It is a question of fact, whether the influence of motives be fixed by laws of nature, so that they shall always have the same effect in the same circumstances. |
might not be an appropriate place for him to stay. |
The idea is in the mind itself, and can have no existence but in a mind that thinks; but the remote or mediate object may be something external, as the sun or moon; it may be something past or future; it may be something which never existed. |
The laws of nature are the rules according to which the effects are produced; but there must be a cause which operates according to these rules. |
The rules of navigation never navigated a ship. The rules of architecture never built a house. |
The vulgar allow that this expression implies a mind that thinks, an act of that mind which we call thinking, and an object about which we think. But, besides these three, the philosopher conceives that there is a fourth-to wit, the idea, which is the immediate object. |
There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words. |
This is the original mosaic tile and marble. |
This is the philosophical meaning of the word idea; and we may observe that this meaning of that word is built upon a philosophical opinion: for, if philosophers had not believed that there are such immediate objects of all our thoughts in the mind, they would never have used the word idea to express them. |
We're all crossing our fingers for her. |
When, therefore, in common language, we speak of having an idea of anything, we mean no more by that expression, but thinking of it. |