The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Growth of Thought, by William Withington

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Title: The Growth of Thought
As Affecting the Progress of Society

Author: William Withington

Release Date: April 18, 2006 [EBook #18202]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GROWTH OF THOUGHT ***

Produced by Jared Fuller

THE GROWTH OF THOUGHT
AS AFFECTING THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY.

By William Withington.

1851.

Contents.

Part I.
Introductory.

Life Defined. Intellectual Culture and Intellectual Life,
Distinguished. Human Life, a Problem. The Evil to be Managed.
Self-Love Considered under a Three-fold Aspect. Three Agencies for
meliorating the Human Condition. The Growth of Thought, Slow; and oft
most in unexpected quarter.

Part II.

Welfare as dependent on the Social Institutions. Limited Aim of the
Received Political Economy. An Enlightened Policy but the Effective
Aim at managing Self-Love, directed towards Present Goods, vulgarly
understood. The Political Fault of the Papacy. Its Substantial
Correction by the Reformation. Republicanism carried from Religion
into Legislation; still without a clear perception of its Principle.
Its Progress accordingly Slow.

Part III.

Philosophy the Second Agency for promoting General Welfare, as the
Educator of Self-Love; the Corrector of mistaken apprehensions of
Temporal Good; the Revealer of the ties which bind the Members of the
Human Family to One Lot, to suffer or rejoice together. Progress in
estimating Life.

Part IV.

Mightier Influences yet needed, to contend with the Powers of Evil.
Supplied by Man's recognizing the whole of his Being; the extent of his
Duties; the Duration of his Existence. Religion, supplying the defects
of the preceding Agencies; Considered in nine particulars.

Conclusion.

Recapitulation. Suggestions to Christian Ministers.

Preface.

A contemporary thus reveals the state of mind, through which he has
come to the persuasion of great insight into the realities, which stand
behind the veil: "What more natural, more spontaneous, more imperative,
than that the conditions of his future