"Supernaturalism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the prevailing bigotry and fanaticism of an established religion. There is in the poet's mind the lofty indignation of one who sees, in its true light, the narrowness of an ignorant and hypocritical clergy, yet can find no solid ground on which to build up for himself a theory of supernaturalism, illumined by hope. Yet there are traces of Mysticism in his writings, which only serve to emphasize his profound longing for some knowledge of the invisible, and his foreboding that the grave is the "be-all" and "end-all" of life. The poet speaks in tones of bitterest ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... other evidences of departure from ancient landmarks, and of the propagation even to New England of a spirit of doubt, were growing suspicions as to the reality of that everyday supernaturalism which formed so prominent a feature of the Puritan theology. The zeal of Increase Mather against this rising incredulity had engaged him, while the old charter was still in existence, to publish a book of Remarkable Providences, in which were enumerated, among other things, all ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... body. And this has hitherto been achieved or attempted by magicians, "miracle-mongers," thaumaturgists, mesmerists, and the like, and by the modern hypnotizer, in which we may observe that there has been at every step less and less mysticism or supernaturalism, and a far easier process or way of working. And I believe it may be fairly admitted that in this work I have simplified the process of physically influencing mental action and rendered it easier. The ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... and Protestantism is not at all a question of relative supernaturalism, nor of rightness and wrongness, but wholly one of the difference between the systems of economics ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... development can be traced, with the exception of a comparatively small interval. This is the gap between the intellect of the anthropoid ape and that of primitive man, the one important last chapter in the story of mental evolution. Supernaturalism, driven from its strongholds of the past, has taken its last stand upon this broken link, claiming that here the line of descent fails, and that the gap could not have been filled without a direct inflow of intellect from the world of spirits or an immediate act of creation ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... we must approach Him in a spirit of greatness. He is not interested in trivialities—trivialities of ritual, of creed, of ceremony. We have imagined a vain thing—a God of our own species; merely adding to the conception, to gild and consecrate, a futile fuzbuz of supernaturalism. My friends, the God I imagine is something more than a formula on Sundays and an ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... legend has the two defects which so soon weary the readers of hagiographical writings, when the question is of the saints whose worship the Church has commanded.[1] It is encumbered with a spurious supernaturalism, and with incidents borrowed right and left from earlier legends. The Italian people, who hailed in Francis the angel of all their hopes, and who showed themselves so greedy for his relics, did not so much as dream of taking up the corpse of the founder of the Order of Preaching ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... The Literature of Supernaturalism was never more in request than since the Seeresses of Rochester commenced their levees at Barnum's Hotel. The journals have been filled with jesting and speculation upon the subject,—mountebank ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... of such "opium reading" we are oft apt to imagine the days of mysticism and the supernaturalism gone by. Germany, however, occasionally reminds us that the world is ever prone to return to the spectre-haunted paths trodden by its forefathers. One of the latest recallers of this description, is a second and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... view of the world. Instead of doing this, we have often enough seen friend and foe of the idea of miracles, as soon as the question was even touched upon, at once set to work with the insufficient conceptions of old rationalism and supernaturalism, and thus raising objections and attempting solutions which could satisfy nobody. Especially every inadequate idea {359} which was put forth by the advocates of faith in miracles, was gladly accepted by its adversaries; for thereby they were furnished ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... of them of a deeper and a wider kind. The first of these causes is obviously the fact that, for some reason or other, multitudes who know nothing of one another are independently coming to the conclusion that supernaturalism, which was once accepted without question as the main content or substratum of human life, rests on postulates which to them are no longer credible. Why is this the case to-day, when it was not the case yesterday? Of these necessary ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... this finer, more delicately marvellous supernaturalism, fruit of his more delicate [99] psychology, that Coleridge infuses into romantic adventure, itself also then a new or revived thing in English literature; and with a fineness of weird effect in The Ancient Mariner, unknown in those older, more simple, romantic legends and ballads. It is ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... mother, Alick rushed off with this letter to Mr. Gryce. The old leaven of superstition which works more or less in all of us—even those few who think proof a desirable basis for belief, and who require an examination conducted on scientific principles before they accept supernaturalism as "only another law coming in to modify those already known"—that superstition which belongs to most men, and to Alick with the rest, made this letter a matter of tremendous excitement to him. He saw in it the hand of God and the finger of Fate. It was impossible that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... to yield to the philosophers and explain away the supernaturalism of prophecy, maintaining rather on the contrary that the