Personalism

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The aim of these lectures is to show that critical reflection brings us back again to the personal metaphysics which Comte rejected. We agree with him that abstract and imper sonal metaphysics is a mirage of formal ideas, and even largely of words, which begin, con tinue, and end in abstraction and confusion. Causal explanation must always be in terms of personality, or it'must vanish altogether. Thus we return to the theological stage, but we do so with a difference. At last we have learned the lesson of law, and we now see that law and will must be united in our thought of the world. Thus man's earliest metaphysics reemerges in his latest but enlarged, enriched, and purified by the ages of thought and experience.

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The aim of these lectures is to show that critical reflection brings us back again to the personal metaphysics which Comte rejected. We agree with him that abstract and imper sonal metaphysics is a mirage of formal ideas, and even largely of words, which begin, con tinue, and end in abstraction and confusion. Causal explanation must always be in terms of personality, or it'must vanish altogether. Thus we return to the theological stage, but we do so with a difference. At last we have learned the lesson of law, and we now see that law and will must be united in our thought of the world. Thus man's earliest metaphysics reemerges in his latest but enlarged, enriched, and purified by the ages of thought and experience.