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Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902

"The Way of All Flesh"


The trouble is that in the end we shall be driven to admit the unity of
the universe so completely as to be compelled to deny that there is
either an external or an internal, but must see everything both as
external and internal at one and the same time, subject and
object--external and internal--being unified as much as everything else.
This will knock our whole system over, but then every system has got to
be knocked over by something.
Much the best way out of this difficulty is to go in for separation
between internal and external--subject and object--when we find this
convenient, and unity between the same when we find unity convenient.
This is illogical, but extremes are alone logical, and they are always
absurd, the mean is alone practicable and it is always illogical. It is
faith and not logic which is the supreme arbiter. They say all roads
lead to Rome, and all philosophies that I have ever seen lead ultimately
either to some gross absurdity, or else to the conclusion already more
than once insisted on in these pages, that the just shall live by faith,
that is to say that sensible people will get through life by rule of
thumb as they may interpret it most conveniently without asking too many
questions for conscience sake.


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