Speculative Sentence Examples

But speculative knowledge breaks down or breaks off at an earlier point.

As a result it has been far easier for the American than for the European railway builder to take advantage of the speculative instinct in obtaining money.

Besides numerous contributions to the Proceedings of the Royal and the Royal Astronomical Societies, he published several books, both explanatory and speculative.

May we infer deductively that they have been attained because of the increase of speculative transactions?

His distinctive characteristics are his claim for absolute freedom in the study of church history and the New Testament; his distrust of speculative theology, whether orthodox or liberal; his interest in practical Christianity as a religious life and not a system of theology.

It is a chapter very difficult to write, for while on the one hand an ingenious and speculative historian may refer to the influence of the Crusades almost everything which was thought or done between r too and 1300, a cautious writer who seeks to find Brehier, L'Eglise et l'Orient, p. 347.

He had an extraordinary memory, well stored with scientific knowledge, both modern and historical, a cool and impartial judgment, and a strong preference for facts as against theory of the speculative kind.

From 1867 to 1893 Harris edited The Journal of Speculative Philosophy (22 vols.), which was the quarterly organ of the Philosophical Society founded in 1866.

He refused to base Judaism on speculative philosophy alone; there was a deep emotional side to his thought.

Berthelot, " alchemy rested partly on the industrial processes of the ancient Egyptians, partly on the speculative theories of the Greek philosophers, and partly on the mystical reveries of the Gnostics and Alexandrians."

Eckhart has been called the first of the speculative mystics.

Eckhart is in truth the first who attempted with perfect freedom and logical consistency to give a speculative basis to religious doctrines.

He maintained that the Platonic doctrine was providentially made to harmonize with Christianity, in order that by its means speculative intellects might be led to Christ.

The motley body of Aryan folk-belief, when subjected to the unifying thought of a speculative brain, was transformed to a selfcontained theory of the universe and a logical dualistic principle.

Zoroaster's teachings show him to have been a man of a highly speculative turn, faithful, however, with all his originality, to the Iranian national character.

Much of this area is of primeval forest; somewhat more than a third of the total, belonging to the government, was opened to sale (and speculative exspoliation) in 1904.

This theory had considerable influence on speculative philosophy in France during, the later years of the 19th century.

For Erigena, therefore, the speculative reason is the supreme arbiter; and in accordance with its results the utterances of Scripture and of the church have not infrequently to be subjected to an allegorical or mystical interpretation.

John the Scot was still E acquainted with Greek, seeing that he translated the work of the pseudo-Dionysius; and his speculative genius achieved the fusion of Christian doctrine and Neoplatonic thought in a system of quite remarkable metaphysical completeness.

Investigation of the writings of Indian mathematicians has exhibited a fundamental distinction between the Greek and Indian mind, the former being pre-eminently geometrical and speculative, the latter arithmetical and mainly practical.

The Arabians more closely resembled the Hindus than the Greeks in the choice of studies; their philosophers blended speculative dissertations with the more progressive study of medicine; their mathematicians neglected the subtleties of the conic sections and Diophantine analysis, and applied themselves more particularly to perfect the system of numerals, arithmetic and astronomy.

But of late years the beauties of the Rhine have become sadly marred; the banks in places, especially between Coblenz and Bonn, disfigured by quarrying, the air made dense with the smoke of cement factories and steam-tugs, commanding spots falling a prey to the speculative builder and villages growing into towns.

The rise of speculative philosophy in Greece was coincident with the beginning of prose composition, and many of the earliest philosophers wrote in the prose of the Ionic dialect; others, however, and especially the writers of the Greek colonies in Italy and Sicily, expounded their systems in continuous poems composed in the epic hexameter.

What chiefly distinguishes him from his Greek prototypes is that his purpose is rather ethical than purely speculative; the zeal of a teacher and reformer is more strong in him than even the intellectual passion of a thinker.

But the chief value of Lucretius as a thinker lies in his firm grasp of speculative ideas, and in his application of them to the interpretation of human life and nature.

In many instances, indeed, profits are more or less uncertain during the whole life of the mine, and it is evident that the value of the mining property must be more or less speculative.

In his studies he had come under the influence of Schleiermacher, Hegel and Franz Baader; but he was a man of independent mind, and developed a peculiar speculative theology which showed a disposition towards mysticism and theosophy.

It is important to note that in conceiving philosophic studies to be all one with historical studies and attaining to this unity in himself, he cultivated historical studies to an equal extent with purely theoretical and speculative studies, concentrating especially upon the history of thought and poetry.

In the front of the inquiry lies one main division, that, namely, between speculative and practical knowledge.

Speculative or theoretic knowledge is divided into abstract and concrete.

There is in every chapter a whole group of speculative suggestions, each of which would need a long chapter to itself to elaborate or to discuss.

Towards the close of his life he occupied himself, like Lessing, with speculative questions in philosophy and theology.

In his later life, as we shall presently see, he found his way to a speculative basis for his religious beliefs.

Hence the beliefs he preached were never to him mere speculative ideas, but rather the ultimate realities of being and thought, the final truths as to the character and ways of God interpreted into a law for the government of conscience and the regulation of life.

Theory and The Study of Religion, and, in some measure, of The Seat of Authority in Religion."' These books expressed his mature thought, and may be said to contain, in what he conceived as a final form, the speculative achievements of his life.

Their literary and speculative qualities are indeed exceptionally brilliant; they are splendid in diction, elaborate in argument, cogent yet reverent, keen while fearless in criticism.

As thus used, it was a term which governed the problems of speculative theism rather than those connected with the historical origin, the evolution and the organization of religion.

In its speculative parts the book is quite equal to those that had gone before, but in its literary and historical parts there are indications of a mind in which a longpractised logic had become a rooted habit.

Gregory, although he has not always escaped the charge of Sabellianism, now holds an undisputed place among the fathers of the church; and although the turn of his mind was practical rather than speculative, he is known to have taken an energetic part in most of the doctrinal controversies of his time.

He continued successfully in the management of this business through a financial crisis incident to a wildly speculative time, until in the spring of 1857 the house, by his advice, withdrew from Californian affairs.

Fichte a new speculative theism, and became an opponent of Hegel's pantheistic idealism.

The morality of the Jews did not outgrow their religion, but their interest was always ethical and not speculative.

Thus in the period 1520-1550 we have separate chapters on ancient literature, theology, speculative philosophy and jurisprudence, the literature of taste, and scientific and miscellaneous literature; and the subdivisions of subjects is carried further of course in the later periods.

