When we cast a glance upon the immense progress realized by the natural sciences in the course of the nineteenth century, and when we perceive the promises they contain for the future, we can not but feel deeply impressed by the idea that mankind is entering upon a new era of progress It has, at any rate, before it all the elements for preparing such a new era. In the course of the last one hundred years, new branches of knowledge, opening entirely new vistas upon the laws of the development of human society, have grown up under the names of anthropology prehistoric ethnology (science of the primitive social institutions), the history of religions, and so on. New conceptions about the whole life of the universe were developed by pursuing such lines of research as molecular physics, the chemical structure of matter, and the chemical composition of distant worlds. And the traditional views about the position of man in the universe, the origin of life, and the na...
Or - Humanism And Realism
The False Principle of Our Education Or - Humanism And Realism By Max Stirner Because our time is struggling toward the word with which it may express its spirit, many names come to the fore and all make claim to being the right name. On all sides our present time reveals the most chaotic partisan tumult and the eagles of the moment gather around the decaying legacy of the past. There is everywhere a great abundance of political, social, ecclesiastical, scientific, artistic, moral and other corpses, and until they are all consumed, the air will not be clean and the breath of living beings will be oppressed. Without our assistance, time will not bring the right word to light; we must all work together on it. If, however, so much depends upon... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
CHAPTER III THE NATURE OF MATTER IN the preceding chapter we agreed, though without being able to find demonstrative reasons, that it is rational to believe that our sense-data -- for example, those which we regard as associated with my table -- are really signs of the existence of something independent of us and our perceptions. That is to say, over and above the sensations of color, hardness, noise, and so on, which make up the appearance of the table to me, I assume that there is something else, of which these things are appearances. The color ceases to exist if I shut my eyes, the sensation of hardness ceases to exist if I remove my arm from contact with the table, the sound ceases to exist if I cease to rap the table with my knuckles. But I do not believe that when all these things cease the table ceases. On the contrary, I believe that it is because the table exists continuously that all these sense-data will reappear when I open...