Non Fiction Authors From England

"Naturally, having watched all this, I then proceeded to make further investigations as to how far this outflowing of force was affected by the character, the knowledge or the intention of the priest. I may sum up briefly the results of the examination of a large number of cases in the form of two or three axioms, which will no doubt at first sight seem surprising to many of my readers. Ordination ...only those priests who have been lawfully ordained, and have the apostolic succession, can produce this effect at all. Other men, not being part of this definite organisation, cannot perform this feat, no matter how devoted or good or saintly they may be. Secondly, neither the character of the priest, nor his knowledge, nor ignorance as to what he is really doing, affects the result in any way whatever."

"Physical. First, then, as to the physical part of the mechanism. We have in our bodies a great central axis of nervous matter, ending in the brain, and from this a network of nerve-threads radiates in every direction through the body. It is these nerve-threads, according to modern scientific theory, which by their vibrations convey all impressions from without to the brain, and the latter, upon receipts of these impressions, translates them into sensations or perceptions; so that if I put my hand upon some object and find it to be hot, it is really not my hand that feels, but my brain, which is acting upon information transmitted to it by the vibrations running along its telegraph wires, the nerve-threads. Chapter 2"

"The most convenient method in which we can arrange the various branches of our subject will perhaps be the following: first, to consider rather carefully the mechanism — physical, etheric and astral — by means of which impressions are conveyed to our consciousness; secondly, to see how the consciousness in its turn affects and uses this mechanism; thirdly, to note the condition both of the consciousness and its mechanism during sleep; and fourthly, to enquire how the various kinds of dreams which men experience are thereby produced. Chapter 1: Introductory"

"To know that a certain man is an Adept it would be necessary to see his causal body, for in that his development would show by its greatly increased size, and by a special arrangement of its colours into concentric spheres, such as is indicated to some extent in the illustration of the causal body of an Arhat (Plate xxvi) in Man, Visible and Invisible."

"Clairvoyant observation bears abundant testimony to the fact that when a man falls into a deep slumber the higher principles in their astral vehicle almost invariably withdraw from the body and hover in its immediate neighbourhood. Indeed, it is the process of this withdrawal which we commonly call 'going to sleep'. Chapter 4"

"It is impossible for us to calculate the vast amount of utterly unnecessary sorrow and terror and misery which mankind in the aggregate has suffered simply from its ignorance and superstition with regard to this one most important matter."

"A great change too will come over the power side of man’s development; the whole question of government and organization will stand upon a different basis. Men will see then vividly and clearly the effect upon the astral plane of many of their actions upon the physical, and thus much that is now done thoughtlessly will become an absolute impossibility There could be no possibility of the slaughter of animals for food, for example, if only men were able to see the results upon the astral plane which that slaughter produces. The crime which men call sport would be utterly abolished if they were able to see what it is that they are really doing. It needs so slight a development to change the whole face of this which we call civilization, and to change it very much for the better. p. 345"

"Etheric. It is not alone through the brain to which we have hitherto been referring, however, that impressions may be received by the man. Almost exactly co-extensive with and interpenetrating its visible form is his etheric double (formerly called in theosophical literature the linga sharira), and that also has a brain which is really no less physical than the other, though composed of matter in a condition finer than the gaseous. Chapter 2"

"It is probable that even the Masters who are by name best known to you are not so real, not so clear, not so well-defined to you as They are to those of us who have had the privilege of meeting Them face to face and seeing Them constantly in the course of our work. Yet you should endeavour by reading and thinking of Them to gain this realization, so that the Masters shall become to you not vague ideals but living men—men exactly as we are, though so enormously more advanced in every respect."

"Here, for the first time, we find ourselves a little at issue with the accepted system of chemistry. Fluorine stands at the head of a group—called the inter-periodic—whereof the remaining members are (see Crookes' table, p. 28), manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel; ruthenium, rhodium, palladium; osmium, iridium, platinum. If we take all these as group V, we find that fluorine and manganese are violently forced into company with which they have hardly any points of relationship, and that they intrude into an otherwise very harmonious group of closely similar composition. (Chapter III. The Later Researches, Part V.—The Bars Groups)"

"It has been well said … that there are steps on the way to the summit of Dietetic Reform, and, if only one step be taken, yet that single step will be not without importance and without influence in the world. The step, which leaves for ever behind it the barbarism of slaughtering our fellow-beings, the Mammals and Birds, is, it is superfluous to add, the most important and most influential of all."