In consequence of the state of his health, however, he returned to Basel in 1733, where he was appointed professor of anatomy and botany, and afterwards of experimental and speculative philosophy.

It was reserved for Dr Benrath to justify him, and to represent him as a fervent evangelist and at the same time as a speculative thinker with a passion for free inquiry.

To the defects of Machiavelli's education we may, in part at least, ascribe the peculiar vigour of his style and his speculative originality.

We feel that the Principe is inspired with greater fervency, as though its author had more than a speculative aim in view, and brought it forth to serve a special crisis.

Together with the Discorsi, the Principe contains the speculative fruits of his experience and observation combined with his deductions from Roman history.

It was Machiavelli's intense preoccupation with this problem - what a state is and how to found one in existing circumstances - which caused the many riddles of his speculative writings.

He owed something to Lucretius, something to the Stoic nature-pantheism, something to Anaxagoras, to Heraclitus, to the Pythagoreans, and to the Neoplatonists, who were partially known to him; above all, he was a profound student of Nicolas of Cusa, who was indeed a speculative Copernicus.

The present annual output is in round numbers 230 million tons, and the calculated available resources in the proved coalfields are in round numbers 100,000 million tons, exclusive of the 40,000 million tons in the unproved coalfields, which we have thought best to regard only as probable or speculative.

With its character largely determined by Jewish elements, and even more by contact with the dogmas of Christianity, this second Alexandrian school resulted in the speculative philosophy of the Neo-Platonists and the religious philosophy of the Gnostics and early church fathers.

These consisted of a company united by holding in common certain speculative principles, by having the same theory of things.

One of the chief proofs that has been urged of the truth of its point of view is the persistency with which it has always asserted itself at a certain stage in philosophical reflection and as the solution of certain recurrent speculative difficulties.

First principles - speculative or practical - are Soyµara, Lat.

So far too as the Romans were capable of taking interest in speculative questions, the tragic poets contributed to stimulate curiosity on such subjects, and they anticipated Lucretius in using the conclusions of speculative philosophy as well as of common sense to assail some of the prevailing forms of superstition.

B ut more important and less speculative is the hero's aspect as a national type or an amalgamation of tribal types of physical force, of dauntless effort and endurance, of militant civilization, and of Hellenic enterprise, " stronger than everything except his own passions," and " at once above and below the noblest type of man " (Jebb).

That it could seem at once a simple way of living for the common man and a profound philosophy of the universe for the speculative thinker meant much for its success.'

Meanwhile Maine had published in 1885 his one work of speculative politics, a volume of essays on Popular Government, designed to show that democracy is not in itself more stable than any other form of government, and that there is no necessary connexion between democracy and progress.

Their erudition was, however, marred by speculative extravagances.

He became a member of the speculative society, where he measured himself in debate with Scott, Brougham, Francis Horner, the marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Kinnaird and others.

First, and chiefly, it lacked a religious founder; second, it could not tell how the state of inward peace and blessedness could become permanent; third, it had no means to win those who were not endowed with the speculative faculty.

In fact, there were special cases, like that of Synesius, in which a speculative reconstruction of distinctively Christian doctrines by Christian men was winked at.

The first stage is filled with the mercantile system, which was rather a practical policy than a speculative doctrine, and which came into existence as the spontaneous growth of social conditions acting on minds not trained to scientific habits.

Vertebrate palaeontologists were slow to grasp this principle; while the early speculative phylogenies of the horse of Huxley and Marsh, for example, were mostly displayed monophyletically, or in single lines of descent, it is now recognized that the horses which were placed by Marsh in a single series are really to be ranged in a great number of contemporaneous but separate series, each but partially known, and that the direct phylum which leads to the modern horse has become a matter of far more difficult search.

Between these two powers Marcion affirms a sharp and, as it appears, originally irreconcilable dualism which with him rests moreover on a speculative basis.

Among his disciples the speculative and fantastic element of Gnosticism again became more apparent.

Restrictions on speculative operations in real estate and on the use of hypothecated and discounted paper as security for other transactions, together with the publication of detailed monthly balance sheets, have kept these banks free from unsound methods, and their record thus far (1909) has been conspicuously good.

Religionssystem (1831; in this work Manichaean speculation is exhibited from a speculative standpoint); Fliigel, Mani (1862; a very careful investigation on the basis of the Fihrist); Kessler, Untersuchung zur Genesis des manich.

Like Plato, he believed in real Universals, real essences, real causes; he believed in the unity of the universal, and in the immateriality of essences; he believed in the good, and that there is a good of the universe; he believed that God is a living being, eternal and best, who is a supernatural cause of the motions and changes of the natural world, and that essences and matter are also necessary causes; he believed in the divine intelligence and in the immortality of our intelligent souls; he believed in knowledge going from sense to reason, that science requires ascent to principles and is descent from principles, and that dialectic is useful to science; he believed in happiness involving virtue, and in moral virtue being a control of passions by reason, while the highest happiness is speculative wisdom.

As the rational is either deliberative or scientific, either practical or speculative intellect, there are two virtues of the intellect - prudence of the deliberative or practical, and wisdom of the scientific or speculative, intellect.

In addition to all this confusion of speculative and practical knowledge, prudence is absent when it ought to be present; e.g.

Accordingly, in the end the old ideal of gentlemanliness is displaced by the new ideal of the speculative and practical life.

While the Eudemian Ethics in a more theological vein emphasizes God, the object of wisdom as the end for which prudence gives its orders, the Nicomachean Ethics in a more humanizing spirit emphasizes wisdom itself, the speculative activity, as that end, and afterwards as the highest happiness, because activity of the divine power of intellect, because an imitation of the activity of God, because most dear to God.

Such is the great mind of Aristotle manifested in the large map of learning, by which we have now to determine the order of his extant philosophical writings, with a view to studying them in their real order, which is neither chronological nor traditional, but philosophical and scientific. Turning over the pages of the Berlin edition, but passing over works which are perhaps spurious, we should put first and foremost speculative philosophy, and therein the primary philosophy of his Metaphysics (980 a 211093 b 29); then the secondary philosophy of his Physics, followed by his other physical works, general and biological, including among the latter the Historia Animalium as preparatory to the De Partibus Animalium, and the De Anima and Parva Naturalia, which he called " physical " but we call " psychological" (184 a 10-967 b 27); next, the practical philosophy of the Ethics, including the Eudemian Ethics and the Magna Moralia as earlier and the Nicomachean Ethics as later (1094-124 9 b 25), and of the Politics (1252-1342), with the addition of the newly discovered Athenian Constitution as ancillary to it; finally, the productive science, or art, of the Rhetoric, including the earlier Rhetoric to Alexander and the later Rhetorical Art, and of the Poetics, which was unfinished (1354-end).

