Autobiography
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John Stuart Mill,
Tutis Digital Pub (Publisher)
Published
2009
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John Stuart Mill,
Tutis Digital Pub (Publisher)
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Out Of Stock
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: in the best sense of the word religion, than those who exclusively arrogate to themselves the title. The liberality of the age, or in other words the weakening of the obstinate prejudice which makes men unable to see what is before their eyes because it is contrary to their expectations, has caused it to be very commonly admitted that a Deist may be truly religious: but if religion stands for any graces of character and not for mere dogma, the assertion may equally be made of many whose belief is far short of Deism. Though they may think the proof incomplete that the universe is a work of design, and though they assuredly disbelieve that it can have an Author and Governor who is absolute in power as well as perfect in goodness, they have that which constitutes the principal worth of all religions what- ' ever, an ideal conception of a Perfect Being, to which they habitually refer as the guide of their conscience; and this ideal of Good is usually far nearer to perfection than the objective Deity of those, who think themselves obliged to find absolute goodness in the author of a world so crowded with suffering and so deformed by injustice as ours. My father's moral convictions, wholly dissevered from religion, were very much of the character of those of the Greek philosophers ; and were delivered with the force and decision which characterized all that came from him. Even at the very early age at I read with Mm the Memorabilia of Xenophon, I imbibed from that work and from his comments a deep respect for the character of Socrates ; who stood in rny mind as a model of ideal excellence : and I well remember how my father at that time impressed upon me the lesson of the "Choice of Hercules." At a somewhat later period the lofty moral standard exhibited in the writings of Plato o...