"[T]hroughout history there are records of individuals who have provided answers to these puerile attempts at defending flesh eating. And those blokes who call vegetarianism faddish just aren’t aware of the history of ethical vegetarianism! People have always challenged the Regime of Blood!"

"Long before this, when reading that excellent book, The Ethics of Diet, I had wished to visit a slaughter-house, in order to see with my own eyes the reality of the question raised when vegetarianism is discussed. … The precise reason why abstinence from animal food will be the first act of fasting and of a moral life is admirably explained in the book, The Ethics of Diet; and not by one man only, but by all mankind in the persons of its best representatives during all the conscious life of humanity."

"'Amen', ... in Hebrew, is one of a cluster from a root which signifies reliability, integrity and truth. ... Our utterance of it is acknowledgment of God's 'Amen', which always goes before. The recognition of God's integrity and truthfulness, unswerving faithfulness in execution of his promises, is so central to Judaism's faith that 'Amen' may almost be taken as a name for God. We might miss this when we read, in the sixty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, that 'he who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of truth', but the Hebrew here, if rendered literally, would be 'by the God Amen'."

"Dr. James Gow did a great service by the publication in 1884 of his Short History of Greek Mathematics, a scholarly and useful work which has held its own and has been quoted with respect and appreciation by authorities on the history of mathematics in all parts of the world. At the date when he wrote, however, Dr. Gow had necessarily to rely upon the works of the pioneers Bretschneider, Hankel, Allman, and (first edition). Since then the subject has been very greatly advanced... scholars and mathematicians... have thrown light on many obscure points. It is therefore high time for the complete story to be rewritten."

"Apart from the rites and worship peculiar to each family, gens, curia, and tribe, the Romans recognised a vast number of gods and goddesses whose worship was the concern of the whole state. The necessary ceremonies were, in many cases, placed in the charge of sodalicia or clubs... which elected their own members. But the worship of all deities not otherwise provided for was superintended by the pontifices. The College of Pontifices is said to have been founded by Numa, and was in regal times, presided over by the king himself. But when kings were abolished, their religious functions were divided between two officers, the and the or Sacrificulus. The latter, though he was sometimes treated as the chief priest, in reality only offered some of the sacrifices which the king formerly offered... The general supervision of the state religion belonged to the Pontifex Maximus. The Pontifex Maximus lived in the Regia, the ancient palace."

"Each of these smaller corporations... to which an Athenian citizen belonged, had... business of its own—money to spend, officers to appoint, rules to make—very similar to that which the state transacted on a larger scale. And it is not to be supposed that Athenians were at all ashamed to take part in such minor business, as English gentlemen are to sit on a vestry or a town council. On the contrary, a large part of the population left their private affairs for slaves to manage, and devoted themselves entirely to their public duties."

"Every official was required to undergo, before assuming office... approval before a law court. This was an inquiry into his conduct, his exactness in paying taxes, etc., and it sometimes happened that he was rejected... Every official was also required to take an oath of allegiance."

"Officials could be removed during their year of office by vote of the ecclesia, and periodical opportunities were given for raising complaints..."

"My aim is... to place before a young student a nucleus of well-ordered knowledge, to which he is to add intelligent notes and illustrations from his daily reading."

"It happened fortunately that during this period of turmoil the guidance of the Christian Church, the one powerful and permanent institution, was chiefly in the hands of the splendid order of St. Benedict. This saint... seeing that idleness was the besetting danger of monastic establishments, founded at Monte Cassino... a model abbey, in which industry was the daily rule. Among other employments, reading and writing were approved as powerful agents in distracting the mind from unholy thoughts, and in Benedictine monasteries the mechanical exercise of copying mss. became one of the regular occupations."

