Sublime

More’s Utopia was in many ways astonishingly liberal. I am not thinking so much of the preaching of communism, which was in the tradition of many religious movements. I am thinking rather of what is said about war, about religion and religious toleration, against the wanton killing of animals (there is a most eloquent passage against hunting), and

It is folly to talk of this or that demonstrating the rationalist philosophy. Everything demonstrates it.

there is nothing logically self-contradictory about an immortal man. We believe the proposition on the basis of induction, because there is no well-authenticated case of a man living more than (say) 150 years; but this only makes the proposition probable, not certain. It cannot be certain so long as living men exist.

Let us consider, for a moment, the implications of this doctrine. It involves a complete rejection of empirical knowledge, including all history and geography. We cannot know that there was such a place as Athens, or such a man as Socrates; his death, and his courage in dying, belong to the world of appearance. It is only through sight and hearing

He begins with scepticism in regard to the senses. Can I doubt, he says, that I am sitting here by the fire in a dressing-gown? Yes, for sometimes I have dreamt that I was here when in fact I was naked in bed. (Pyjamas, and even nightshirts, had not yet been invented.) Moreover madmen sometimes have hallucinations, so it is possible that I may be i

RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650) is usually considered the founder of modern philosophy, and, I think, rightly.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubt, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. —Francis Bacon