God's occupation is speculative; man's is speculation, practice and production.

But in Ethics a man's individual good is his own happiness; and his happiness is no mere state, but an activity of soul according to virtue in a mature life, requiring as conditions moderate bodily and external goods of fortune; his virtue is (I) moral virtue, which is acquired by habituation, and is a purposive habit of performing actions in the mean determined by right reason or prudence; requiring him, not to exclude, but to moderate his desires; and (2) intellectual virtue, which is either prudence of practical, or wisdom of speculative intellect; and his happiness is a kind of ascending scale of virtuous activities, in which moral virtue is limited by prudence, and prudence by wisdom; so that the speculative life of wisdom is the happiest and most divine, and the practical life of prudence and moral virtue secondary and human.

Still, for perfect happiness a man should prefer the speculative life of divine intellect, and immortalize (CcOavarQ"ecv) as far as possible.

We find here the consciousness of creative thought focused in a new principle which is to revolutionize speculative science.

Knowledge being limited to the ideas produced could never extend to the unperceived matter, or substance, or cause which produced them, and it became a problem for speculative science to determine the grounds for the very belief in its existence.

Daub was one of the leaders of a school which sought to reconcile theology and philosophy, and to bring about a speculative reconstruction of orthodox dogma.

His doctrine is a kind of utilitarianism, with a strong leaning on the speculative side to the modified literary scepticism of Cicero, for whom he had unbounded admiration.

About 1838 a speculative mania for the cultivation of silk developed itself with remarkable severity in the United States.

But with the decline of dogmatic belief and the spread of religious doubt - as the special sciences also grow more general, and the natural sciences become more speculative about matter and force, evolution and teleology - men begin to wonder again about the nature and origin of things, just as it was the decay of polytheism in Greek religion and his own discoveries in natural science which impelled Aristotle to metaphysical questions.

Nevertheless, in his own mind Kant's whole speculative and practical philosophy was meant to form one system.

Fichte thus transformed the transcendental idealism of Kant by identifying the thing with the object, and by interpreting noumenon, not in Kant's sense of something which speculative reason conceives and practical reason postulates to exist in accordance with the idea, but in the new meaning of a thought, a product of reason.

He meant a new " speculative " method, dialectic, founded on an assumption which he had already learnt from Schelling, namely, that things which are different but similar can have the same attribute, and therefore be also the same.

On the other hand, as the speculative systems of noumenal idealism, starting from Fichte, succeeded one another, like ghosts who " come like shadows, so depart," without producing.

Its consistency, as deduced by Lange, was to reduce all use of reason, speculative and practical, to its logical use of proceeding from the assumed mental data of outer and inner sense, arranged a priori, to mental phenomena of experience, beyond which we can conceive ideas but postulate nothing.

It was at this time also that he became known in the world of letters, the intellectual subtlety and literary capacity of his Defence of Philosophic Doubt (1879) suggesting that he might make a reputation as a speculative thinker.

Yet they had views of their own as to God, Providence, the soul, and a future state, which, while they had a practical use, were yet essentially speculative.

In their speculative hints respecting the soul and a future state, we find another important deviation from Judaism, and the explanation of their asceticism.

In the Indian trade, especially in the Calcutta trade, a large proportion of the total amount is done by a few houses who buy in this way, and there is some difference of opinion as to whether the method, which had fallen out of fashion, may not further develop. It is more speculative than the indent business, but the dealing with large quantities which it involves gives the opportunity to buy very cheaply.

On the whole, however, what may be called the speculative centre of gravity of Great Britain's export business in cotton goods is not in Manchester but abroad.

Malebranche was from that hour consecrated to philosophy, and after ten years' study of the works of Descartes he produced the famous De la recherche de la verite, followed at intervals by other works, both speculative and controversial.

The De jure praedae further demonstrates that Grotius was originally determined to this subject, not by any speculative intellectual interest, but by a special occasion presented by his professional engagements.

It was too as evangelist that he became personally a subject of later interest, and of speculative legends due to this, e.g.

In certain of the later writings, pre-eminently in the Dialogues on Natural Religion, Hume brings the result of his speculative criticism to bear upon the problems of current theological discussion, and gives in their regard, as previously with respect to general philosophy, the final word of the empirical theory in its earlier form.

His discussion of the Trinity has some points of speculative interest, but it is not sufficiently worked out; he regards the Son as the Reason or Wisdom of the Father, and the Spirit as a divine effluence.

On the other hand, it is argued that the authority of Galen and Cicero (pro Cluentio) place it beyond a doubt that, so far from being allowed to pass with impunity, the offence in question was sometimes punished by death; that the authority of Lysias is of doubtful authenticity; and that the speculative reasonings of Plato and Aristotle, in matters of legislation, ought not to be confounded with the actual state of the laws.

It is widely different in treatment from the Fons, being intended as a practical not a speculative work.

The Theologische Ethik begins with a general sketch of the author's system of speculative theology in its two divisions, theology proper and cosmology, cosmology falling into the two subdivisions of Physik (the world of nature) and Ethik (the world of spirit).

The loss fell almost entirely on those who had attempted to increase their wealth by speculative investment.

In later life, he gave up speculative thought and turned to scientific research, especially in mathematics, physics and astronomy.

The roots of this eschatological fancy are to be sought perhaps still deeper in a purely mythological and speculative expectation of a battle at the end of days between God and the devil, which has no reference whatever to historical occurrences.

The philosophy of the book is practical, not speculative.

He does not free himself from the current theology either by rational moralizing like Kant, or by bold speculative synthesis like Fichte and Schelling.

In what we may call their psychological aspect these three stages are known as the abstract stage, or that of understanding (Verstand), the dialectical stage, or that of negative reason, and the speculative stage, or that of positive reason (Vernunft).

This was due among other causes to the direction of attention to the rising science of psychology, partly to the reaction against the speculative method.

It appeared characteristically enough on the practical and not on the speculative side of theology in a sermon on Indulgences preached in July 1516.

It will be seen, however, that neither Socrates nor Isocrates was philosopher in any strict sense of the word, the speculative aims of physicists and metaphysicians being foreign to the practical theories both of the one and of the other.

Erigena argues the question entirely on speculative grounds, and starts with the bold affirmation that philosophy and religion are fundamentally one and the same- "Conficitur inde veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam."

The speculative sciences, indeed, are classified according to their relation to form, pure, abstract or concrete, i.e.