"To give here an elaborate account of Pappus would be to create a false impression. His work is only the last convulsive effort of Greek geometry which was now nearly dead and was never effectually revived. It is not so with Ptolemy or Diophantus. The trigonometry of the former is the foundation of a new study which was handed on to other nations indeed but which has thenceforth a continuous history of progress. Diophantus also represents the outbreak of a movement which probably was not Greek in its origin, and which the Greek genius long resisted, but which was especially adapted to the tastes of the people who, after the extinction of Greek schools, received their heritage and kept their memory green. But no Indian or Arab ever studied Pappus or cared in the least for his style or his matter. When geometry came once more up to his level, the invention of analytical methods gave it a sudden push which sent it far beyond him and he was out of date at the very moment when he seemed to be taking a new lease of life."

"With Diophantus the history of Greek arithmetic comes to an end. No original work, that we know of, was done afterwards."

"The oldest definition of Analysis as opposed to Synthesis is that appended to Euclid XIII. 5. It was possibly framed by Eudoxus. It states that "Analysis is the obtaining of the thing sought by assuming it and so reasoning up to an admitted truth: synthesis is the obtaining of the thing sought by reasoning up to the inference and proof of it." In other words, the synthetic proof proceeds by shewing that certain admitted truths involve the proposed new truth: the analytic proof proceeds by shewing that the proposed new truth involves certain admitted truths."

"The population of Athens and consisted of slaves, resident aliens, and citizens. Slaves were excessively numerous. At a census taken in B.C. 309, the number of slaves was returned at 400,000, and it does not seem likely that there were fewer at any time during the classical period. They were mostly ns, ns, Thracians, and ns, imported from the coasts of the Propontis. ...They were employed for domestic purposes, or were let out for hire in gangs as labourers, or were allowed to work by themselves paying a yearly royalty to their masters. ...hardly any Athenian citizen can have been without two or three. The family of Aeschines (consisting of 6 persons) was considered very poor because it possessed only 7 slaves. On the other hand, Plutarch says that let out 1,000 and Hipponicus 600 slaves to work the gold mines in Thrace. The state possessed some slaves of its own, who were employed chiefly as policemen and clerks. Slaves enjoyed considerable liberties in Athens, and had some rights, even against their masters. They did not serve as soldiers, or sailors, except when the city was in great straits, as at the battle of Arginussae... The worst prospect in store for them was that their masters might be engaged in a lawsuit, for the evidence of a slave (except in a few cases) was not admitted in a court of justice unless he had been put to torture. Slaves were sometimes freed by their masters, with some sort of public ceremony, or (for great services) by the state which paid their value to their masters."

"The solution of the higher indeterminates depends almost entirely on very favourable numerical conditions and his methods are defective. But the extraordinary ability of Diophantus appears rather in the other department of his art, namely the ingenuity with which he reduces every problem to an equation which he is competent to solve."

"Diophantus shows great Adroitness in selecting the unknown, especially with a view to avoiding an adfected quadratic. ...The most common and characteristic of Diophantus' methods is his use of tentative assumptions which is applied in nearly every problem of the later books. It consists in assigning to the unknown a preliminary value which satisfies one or two only of the necessary conditions, in order that, from its failure to satisfy the remaining conditions, the operator may perceive what exactly is required for that purpose. ...a third characteristic of Diophantus [is] ...the use of the symbol for the unknown in different senses. ...The use of tentative assumptions leads again to another device which may be called... the method of limits. This may best be illustrated by a particular example. If Diophantus wishes to find a square lying between 10 and 11, he multiplies these numbers by successive squares till a square lies between the products. Thus between 40 and 44, 90 and 99 no square lies, but between 160 and 176 there lies the square 169. Hence x^2 = \tfrac{169}{16} will lie between the proposed limits."

"Sometimes... Diophantus solves a problem wholly or in part by synthesis. ...Although ...Diophantus does not treat his problems generally and is usually content with finding any particular numbers which happen to satisfy the conditions of his problems, ...he does occasionally attempt such general solutions as were possible to him. But these solutions are not often exhaustive because he had no symbol for a general coefficient."

"It was Pythagoras who discovered that the 5th and the octave of a note could be produced on the same string by stopping at 2⁄3 and ½ of its length respectively. Harmony therefore depends on a numerical proportion. It was this discovery, according to Hankel, which led Pythagoras to his philosophy of number. It is probable at least that the name harmonical proportion was due to it, since1:½ :: (1-½):(2⁄3-½).Iamblichus says that this proportion was called ύπeναντία originally and that Archytas and Hippasus first called it harmonic. Nicomachus gives another reason for the name, viz. that a cube being of 3 equal dimensions, was the pattern άρμονία: and having 12 edges, 8 corners, 6 faces, it gave its name to harmonic proportion, since:12:6 :: 12-8:8-6"

"The bones... are given in a heap to a student who has no idea of a skeleton. Here is the defect which I am trying partly to supply..."

