Aids to Reflection; and, The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Издательство: Bookwire
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Жанр произведения: Документальная литература
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isbn: 4064066121952
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      APHORISM VIII.

      Leighton and Coleridge.

      APHORISM IX.

      APHORISM X.

      Self-superintendence! that anything should overlook itself! Is not this a paradox, and hard to understand? It is, indeed, difficult, and to the imbruted sensualist a direct contradiction: and yet most truly does the poet exclaim,

      —— Unless above himself he can Erect himself, how mean a thing is man!

      APHORISM XI.

      An hour of solitude passed in sincere and earnest prayer, or the conflict with, and conquest over, a single passion or "subtle bosom sin," will teach us more of thought, will more effectually awaken the faculty, and form the habit, of reflection, than a year's study in the schools without them.

      APHORISM XII.

      Comment.

      APHORISM XIII.

      Comment.

      If acquiescence without insight; if warmth without light; if an immunity from doubt, given and guaranteed by a resolute ignorance; if the habit of taking for granted the words of a catechism, remembered or forgotten; if a mere sensation of positiveness substituted—I will not say, for the sense of certainty; but—for that calm assurance, the very means and conditions of which it supersedes; if a belief that seeks the darkness, and yet strikes no root, immovable as the limpet from the rock, and like the limpet, fixed there by mere force of adhesion; if these suffice to make men Christians, in what sense could the apostle affirm that believers receive, not indeed worldly wisdom, that comes to nought, but the wisdom of God, that we might know and comprehend the things that are freely given to us of God? On what grounds could he denounce the sincerest fervour of spirit as defective, where it does not likewise bring forth fruits in the understanding?