.com.cn www.iquick360.net.cn wwwdwgroup.com.cn www.tdscn.com.cn www.gzhan.com.cn yamaiedu.cn www.henglishaoxing.com.cn www.biuged168.com.cn www.i-hosp.com.cn
渝公网安备 50010802003852号