"A student of history, who cares little for Greek or mathematics in particular, but who likes to watch how things grow, will be able to extract from these pages a notion of the whole history of mathematical science down to Newton's time..."

"Probably Greek logistic, or calculation, extended to more difficult operations... and... probably Greek arithmetic, or theory of numbers, owed much more to induction than is permitted to appear by its first and chief professors."

"Though the defects in Diophantus' proofs are in general due to the limitation of his symbolism, it is not so always. Very frequently indeed Diophantus introduces into a solution arbitrary conditions and determinations which are not in the problem. Of such "fudged" solutions, as a schoolboy would call them, two particular kinds are very frequent. Sometimes an unknown is assumed at a determinate value... Sometimes a new condition is introduced."

"Some fundamental unity was surely to be discerned either in the matter or the structure of things. The Ionic philosophers chose the former field: Pythagoras took the latter. ...The geometry which he had learnt in Egypt was merely practical. ...It was natural to nascent philosophy to draw, by false analogies, and the use of a brief and deceptive vocabulary, enormous conclusions from a very few observed facts: and it is not surprising if Pythagoras, having learnt in Egypt that number was essential to the exact description of forms and of the relations of forms, concluded that number was the cause of form and so of every other quality. Number, he inferred, is quantity and quantity is form and form is quality. Footnote2 Primitive men, on seeing a new thing, look out especially for some resemblance in it to a known thing, so that they may call both by the same name. This developes a habit of pressing small and partial analogies. It also causes many meanings to be at attached to the same word. Hasty and confused theories are the inevitable result."

"The history of Greek mathematics is, for the most part, only the history of such mathematics as are learnt daily in all our public schools. ...If it was not wanted, as it ought to have been, by our classical professors and our mathematicians, it would have served at any rate to quicken, with some human interest, the melancholy labours of our schoolboys."

"The history of Alexandrian mathematics begins with the Elements of Euclid and closes with the Algebra of Diophantus, both of which are founded on the discoveries of several preceding centuries."

"The Arithmetica... is deficient, sometimes pardonably, sometimes without excuse, in generalization. The book of Porismata, to which Diophantus sometimes refers, seems on the other hand to have been entirely devoted to the discussion of general properties of numbers. It is three times expressly quoted in the Arithmetica... Of all these propositions he says... 'we find it in the Porisms'; but he cites also a great many similar propositions without expressly referring to the Porisms. These latter citations fall into two classes, the first of which contains mere identities, such as the algebraical equivalents of the theorems in Euclid II. ...The other class contains general propositions concerning the resolution of numbers into the sum of two, three or four squares. ...It will be seen that all these propositions are of the general form which ought to have been but is not adopted in the Arithmetica. We are therefore led to the conclusion that the Porismata, like the pamphlet on Polygonal Numbers, was a synthetic and not an analytic treatise. It is open, however, to anyone to maintain the contrary, since no proof of any porism is now extant."

"There is one and only one principle, on which you can build a true, rightful, enduring and progressive civilization, which can give peace and friendliness and contentment to all differing groups and sects into which we are divided—and that principle is that every man and woman should be held by us all sacredly and religiously to be the one true owner of his or her faculties, of his or her body and mind, and of all property, inherited or — honestly acquired. There is no other possible foundation — seek it wherever you will — on which you can build, if you honestly mean to make this world a place of peace and friendship, where progress of every kind, like a full river fed by its many streams, may flow on its happy fertilizing course, with ever broadening and deepening volume. Deny that self-ownership, that self-guidance of the individual, and however fine our professed motives may be, we must sooner or later, in a world without rights, become like animals who prey on each other. Deny human rights, and however little you may wish to do so, you will find yourself abjectly kneeling at the feet of that old-world god, Force — that grimmest and ugliest of gods that men have ever carved for themselves out of the lusts of their hearts; you will find yourselves hating and dreading all other men who differ from you; you will find yourselves obliged by the law of conflict into which you have plunged, to use every means in your power to crush them before they are able to crush you; you will find yourselves day by day growing more unscrupulous and intolerant, more and more compelled by the fear of those opposed to you, to commit harsh and violent actions, of which you would once have said 'Is thy servant a dog that he should do these things?'; you will find yourselves clinging to and welcoming Force, as the one and only form of protection left to you, when you have destroyed the rule of the great principles."