supernatural character of the prophetic vision is an evidence of the superior nature of Israel as well as of their land and their language, so he insists on the inherent ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... foremost and most effective champions of Darwinism, and no scientist has been more conspicuous in the battle between the doctrine of evolution and the older religious orthodoxy. Outside of this particular issue, he was a vigorous opponent of supernaturalism in all its forms, and a supporter of the agnosticism which demands that nothing shall be believed "with greater assurance than the evidence warrants"—the evidence intended being, of course, of the same kind as that ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... have seen that the savage, failing to discern the limits of his ability to control nature, ascribes to himself and to all men certain powers which we should now call supernatural. Further, we have seen that, over and above this general supernaturalism, some persons are supposed to be inspired for short periods by a divine spirit, and thus temporarily to enjoy the knowledge and power of the indwelling deity. From beliefs like these it is an easy step to the conviction that ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... of a grand exploration, to one who delights in travels. The pleasure must be greatest where faith is strongest; for instance, amongst imaginative races like the Kelts, and especially Orientals, who imbibe supernaturalism with their mothers' milk. "I am persuaded," writes Mr. Bayle St. John, "that the great scheme of preternatural energy, so fully developed in 'The Thousand and One Nights,' is believed in by the majority ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... once fully grasp the intention of the style, and its affectation of the tone of indignant orthodoxy, and perceive also how utterly destructive are its 'candid admissions' to the whole fabric of supernaturalism, he will enjoy a rare treat. It is not however for the purpose of recommending what we at least regard as a piece of exquisite humour, that we call attention to The Fair Haven, ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... have reached the doctrine of immanence are incomprehensible to the fanatics of transcendence. They will never understand—these last—that the panentheism of Krause is ten times more religious than their dogmatic supernaturalism. Their passion for the facts which are objective, isolated, and past, prevents them from seeing the facts which are eternal and spiritual. They can only adore what comes to them from without. As soon as their dramaturgy is interpreted symbolically ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... quivering impatience continued to crawl up Turnbull's spine; he had never felt so near to superstition and supernaturalism, and it was not a pretty sort ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... dull analytical stuff or "stylists" when I want action—if I'm to give my mind to a story. I can supply the reflections. I'm English—if Colney 's right in saying we always come round to the story with the streak of supernaturalism. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and the natural runs itself. Hence, if we are to find anything supernatural, we must look for it in the abnormal, the chaotic, the lawless, or that which defies all reduction to order that may be depended on. This notion underlies the traditional debate between naturalism and supernaturalism.... This unhappy misconception of the relation of the natural to the supernatural has practically led the great body of uncritical thinkers into the grotesque inversion of all reason—the more law and order, the less God."—Zion's Herald, ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... choice of the Chinese philosophy and the rejection of Buddhism was not because of any inherent quality in the Japanese mind. It was not the rejection of supernaturalism or the miraculous. The Chinese philosophy is as supernaturalistic as some forms of Buddhism. The distinction is not between the natural and the supernatural in either system, but between the seen ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... gods are nothing but the ideals they value and grope for in themselves. The ideal of the freethinker, the conception that places the supreme worth of human life in the expanding horizon of man's usefulness to man, is forever menaced by the supernaturalism of the theist which manifests itself in the multifarious religious sects that are the most active and constant menace to civilization and to mankind today. That religion in the past has produced suffering incalculable and has been the greatest obstacle in the advance of ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... Just as the naive popular faith was superseded by an enlightened Stoic supernaturalism, so in education alongside of the simple popular instruction a special training, an exclusive -humanitas-, developed itself and eradicated the last remnants of the old social equality. It will not be superfluous to cast a glance at the aspect ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... influence. He was physically, intellectually, and morally of a very large pattern. There was something very grand and impressive about him. He had happened to come to Syracuse during one of my vacations; on a Saturday evening he gave a lecture upon the tendencies to loose supernaturalism as shown in what were known as "spiritualistic" phenomena; and on the following day he preached a simple, plain, straightforward sermon on Christian morals. Both these utterances impressed me and strengthened my conviction that ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... opinion is of a matter-of-fact kind, the seers of visions keep quiet; they do not like to be thought fanciful or mad, and they hide their experiences, which only come to light through inquiries such as these that I have been making. But let the tide of opinion change and grow favourable to supernaturalism, then the seers of visions come to the front. The faintly-perceived fantasies of ordinary persons become invested by the authority of reverend men with a claim to serious regard; they are consequently attended to and encouraged, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton |
