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The Gospel In Brief – Preface

THIS short exposition of the Gospel is a summary of a large work which exists in manuscript and cannot be published in Russia. That work consists of four parts:

An account (Confession) of the course of my own life and of the thoughts which led me to the conviction that the Christian teaching contains the truth.
An examination of the Christian teaching: first according to its interpretation by the Orthodox Russo-Greek Church, then according to its interpretation by the Church in general-by the Apostles, the Councils, the so-called Fathers of the Church-and an exposure of what is false in those interpretations.
An examination of Christian teaching not according to those interpretations but solely according to what has come down to us of Christ’s teaching, as ascribed to him in the Gospels.
An exposition of
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It will perhaps interest readers of The Monist to have before them the following attempt at an English version of the poem (or rather of the principal fragments of it that survive) in which the father of monism embodied the passion, one might almost say the fury, of his conviction that What Is is One.

The verses of Parmenides “On the Nature of Things” are remarkable for two reasons: they are the first thorough-going attempt to prove that reality is a unity, and they are the earliest expression of an idea which was to dominate philosophy with tremendous consequences for nearly two thousand years afterward.

The conclusions of the Eleatic school as to the nature of reality were too fantastic to be widely accepted; but the theory stated by Parmenides, the first

PARMENIDES: ON THE NATURE OF THINGS (trans. Sydney Waterlow)

PARMENIDES ON THE NATURE OF THINGS.

I. The Journey

And so, behind that team of sapient steeds,

On the illustrious road divine that leads

The wise world-wanderer to his heart’s desire,

The straining car that bears me onward speeds ;

On, ever on, its forerunners a band

Of Maids. The axle-tree even as a brand

Smouldered, and shrilled a music as of pipes

To the twin wheels that rac’d on either hand,

When, once again from the dim house of night

Hastening upwards to the realms of light,

The Daughters of the Sun-God cast away

Their sable kerchiefs and their heads undight.

Here stands the portal where the paths divide

Of night and day ; stony the threshold, wide

The lintel ; filled with mighty doors it is,

By which the great Avenger doth abide, –

Justice, who grasps the ever-changing key.

Her did the Maids pursuade

Practical Success as the Criterion of Truth

THE purpose of this paper is to investigate the meaning of practical success as a criterion of truth – when practical success is interpreted in terms of voluntary achievement.

To our argument one proposition is fundamental: the success of conduct is measured by the degree to which it attains its end. The truth of this statement will scarcely be disputed; it is so obvious as to seem self-evident. Yet its neglect has led to de- plorable errors-among them the attempt to biologize episte- mology. Hence it is worth-while at the outset to recite certain elementary principles. Human conduct has its source in intelligent volition. Voluntary action is action in pursuit of a con- sciously chosen end. It succeeds in so far as it realizes this end. Thus if definite meaning is to

Success

SUCCESS! – I just now find in a common, poor sort of dictionary, the dictionary everyone uses without fear of too much information, that Success may be defined as “prosperity,” or ” a fortunate result” – prosperity and good fortune – a fortune probably the full meaning. I had not searched the dictionary intent on knowledge, but opened it by chance while thinking of the following lines by some unknown writer:-

” Success:

Prometheus writhing on his rock of pain,

With his eternal chain,

And with Jove’s Vulture gnawing at his heart.

” Success:

In cultured Athens, in yon cell where lies

Old Socrates the Wise;-

Drink up the hemlock dregs, and so depart!”

It would seem, then, that there are two kinds of success; since the Promethean practice and the theory of Socrates do not agree with the

The Loneliness Of Success

I remember once having a conversation with a man of very great gifts – not only of intellectual power, but with some touch of that heavenly thing which we know as wisdom, that quality which, like Love, is both old and young, calm and fiery. He had not, however, been a conspicuously successful man – though he had achieved what many people would call success – because, I think, of a rather noble lack of the faculty of practical prudence; but he had been appointed, on the day on which I spoke with him, to a post of high dignity and leisure, worthy of him, and indeed singularly enviable. I congratulated him with heart felt pleasure, and said something about the satisfaction of seeing a man for once ideally placed.