Word: final
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...best, from which proceeds, especially in youth, an enthusiastic trust in progress; but, even retaining a faith in optimism, might we not reasonably suppose that, by a system of compensations, the world is always at its best? Is it not by blindly applying a principle of final causes that we look on all other centuries only as the preparation for our own? That this is so the author affirms, and maintains, with Spinoza, that "nothing exists merely for something else." "Each moment has its own worth and beauty," and each stage in our history was an end in itself. Another...
...could see the radiance of Tom's face in the uncertain glimmer of the Chinese lanterns. He was evidently shivering before the final plunge...
Again, when he concludes that "the final classification of the motives is the classification of pleasurable and painful feeling," he misrepresents men in many of their actions. Not to value human nature too highly, we can at least lay claim to some better motives than these. We should be unwilling to believe that all actions are induced by the wish to obtain pleasure or to get rid of pain, and that a feeling of right or duty was never considered in men's actions. There is in every man's nature something which calls for higher springs of action...
...disputes to be settled by the umpires, whose decision shall be final...
...final argument, that intercollegiate contests would promote the cause of education, if true, is certainly an admirable reason for their adoption. But that truth we fail to see. The writer has certainly proved it nowhere; he only claims it. And there is surely something weak in an argument which says because boating was made intercollegiate and flourished, that therefore education will be promoted under a system of intercollegiate literary contests...