Under such circumstances speculative interest fritters itself and sooner or later the sceptic has his way.

But much more it belongs to his transformation of the epistemological problem, and to the suggestiveness of his philosophy as a whole for an advance in the direction of a speculative construction which should be able to cancel all Kant's surds, and in particular vindicate a " ground of the unity of the supersensible which lies back of nature with that which the concept of freedom implies in the sphere of practice," I which is what Kant finally asserts.

As an historical fact it tended rather to formulate itself as a reaction towards Kant in view of the course taken by the speculative movement.

Logic as post-Kantian period by antagonism to the speculative movement which culminated in the dialectic of Hegel.

Sometimes this insight is claimed as the result of the operation of some higher faculty or some supernatural revelation to the individual; in other instances the theosophical theory is not based upon any special illumination, but is simply put forward as the deepest speculative wisdom of its author.

This, however, would be insufficient to distinguish theosophy from those systems of philosophy which are sometimes called "speculative" and "absolute," and which also in many cases proceed deductively from the idea of God.

A theosophical system may also be pantheistic, in tendency if not in intention; but the transcendent character of its Godhead definitely distinguishes it from the speculative philosophies which might otherwise seem to fall under the same definition.

The term Mysticism has properly a practical rather than a speculative reference; but.

In other words, while an emotional and practical mysticism may exist without attempting philosophically to explain itself, speculative mysticism is almost another name for theosophy.

There is still a certain difference observable, however, in so far as the speculative mystic remains primarily concerned with the theory of the soul's relation to God, while the theosophist gives his thoughts a wider scope, and frequently devotes himself to the elaboration of a fantastic philosophy of nature.

Swedenborg is usually reckoned among the theosophists, and some parts of his theory justify this inclusion; but his system as a whole has little in common with those speculative constructions of the Divine nature which form the essence of theosophy, as strictly understood.

The high cost of coal, the speculative attractions of mining, and the high wages of labour, handicapped the development of manufactures in early years.

He was not concerned with speculative questions about God, nor with abstract theories of his relationship to the soul and to the world.

Metaphysics and speculative theories were valueless for Paul; he was conscious of a mighty power transforming his own life and filling him with joy, and that this power was identical with Jesus of Nazareth he knew.

The first name is that of Theagenes of Rhegium, contemporary of Cambyses (525 B.C.), who is said to have founded the " new grammar " (the older " grammar " being the art of reading and writing), and to have been the inventor of the allegorical interpretations by which it was sought to reconcile the Homeric mythology with the morality and speculative ideas of the 6th century B.C. The same attitude in the " ancient quarrel of poetry and philosophy " was soon afterwards taken by Anaxagoras; and after him by his pupil Metrodorus of Lampsacus, who explained away all the gods, and even the heroes, as elementary substances and forces (Agamemnon as the upper air, &c.).

That this is the case at Chidambaram is known to every Hindu, for if he ever asks the priests to show him the God in the temple he is pointed to an empty space in the holy of holies, which has been termed the Akasa, or ether-linga."But, however congenial this refined symbolism may be to the worshipper of a speculative turn of mind, it is difficult to see how it could ever satisfy the religious wants of the common man little given to abstract conceptions of this kind.

On the speculative side, Ramanuja also met Sankara's strictly monistic theory by another recognizing Vishnu as identical with Brahma as the Supreme Spirit animating the material world as well as the individual souls which have become estranged from God through unbelief, and can only attain again conscious union with him through devotion or love (bhakti).

The theory of the god and his Sakti as cosmic principles is perhaps already foreshadowed in the Vedic couple of Heaven and Earth, whilst in the speculative treatises of the later Vedic period, as well as in the post-Vedic Brahmanical writings, the assumption of the self-existent being dividing himself into a male and a female half usually forms the starting-point of cosmic evolution.'

Thus the genius of Rome remains, as it always has been, administrative rather than speculative.

At the same time the new learning introduced by the earlier humanists awakened free thought, encouraged curiosity, and prepared the best minds of Europe for speculative audacities from which the schoolmen would have shrunk, and which soon expressed themselves in acts of cosmopolitan importance.

The first were the speculative or logical philosophers, who construe the universe ex analogia hominis, and not ex analogia mundi, who fashion nature according to preconceived ideas, and who employ in their investigations syllogism and abstract reasoning.

Natural philosophy is again divided into speculative or theoretical and operative or practical, according as the end is contemplation or works.

Speculative or theoretical natural philosophy has to deal with natural substances and qualities and is subdivided into physics and metaphysics.

In 1821 appeared his first work, Sufismus, sive theosophia Persarum pantheistica; following the same line of study he published Bliitensammlung aus der morgenlandischen Mystik (1825) and Speculative Trinitiitslehre des speiteren Orients (1826).

It is scarcely a law-book or a work of divinity; it is almost an encyclopaedia in its scope, a store-house reproducing the knowledge and the thought, both unconscious and speculative, of the first few centuries of the Christian era.

Oldenburg, however, was a man of no speculative capacity, and, to judge from his subsequent correspondence, must have quite failed to grasp the real import and scope of the thoughts communicated to him.

It is, in fact, an eloquently reasoned defence of liberty of thought and speech in speculative matters.

The aegis of religion, therefore, cannot be employed to cover with its authority any speculative doctrine; nor, on the other hand, can any speculative or scientific investigation be regarded as putting religion in jeopardy.

Lessing, Goethe, Herder, Novalis and Schleiermacher, not to mention philosophers like Schelling and Hegel, united in recognizing the unique strength and sincerity of Spinoza's thought, and in setting him in his rightful place among the speculative leaders of mankind.

It would seem that, in the extreme spiritual vicissitudes of his life, conscious alternately of personal weakness and of the largest speculative grasp, he at times threw himself entirely on the consolations of evangelical faith, and at others reconstructed the cosmos for himself in terms of Neo-Platonism and the philosophy of Schelling.

He will admit no speculative theory of things.

A speculative construction of religion was abhorrent to him, a thing of which he seems to have thought the human mind naturally incapable.

Of speculative interest the ordinary Roman had as little as may be; for abstract discussion and controversy he cared nothing.

If it is a risky matter to plant out the robust young fry of trout under an age of three months, it would seem to be an infinitely more speculative proceeding to plant out the delicate week-old larvae of sea-fishes in an environment which teems with predaceous enemies.

None the less it is unquestionable that in the period preceding the Revolution the bulk of French thinkers were ultimately deists in various degrees, and that deism was a most potent factor not only in speculative but also in social and political development.

