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Collectanea.
COLLECTANEA .
TRANSCENDENTALISM . — "If you wish to know the origin of the word transcendentalism I will explain it , briefly and simply , as I understand it . All who know anything of the different schools of metaphysics are aware that the philosophy of John Locke was based on the proposition that all knowledge is received into the soul through the medium of the senses ; and thence passes to be judged of and analysed by the understanding . The German school of metaphysics , with the celebrated Kant
at its head , rejects this proposition as false ; it denies that all knowledge is received through the senses , and maintains that the highest , and therefore most universal truths , are revealed within the soul , to a faculty transcending the understanding . This faculty they call pure reason ; it being peculiar to them to use that word in " contradistinction to the understanding . To this pure reason , whicli some of their writers call " the God within" they believe that all perceptions of the goodthe true
, , , and the beautiful , are revealed , in its unconscious quietude ; and that the province of the understanding , with its five hand-maids , the senses , is confined merely to external things , such as facts , scientific laws , & c . ' ' WHAT MAKES A G ENTLEMAN ?¦— " More than one correspondent asks us , " what makes a gentleman ? " We cannot answer the enquiry in a word . A gentleman is sooner and more easil y known than described . Nature must do something for him , education—we do not mean mere
book learning—does all the rest . Many rich men are styled gentlemen by courtesy , and many poor men are denied the title , because they cannot afford to support it " after a fashion . " Both , however , are , in the main , correctly estimated . The money of the one commands
insincere servility—that is limited ; the character of the other insures consideration and respect—those are general . Gentility means honour and refinement . It is ungentlemanly not to pay a tailor ' s bill as it is to repudiate a gambling debt " of honour "^ -in fact it is ungentlemanly to do anything that does not become an honest citizen and a Christian . The age of chivalry was an age of gentlemen—in the rough ; the spirit of chivalry was purely gentlemanly ; it professed all that is good , and
gracious , brave , charitable , and pious . There is peculiar to a gentleman , a blending of delicacy and daring , modesty and manliness , truth and trustworthiness , candour and prudence , proper pride aud becoming condescension , which belongs to no other individual : a blending of opposite qualities , which makes the perfect and harmonious whole . He learns to command himself , and is fit to control others . His self-respect is not so great as to blind him to the merits of his acquaintances . His
acquired and occasional reserve agrees with his natural affability and condescension . It took Lord Chesterfield many pages to find out what is gentlemanly—nobody wants to be told what is not so . The greatest affront that can be offered to an Englishman , is , to be told that he is " no gentleman . " By such an accusation you wound him on every moral point , and he fires at the thought . The veriest " snob" quails beneath the charge—his self-love cannot withstand it . The vul railer
gar against gentility , in its proper sense , is a hopeless outcast—the reviler of all that elevates human nature . There is a mawkish , spurious , and unwholesome state termed genteel ; but in reality it is most contemptible . Whether it be exhibited in such individuals as Hotspur ' s " certain lord , " who , "but for vile guns would have been a soldier ; " or whether it shows itself in would-be fine people , it matters not ; the fastidiousness
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Collectanea.
COLLECTANEA .
TRANSCENDENTALISM . — "If you wish to know the origin of the word transcendentalism I will explain it , briefly and simply , as I understand it . All who know anything of the different schools of metaphysics are aware that the philosophy of John Locke was based on the proposition that all knowledge is received into the soul through the medium of the senses ; and thence passes to be judged of and analysed by the understanding . The German school of metaphysics , with the celebrated Kant
at its head , rejects this proposition as false ; it denies that all knowledge is received through the senses , and maintains that the highest , and therefore most universal truths , are revealed within the soul , to a faculty transcending the understanding . This faculty they call pure reason ; it being peculiar to them to use that word in " contradistinction to the understanding . To this pure reason , whicli some of their writers call " the God within" they believe that all perceptions of the goodthe true
, , , and the beautiful , are revealed , in its unconscious quietude ; and that the province of the understanding , with its five hand-maids , the senses , is confined merely to external things , such as facts , scientific laws , & c . ' ' WHAT MAKES A G ENTLEMAN ?¦— " More than one correspondent asks us , " what makes a gentleman ? " We cannot answer the enquiry in a word . A gentleman is sooner and more easil y known than described . Nature must do something for him , education—we do not mean mere
book learning—does all the rest . Many rich men are styled gentlemen by courtesy , and many poor men are denied the title , because they cannot afford to support it " after a fashion . " Both , however , are , in the main , correctly estimated . The money of the one commands
insincere servility—that is limited ; the character of the other insures consideration and respect—those are general . Gentility means honour and refinement . It is ungentlemanly not to pay a tailor ' s bill as it is to repudiate a gambling debt " of honour "^ -in fact it is ungentlemanly to do anything that does not become an honest citizen and a Christian . The age of chivalry was an age of gentlemen—in the rough ; the spirit of chivalry was purely gentlemanly ; it professed all that is good , and
gracious , brave , charitable , and pious . There is peculiar to a gentleman , a blending of delicacy and daring , modesty and manliness , truth and trustworthiness , candour and prudence , proper pride aud becoming condescension , which belongs to no other individual : a blending of opposite qualities , which makes the perfect and harmonious whole . He learns to command himself , and is fit to control others . His self-respect is not so great as to blind him to the merits of his acquaintances . His
acquired and occasional reserve agrees with his natural affability and condescension . It took Lord Chesterfield many pages to find out what is gentlemanly—nobody wants to be told what is not so . The greatest affront that can be offered to an Englishman , is , to be told that he is " no gentleman . " By such an accusation you wound him on every moral point , and he fires at the thought . The veriest " snob" quails beneath the charge—his self-love cannot withstand it . The vul railer
gar against gentility , in its proper sense , is a hopeless outcast—the reviler of all that elevates human nature . There is a mawkish , spurious , and unwholesome state termed genteel ; but in reality it is most contemptible . Whether it be exhibited in such individuals as Hotspur ' s " certain lord , " who , "but for vile guns would have been a soldier ; " or whether it shows itself in would-be fine people , it matters not ; the fastidiousness