"Contrast force and morality with each other. How can an act done under compulsion have any moral element in it, seeing that what is moral is the free act of an intelligent being? If you tie a man's hands there is nothing moral about his not committing murder."

"Secondly, get rid of all dependence upon the central department. If you do not as yet perceive that public money can not wisely, in any shape, be taken for education, still refuse the grant that the central department offers as a bribe for the acceptance of its mischievous interference. Until individual self-reliance has grown among us, let each town administer education in its own way."

"If must also be remembered that, unless men are left to their own resources, they do not know what is or what is not possible for them. If Government half a century ago had provided us all with dinners and breakfasts, it would be the practice of our orators to-day to assume the impossibility of our providing for ourselves."

"If we cannot by reason, by influence, by example, by strenuous effort, and by personal sacrifice, mend the bad places of civilization, we certainly cannot do it by force. Force is the very weakest and most treacherous of all human implements. The history of force is the history of the continuous crumbling away of every institution that has rested upon it. — The Contemporary Review, The Ethics of Dynamite (1894)"

"How, then, can the rights of three men exceed the rights of two men? In what possible way can the rights of three men absorb the rights of two men, and make them as if they had never existed. Rights are not things which grow by using the multiplication table. here are two men. If there are such things as rights, these two men must evidently start with equal rights. How shall you, then, by multiplying one of the two, even a thousand times over, give him larger rights than the other, since each new unit that appears only brings with him his own rights; or how, by multiplying one of the units up to the point of exhausting the powers of the said multiplication table, shall you take from the other the rights with which he started?"

"We voluntaryists believe that no true progress can be made until we frankly recognize the great truth that every individual, who lives within the sphere of his own rights, as a self-owner, and has not himself first aggressed upon others by employing force or fraud in his dealings with them [and thus deprived himself of his own rights of self-ownership by aggressing upon these same rights of others], is the only one true owner of his own faculties, and his own property."

"Who shall count up the evil brood that is born from power - the pitiful fear, the madness, the despair, the overpowering craving for revenge, the treachery, the unmeasured cruelty?"

"Of all the miserable, unprofitable, inglorious wars in the world is the war against words. Let men say just what they like. Let them propose to cut every throat and burn every house - if they so like it. We have nothing to do with a man's words or a man's thoughts, except to put against them better words and better thoughts, and so to win in the great moral and intellectual duel that is always going on, and on which all progress depends."

"Deny human rights, and however little you may wish to do so, you will find yourself abjectly kneeling at the feet of that old-world god, Force - that grimmest and ugliest of gods that men have ever created for themselves out of the lusts of their hearts. You will find yourself hating and dreading all other men who differ from you; you will find yourself obligated by the law of the conflict into which you have plunged, to use every means in your power to crush them before they are able to crush you; you will find yourself day by day growing more unscrupulous and intolerant, more and more compelled by the fear of those opposed to you, to commit harsh and violent actions. You will find yourselves clinging to and welcoming Force, as the one and only form of protection left to you, when you have once destroyed the rule of the great principles."

"We hold that the one and only one true basis of society is the frank recognition of these rights of self-ownership; that is to say, of the rights of control and direction by the individual, as he himself chooses, over his own mind, his own body, and his own property, always provided, that he respects the same universal rights in others."

"When once you have plunged into the strife for power, it is the fear of those who are seeking for power over you that so easily persuades to all the great crimes."

"State socialism is the refusal to others and the abandonment for oneself of all true human rights. Under it a man would have no rights over his own property, over his own labor, over his own amusements, over his own home and family — in a word, either over himself, or all that naturally and reasonably belonged to him, but he would have as his compensation (if there were 10,000,000 electors in his country) the one-tenth millionth share in the ownership of all his fellow-men (including himself) and of all that naturally and reasonably belonged to them and not to him."