Notwithstanding the many attempts, both by excavations and speculative writings, to elucidate the history of this unique monument, the archaeological data available are insufficient to decide definitely between the conflicting opinions held with regard to the date of its construction and the purpose for which it was originally intended.

Only five of them, however, occupied any space in the speculative world in which the ideas of the later Buddhists had now begun to move.

He was educated at the high school and the university of Edinburgh; and he was a member of the famous Speculative Society, to which Sir Walter Scott, Brougham and Jeffrey belonged.

It is unnecessary to insist on the purely speculative character of the conclusions to be reached in this way, so long as they cannot be checked by the results of palaeontology, but, when this is recognized, such speculation is not only legitimate but necessary as a basis on which to build a natural classification.

His work, by opening up the relations of Platonism to the main questions of religion, contributed greatly to the extension of speculative thought in the department of theology.

According to Kant the human mind is such that it can never penetrate by its speculative powers to things-in-themselves, but can only know phenomena.

In his fully mature or critical position he held that the noiimenal world was inaccessible to the speculative reason, and yet that we are not altogether excluded from it, since the practical reason, i.e.

Some hopes of employment which he had after the revolution of February were frustrated by the reputation of speculative republicanism which he had acquired.

For his place as a speculative jurist in the history of canon law, see MAHOMMEDAN LAW.

Speculative wisdom and practical wisdom are to be distinguished.

They are not so emotional as Suso's, nor so speculative as Eckhart's, but they ar intensely practical, and touch on all sides the deeper problems of the moral and spiritual life.

There was a rich, deep-toned, resonant eloquence mingled with the speculative exposition; his style of expression was clear, elegant and forcible, abounding in happy turns and striking antitheses.

Tested by the power and effect of his teaching influence, Cousin occupies a foremost place in the rank of professors of philosophy, who like Jacobi, Schelling and Dugald Stewart have united the gifts of speculative, expository and imaginative power.

Gregory of Nyssa was not so firm and able an administrator as his brother Basil, nor so magnificent an orator as Gregory of Nazianzus, but he excelled them both, alike as a speculative and constructive theologian, and in the wide extent of his acquirements.

Before the Christian age, there had been a good deal of reflective thinking in the Jewish schools, though the interest there was legal rather than speculative.

Concurrently, there was a speculative or philosophical interest; and some prefer to defend Trinitarianism as a reconciliation of the personality with the infinity of God.

The lineaments of Greek Christian theology show themselves more clearly in Justin Martyr than in the other Apologists, but still more plainly in Irenaeus, who, with little speculative power, keeps the safe middle path.

Alexandria, on the other hand, tended to be unduly speculative and allegorizing even in its scholarship. The antagonism of the two schools governs much of the history of doctrine; and behind it we can trace in part the contrast between Church Platonism and what churchmen called Aristotelianism.

But the Trinity and the Hypostatic Union are vast speculative constructions reared upon slender biblical data.

While this became conspicuous in connexion with his doctrine of consubstantiation in the Eucharist, it appears 1 that he had a genuine speculative interest in the matter.

Such speculative views are associated with the revival of another traditional piece of mysticism - the Holy Spirit the Copula or bond of union in the Godhead.

Haldane, in the Scottish Church lawsuit of 1904, is found telling the House of Lords that Justin Martyr had a grasp of speculative truth which was impossible to St Augustine.

Family pride contributed to the feeling in his case; for in his more speculative moods he could look back upon an ancestry which was of those, perhaps, who colonized the shores of the Mediterranean from before the time of the Captivity.

They are sometimes puzzling, often speculative; yet nearly all that is obscure in them becomes clear, much apparent contradiction disappears, when read by these persistent unvarying lights.

The term was first used in the western states of America of speculative bankers who were said to have started business with no other property than what they could carry in a carpet-bag, and absconded when they failed.

Defect in speculative imagination appears when he encounters the vast and complex final problem of the universe in its organic unity.

His " latitudinarianism " was the result of extraordinary reverence for truth, and a perception that knowledge may be sufficient for the purposes of human life while it falls infinitely short of speculative completeness.

It has been criticized as if it was a speculative controversy between empiricism and intellectualism.

It is true that the precise relation between the activities of human wills and other forms of activity in the natural world is a highly speculative problem and one with which the ordinary man is not immediately concerned.

The arguments proceeding from either of the disputants by means of which the controversy is debated may be largely or almost wholly speculative and philosophical.

They equally held that no speculative research was needed for the discovery of good and The .

Indeed, we may say that the distinction which Aristotle explicitly draws between speculative science or wisdom and practical wisdom (on its political side statesmanship) is really indicated in Plato's actual treatment of the subjects, although the express recognition of it is contrary to his principles.

And both he and Plato hold that a similar activity of pure speculative intellect is that in which the philosopher will seek to exist, though he must, being a man, concern himself with the affairs of ordinary human life, a region in which his highest good will be attained by realizing perfect moral excellence.

In the first place, though in Aristotle's view the most perfect well-being consists in the exercise of man's " divinest part," pure speculative reason, he keeps far from the paradox of putting forward this and nothing else as human good; so far, indeed, that the greater part of his treatise is occupied with an exposition of the inferior good which is realized in practical life when the appetitive or impulsive (semi-rational) element of the soul operates under the due regulation of reason.

As we saw, his distinction between practical and speculative Wisdom belongs to the deepest of his disagreements with his master; and in the case of StKatoQ5vi again he distinguishes the wider use of the term to express Law-observance, which (he says) coincides with the social side of virtue generally, and its narrower use for the virtue that " aims at a kind of equality," whether (I) in the distribution of wealth, honour, &c., or (2) in commercial exchange, or (3) in the reparation of wrong done.

Partly, no doubt, the limited influence of his disciples, the Peripatetics, is to be attributed to that exaltation of the purely speculative life which distinguished the Aristotelian ethics from other later systems, and which was too alien from the common moral consciousness to find much acceptance in an age in which the ethical aims of philosophy had again become paramount.

Christian Wisdom, so far as it is speculative, is of course primarily theological; it has God, as the highest truth, for its chief object, and is therefore necessarily grounded on faith.

He follows Aristotle closely in dividing the " natural " virtues into intellectual and moral, giving his preference to the former class, and the intellectual again into speculative and practical; in distinguishing within the speculative class the " intellect " that is conversant with principles, the " science " that deduces conclusions, and the " wisdom " to which belongs the whole process of knowing the sublimest objects of knowledge; and in treating practical wisdom as inseparably connected with moral virtues, and therefore in a sense moral.

