JB_161_137.xml

Title: [1817 Sept. 8 Not Paul Ch Paul]

Description: 1817 Sept. 8

Not Paul

Ch Paul’s success―its causes

As to nonsense so far from being obstructive, it is in its nature in a high degree conducive―not to say necessary―to the production of the effect. Suppose it any thing but nonsense argument, if there be any thing of weakness in it which in the case in question by the supposition there can not fail to be will in proportion to its weakness be exposed to refutation. But of nonsense it is a property an effectual an indisputable property to be / to be / altogether refutation proof. To words to which no ideas / conceptions / are / stand / asserted no erroneous conceptions can be shewn to be attached to words, by which no intelligible propositions are expressed nor false propositions can be shewn to be expressed.

Thus it is and hence it is, it is by the most absurd propositions that the firmest faith or belief the most intense and most irrefragable / firmest / degree of persuasion has been produced. Among propositions / positions / In the scale of absurdity the highest place is beyond dispute that which is occupied by those of the self-contradictory class. But it is by these / propositions of this class / that the most intense and consequently the most impatient and irritable persuasion has been engrossed: unless that in which the composition / compositeness / of the uncompounded Godhead / object is declared / and that in which in which an / one and the same / object is declared to be eaten[?] and not eaten[?] at the same time. False[?] propositions for a man to die for rather than contradict them the powers / power / of imagination can not frame to itself.

Proportioned not to the reasonableness but to the unreasonableness of it is the intensity of the persuasion which the religion of this world have been seen to produce. In no part / spot / within the field of its dominion, even in the Catholic edition of it will the religion of Jesus be seen capable of giving birth to / producing / self sacrifices approaching in respect of the self-command and power of endurance manifested by them, to those of which in such prodigious abundance the religion of Bramah has been seen productive.  In a note give examples from Mill’s India.

JB_161_135.xml

Title: [1817 Sept. 8 Not Paul Ch. Paul]

Description: 1817 Sept. 8

Not Paul

Ch. Paul’s success―its causes

Give me but a standing place said Archimedes, I will move the earth Archimedes ( c. 287- c. 212 bc), Greek mathematician and inventor. The anecdote is related by Simplicius, a 6th century ad Neoplatonist, In Aristotelis de Physica Commentarii, 1110.5.―meaning in a physical [sense]. Give me but force and fluency (might a man almost any man say) and I will move the world, meaning in an intellectual and moral sense―such / Such / is the power of the evidence afforded by intellectual authority, especially when reinforced by sympathy. ( Si vis me flere) says the earliest of our writers in the field of aesthetics si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi. Grieve―for though without any real cause by the mere force of imagination the skilful writer though it be but for the moment introduces into his mind the passion of grief. Grieve first yourself says Horace, if you would make others weep. See Horace, Ars poetica, 102-3.

Intellectual authority and sympathy―those were the instruments of which Paul had put himself in possession and learnt the use.

In all stages in the career of civilization, nonsense on condition of being accompanied with the appearance of a certain degree of self-persuasion―nonsense so far as being obstructive has been productive of the effect of producing corresponding persuasion in other minds.

Cromwell! what an ascendancy did not that man acquire over other minds! to what a height in the ladder of ambition did he not raise himself! Yet of the sort of eloquence by which these effects were produced specimens are not wanting. Hume in his history has dragged out into day light one of them: a tissue of nonsense he pronounces it: nor does the propriety of the appellation seem much exposed to dispute.

JB_161_139.xml

Title: [1817 Sept. 13 Not Paul Ch Paul]

Description: 1817 Sept. 13

Not Paul

Ch Paul’s success―its causes

To the energy of his discourse, seconded by the / its / nonsensicalness of his discourses―oral and written taken together was Paul indebted for the success / successes / influence possessed and exercised / experienced by him in his life time: to the energy seconded by the nonsensicalness of his discourses viz of that part of them which in the shape of writing has reached these our times, is his name indebted in no small degree indebted for that body of influence, vast as it is, which it still continues to exercise: for the triumph it has obtained in / by / the having supplanted in / on / pretence of supporting the religion of Jesus.