Address at the Annual Meeting of the Educational Institute of Scotland, September 17, 1853

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Murray and Gibb, 1852 - Education - 15 pages
 

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Page 17 - ... white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas ; how comes it to be furnished ? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge ? To this I answer in one word, from experience ; in that all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself.
Page 17 - Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE.
Page 18 - ... several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those objects do affect them ; and thus we come by those ideas we have of yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and all those which we call sensible qualities ; which when I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean, they from external objects convey into the mind what produces there those perceptions. This great source of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by...
Page 21 - Secondly, the other fountain from which experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas, is the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got, which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas, which could not be had from things without...
Page 19 - And all these things I do plainly and sincerely acknowledge and swear according to these express words by me spoken, and according to the plain and common sense and understanding of the same words without any equivocation, mental evasion, or secret reservation whatsoever. And I do make this recognition, acknowledgment, abjuration, renunciation, and promise heartily, willingly, and truly, upon the true faith of a Christian. So help me God.
Page 19 - Majesty, and his successors, all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which I shall know to be against him, or any of them; and I do faithfully promise, to the utmost of my power, to support, maintain, and defend the succession of the Crown against...
Page 37 - The memory of some it is true, is very tenacious, even to a miracle : but yet there seems to be a constant decay of all our ideas, even of those which are struck deepest, and in minds the most retentive ; so that if they be not sometimes renewed by repeated exercise of the senses, or reflection on those kind of objects which at first occasioned them, the print wears out, and at last there remains nothing to be seen.
Page 17 - ... was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which as ships pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?
Page 31 - ... diligently to watch, and carefully to prevent the undue connexion of ideas in the minds of young people.
Page 91 - A single life doth well with churchmen, for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool.

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