Ethics should be regarded as a purely ` positive ' or ` experimental ' and not as a ` speculative ' science."

And the need which most philosophers have felt for some philosophical foundation for morality arises, not from any desire to subordinate moral insight to speculative theory, but because the moral facts themselves are inexplicable except in the light of first principles which metaphysics alone can criticize.

Knowledge has under both forms the same object, the relative difference of the two being that when the conceptual form predominates we have speculative science and when the form of judgment prevails we have empirical or historical science.

As a theoretical or speculative science it is purely descriptive and not practical, being correlated on the one hand to physical science and on the other to history.

The objections to Descartes - one of which at least, through Descartes's statement of it in the appendix of objections in the Meditationes has become famous - have no speculative value, and in general are the outcome of the crudest empiricism.

He was critical rather than constructive, widely read and trained thoroughly both in languages and in science, but deficient in speculative power and original force.

His only great predecessor, Scotus Erigena, had more of the speculative and mystical element than is consistent with a schoolman; but in Anselm are found that recognition of the relation of reason to revealed truth, and that attempt to elaborate a rational system of faith, which form the special characteristics of scholastic thought.

In 1826, when the new university was opened at Munich, he was appointed professor of philosophy and speculative theology.

Hence the fact of the fall is not a speculative but an historic truth.

Baader is, without doubt, among the greatest speculative theologians of modern Catholicism, and his influence has extended itself even beyond the precincts of his own church.

Arabian philosophy, at the outset of its career in the 9th century, was able without difficulty to take possession of those resources for speculative thought which the Latins had barely achieved at the close of the 12th century by the slow process of rediscovering the Aristotelian logic from the commentaries and verses of Boetius.

But al-Farabi was not always consistent in his views; a certain sobriety checked his speculative flights, and although holding that the true perfection of man is reached in this life by the elevation of the intellectual nature, he came towards the close to think the separate existence of intellect no better than a delusion.

This self-consciousness of pure reason is the highest object of human activity, and is to be attained by the speculative method.

And, therefore, finding on reflection any particular concrete factor contingent, we abstract the position from that which occupies it, and so reach the speculative notion of the pure Ego.

A brief paper entitled "Speculative Ideas on the Constitution of Matter" (1863) possesses special interest in connexion with work done since his death, because in it he expressed the view that the various kinds of matter now recognized as different elementary substances may possess one and the same ultimate or atomic molecule in different conditions of movement.

Riethmiiller's Hamilton and his Contemporaries (1864), written during the Civil War, is sympathetic, but rather speculative.

But all their truly astronomical writings are lost, and only by a somewhat speculative piecing together of scattered evidences can an estimate of their knowledge be formed.

For there Kant states as precisely as in the critique of speculative theology his fundamental doctrine that real existence is not a predicate to be added in thought to the conception of a possible subject.

Reason was, for Kant, an organic whole; the speculative and moral aspects are never severed; and the solution of problems which appear at first sight to belong solely to the region of speculative thought may be found ultimately to depend upon certain characteristics of our nature as practical.

Immortality of the soul, positive freedom of will, and the existence of an intelligent ground of things are speculative ideas practically warranted, though theoretically neither demonstrable nor comprehensible.

It is no enthusiastic crusader, but an anxious and farseeing if somewhat speculative statesman who thus opens his mind to us.

Mick asked about the weather forecast and Fred responded that in Ouray, any prognostication was speculative and definitely regional—for real accuracy, one looked out the window or guessed.

The properties were acquired for speculative purposes, with only small deposits put down.

Unfortunately what has been written about the label has been either sparse, speculative or utter balderdash.

In either isn't the end-product a huge speculative bubble bound to burst?

Most houses were built by speculative builders, who funded each project from the profits from the previous buildings.

The League table may take a few days to update after a fixture and the gossip column is purely for speculative purposes.

As a result, many of the claims may be exaggerated, highly speculative or simply concocted.

Until this is addressed satisfactorily, this speculative idea must be considered interesting yet embryonic.

He defines his work as speculative fiction although he does not shy away from writing conventional urban fantasy or horror stories.

As speculative computations may be infinite, while mandatory ones remain finite, while mandatory ones remain finite, divergence should be defined with the greatest care.

Using speculative applications is, of course, a rather hit-and-miss business.

The second is a fairly rare Glencoe Models kit, a speculative 1950s design for a lunar lander.

But the lead lasted just five minutes, as Paul Evans scored with a speculative long range lob over the back pedaling Dean Williams.

One early example is the speculative mania in London in 1719 and 1720, when some 190 new joint stock companies were proposed.

There is nothing per se wrong with speculative neurophysiology, but it needs to have a point.

And although Beale recognizes that much may be speculative, by the end the cumulative argument becomes very persuasive.

Without limitation, no user shall make any speculative, false or fraudulent reservation or any reservation in anticipation of demand.

It's very scholarly, with a lot on form, structure, and speculative historical settings.

There is no clarity as to the proportion between registered voters and people eligible for registration, which makes any judgment speculative.

I had a curious instant of purely speculative thought.

A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on " wildly speculative rumors.

When Greenblatt discusses the sources of Shakespeare's inspiration, they are often stunningly banal and overly speculative.

The mineral deposits vary considerably in extent which made lead mining a highly speculative venture.

Good news could come between 9th and 12th tho when what has been viewed as entirely speculative starts to ' deliver the goods ' .

Without specifying the nature of the platform, costs are inevitably speculative.

Most of their projects, like the Carbon Tower, remain speculative.

From here on, what would happen next becomes even more speculative.

There hasn't been one for GM crops, so risk assessment has to consider speculative " what if?

An investment may, in isolation, seem highly speculative.

However, these observations must be regarded as speculative.

There are no vacancies currently available but we're always happy to receive speculative CVs.

Given this involves undoing the evangelists ' editing the results are speculative to say the least.

These manifestations of the divine spirit again cannot be traced and understood by reducing (as Hegel did) the growth of the human mind in the individual, in society and in history to the monotonous rhythm of a speculative schematism; the essence and worth which is in them reveals itself only to the student of detail, for reality is larger and wider than philosophy; the problem, "how the one can be many," is only solved for us in the numberless examples in life and experience which surround us, for which we must retain a lifelong interest and which constitute the true field of all useful human work.

Of his writings on social and political questions may be mentioned Die Erziehung des Weibes (1865); Ueber die nationals Entwicklung and Bedeutung der Naturwissenschaften (1865); Die Aufgaben der Naturwissenschaften in dem neuen nationalen Leben Deutschlands (1871); Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft im modernen Staat (1877), in which he opposed the idea of l - L eckel - that the principles of evolution should be taught in elementary schools - on the ground that they were not as yet proved, and that it was mischievous to teach a hypothesis which still remained in the speculative stage.

Yet it remains doubtful whether he was a theist with large pantheistic elements - such as every speculative mind will be likely to incorporate in theism -.

It is quite true that Paul does not directly attack the speculative position, but rather indicates the practical dangers inherent therein (the denial of the supremacy of Christ and of full salvation through Him); he does not say that the errorists hold Christ to be a mere angel or an aeon, or that words like pleroma (borrowed perhaps from their own vocabulary) involve a rigorous dualism.

The leader in speculative philosophy is Immanuel Kant, though he includes many agnostic elements, and draws the inference (which some things in the letter of Butler might seem to warrant) that the essence of Christianity is an ethical theism.

How far totemism, or belief in deified animal ancestors, existed in prehistoric Israel, as evidenced by the tribal names Simeon (hyena, wolf), Caleb (dog), IIamor (ass), Rahel (ewe) and Leah (wild cow), &c., 6 as well as by the laws respecting clean and unclean animals, is too intricate and speculative a problem to be discussed here.

Charles, Eschatology, Hebrew, Jewish and Christian, and Schwally, Das Leben nach dem Tode, as well as Gressmann's suggestive work Der Ursprung der israelitisch jiidischen Eschatologie, which contains, however, much that is speculative.

This speculative mood, in which nature and beauty and earthly satisfaction appear as a vain show, is the counterpart of the former mood of sensuous enjoyment.

His system enables him to give a profound significance to the doctrines of the Church; but, instead of the system being accommodated to the doctrines, the doctrines - and especially the historical facts - acquire a new sense in the system, and often become only a mythical representation of speculative truth.

Taylor's fame has been maintained by the popularity of his sermons and devotional writings rather than by his influence as a theologian ' or his importance as an ecclesiastic. His mind was neither scientific nor speculative, and he was attracted rather to questions of casuistry than to the problems of pure theology.

This success was largely due to the originality of its title, the diversity of its contents (von Hartmann professing to obtain his speculative results by the methods of inductive science, and making plentiful use of concrete illustrations), the fashionableness of its pessimism and the vigour and lucidity of its style.

The Arabians more closely resembled the Hindus than the Greeks in the choice of studies; their philosophers blended speculative dissertations with the more progressive study of medicine; their mathematicians neglected the subtleties of the conic sections and Diophantine analysis, and applied themselves more particularly to perfect the system of numerals (see Numeral), arithmetic and astronomy.

The fact, moreover, that although he had some speculative tendencies in favour of popular liberties, and even perhaps of republicanism, he represented no real political principle, inevitably weakened his position, and when the break up of the Fronde came he was left in the lurch, having more than once in the meanwhile been in no small danger from his own party.

Modern medicine, like modern ?xperiscience, is as boldly speculative as it has been in mental any age, and yet it is as observant as in any naturalistic period; its success lies in the addition to these qualities of the method of verification; the fault of previous times being not the activity of the speculative faculty, without which no science can be fertile, but the lack of methodical reference of all and sundry propositions, and parts of propositions, to the test of experiment.

His speculative ideas, his moral teaching and his poetical power are indeed interdependent on one another, and this interdependence is what mainly constitutes their power and interest.

Yet, apart altogether from its independent value, by his speculative power and enthusiasm, by his revelation of the life and spectacle of nature, by the fresh creativeness of his diction and the elevated movement of his rhythm, Lucretius exercised a more powerful influence than any other on the art of his more perfect successors.

But, whatever might be Shaftesbury's speculative opinions or his mode of expressing them, all witnesses bear testimony to the elevation and purity of his life and aims. As an earnest student, and ardent lover of liberty, an enthusiast in the cause of virtue, and a man of unblemished life and untiring beneficence,, Shaftesbury probably had no superior in his generation.

Still the humanists effected a delivery of the intellect from what had become the bondage of obsolete ideas, and created a new medium for the speculative faculty.

After sixteen years' absence he returned to Bokhara, and there drew up his Sahih, a collection of 7275 tested traditions, arranged in chapters so as to afford bases for a complete system of jurisprudence without the use of speculative law, the first book of its kind (see Mahommedan Law).

It is plain that his sympathies were with the traditionalist school or opposed to that which sought to build up the system of canon law on a speculative basis (see Mahommedan Law).

The determination of the limit of good fortune and of gentlemanliness by looking to the ruler, God, who governs as the end for which prudence gives its orders, and the conclusion that the best limit is the most conducive to the service and contemplation of God, presents the Deity and man's relation to him as a final and objective standard more definitely in the Eudemian than in the Nicomachean Ethics, which only goes so far as to say that man's highest end is the speculative wisdom which is divine, like God, dearest to God.

At Athens, the philosophers who taught in the schools hallowed by memories of Plato still openly professed what passed for Paganism, though it was really a body of moral doctrine, strongly tinged with mysticism, in which there was far more of Christianity and of the speculative metaphysics of the East than of the old Olympian religion.

The ignorant fanaticism of the multitude viewed speculative studies with deep dislike and distrust, and deemed any one a Zendik (infidel) who did not rest content with the natural science of the Koran.

They are agreed, however, in the rejection, on the one hand, of of the subjectivist logic with its intrinsic implication that knowledge veils rather than reveals the real world, and, on the other hand, of the logic of the speculative construction with its pretension to " deduce," to determine, and finally at once to cancel and conserve any antithesis in its all-embracing dialectic. They agree, then, in a maintenance of the critical point of view, while all alike recognize the necessity of bringing the thoughtfunction in knowledge into more intimate relation with its " other " than Kant had done, by means of some formula of correlation or parallelism.

The nature-philosophers of the Renaissance, such as Nicolaus Cusanus, Paracelsus, Cardan and others, curiously blend scientific ideas with speculative notions derived from scholastic theology, from Neoplatonism and even from the Kabbalah.

But whilst, in its more comprehensive acceptation, the term Hinduism would thus range over the entire historical development of Brahmanical India, it is also not infrequently used in a narrower sense, as denoting more especially the modern phase of Indian social and religious institutions - from the earlier centuries of the Christian era down to our own days - as distinguished from the period dominated by the authoritative doctrine of pantheistic belief, formulated by the speculative theologians during the centuries immediately succeeding the Vedic period (see Brahmanism).

He speedily outstripped all his competitors in grammatical studies, and by his skill and acumen as a student of philosophy, and in the college disputations gave fruitful promise of that consummate excellence as a reasoner in the department of speculative truth which he afterwards displayed.

It 's very scholarly, with a lot on form, structure, and speculative historical settings.

Some of what is discussed below, it has to be said, must still be accounted speculative in nature.

In addition, we 'd be happy to receive speculative CVs at any time.

For the present, its wider implications belong to speculative fiction.

Change came when Speculative Freemasonry was exported to the continent.

The rented houses have been provided mostly by speculative builders.

A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on wildly speculative rumors.

When Greenblatt discusses the sources of Shakespeare 's inspiration, they are often stunningly banal and overly speculative.

Good news could come between 9th and 12th tho when what has been viewed as entirely speculative starts to ' deliver the goods '.

There has n't been one for GM crops, so risk assessment has to consider speculative what if?

There are no vacancies currently available but we 're always happy to receive speculative CVs.

When considering adoption of a baby or older child, well-meaning friends and family have a load of speculative advice and warnings, but it's best to look at adoption facts to learn what you need to know.

Mays' family has responded to the release of the autopsy reports, stating the report contains "…extremely speculative conclusions" regarding Mays' cause of death.

While they claim that they will re-open in June in 2009, at this point, it's purely speculative.

Since this hobby is speculative, young collectors should have fun trading these cards.

Some of the theories are scientific, while others are much more speculative in nature.

Remember when reading spoilers, until the show actually airs, all information is speculative.

When the show ended, a letter writing campaign to the CW network failed to bring it back to life and actress VanCamp joined the ABC family drama Brothers and Sisters, ending all speculative hope for an Everwood reunion.

Spoilers should always be considered speculative until they have aired on the show.

Spoilers, by their nature, are speculative rumors based on news items like casting calls and commentary.

When posting to message boards or fan sites, be sure to list 'spoiler warnings' on any posts that involve upcoming events, particularly those that are speculative in nature.

This type of speculative puff piece is important to fans because they care about the characters.

Victorians were fascinated with 'modern' technology, and full of optimism, Most of the era's speculative stories dealt with fantastic voyages to fabulous places and returning.

Speculative fiction of the era was very much a male preserve.

Few remain in publication, but the authors who got their start in these publications went on to write novels that fed a growing appetite for speculative stories based on science.

The SciFi Channel continues to be a great contribution to the canon of speculative fiction in general.

In its infancy, science fiction was speculative fiction, the fiction of the near possible or the probable.

The existential journeys of Rice's vampires created romantic tropes that vie with the philosophical arguments presented in most speculative fiction.

Science fiction or speculative fiction dares the possible, the impossible and the improbable in every subgenre.

Among his companions on his voyage round the Cape were the Baron Imhoff, a speculative portrait-painter, and his wife, a lady of some personal attractions and great social charm, who was destined henceforth to be Hastings's lifelong companion.

She was the daughter of Gratien Phlipon, a Paris engraver, who was ambitious, speculative and nearly always poor.

From this vantage-ground Ritschl criticizes the use of Aristotelianism and speculative philosophy in scholastic and Protestant theology.

The strain of the next three years' continuous work undermined his health and his eyesight, and he was compelled to retire from his professorship. During these years he had published works on Plato and Socrates and a history of philosophy (1875); but after his retirement he further developed his philosophical position, a speculative eclecticism through which he endeavoured to reconcile metaphysical idealism with the naturalistic and mechanical standpoint of science.

At the time of the formation of the various telephone companies the enterprises were regarded as speculative, and much of the capital was raised at a discount.

From a linguistic point of view, these treatises with their appendages, the more mystic and recondite Aranyakas and the speculative Upanishads, have to be considered as forming the connecting link between the Vedic and the classical Sanskrit.

Newman, Frances Power Cobbe, and others, for their more modern speculative belief in God, which, while non-Christian or at least non-orthodox, held to an immanent God, continually revealing himself - in the moral consciousness.

On the other hand, the doctrine of pre-existence is speculative rather than religious, and applies to institutions rather than persons.

He possesses the cool temperament of the man of science rather than the fervid Godward aspiration of the mystic proper; and the speculative impulse which lies at the root of this form of thought is almost entirely absent from his writings.

As a theologian, in fact, Origen is not merely an orthodox traditionalist and believing exegete, but a speculative philosopher of Neo-Platonic tendencies.

He invented a religious system founded on the speculative mysticism of the Neoplatonists, and founded a sect, the members of which believed that the new creed would supersede all existing forms of belief.

After that, apparently, logic was to be treated; then, possibly, mathematics and physics; then speculative alchemy and experimental science.

A third way to predict the future that I believe is reliable rejects both the slavish following of the straight line and the purely speculative approach.

With God as "First Cause" or "Moral Legislator" theology has no concern; nor is it interested in the "speculative" problems indicated by the traditional doctrine of the Trinity.

It was the general disaster produced by the speculative policy of his former guardians which first called forth his sterling qualities and hardened him into a premature manhood.

An even more complete and minutely detailed view of the sacrificial system is no doubt obtained from the ceremonial manuals, the Kalpa-sutras; but it is just by the speculative discussions of the Brahmanasthe mystic significance and symbolical colouring with which they invest single rites - that we gain a real insight into the nature and gradual development of this truly stupendous system of ritual worship.

The theory found a melodious echo in Tennyson's In Memoriam, a great hymn of God, Freedom and Immortality on a basis of speculative agnosticism.

The problem of the origin of the world was the first to engage man's speculative activity.

Thus he suggests that man has not eyes of a microscopic delicacy, because he would receive no great advantage from such acute organs, since though adding indefinitely to his speculative knowledge of the physical world they would 1 Yet he leaves open the question whether the Deity has annexed thought to matter as a faculty, or whether it rests on a distinct spiritual principle.

His English works are an Inquiry into Speculative and Experimental Science (London, 1856); Introduction to Speculative Logic and Philosophy (St Louis, 1875), and a translation of Bretschneider's History of Religion and of the Christian Church.

Hence the speculative utterances of mysticism are always more or less pantheistic in character.

Mysticism, on the other hand, is marked on its speculative side by even an overweening confidence in human reason.

Ruysbroeck's mysticism is more of a practical than a speculative cast.

How far totemism, or belief in deified animal ancestors, existed in prehistoric Israel, as evidenced by the tribal names Simeon (hyena, wolf), Caleb (dog), IIamor (ass), Rahel (ewe) and Leah (wild cow), as well as by the laws respecting clean and unclean animals, is too intricate and speculative a problem to be discussed here.