
XX. On Transmigration of Souls, and how Souls are said to migrate into brute beasts.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 14 (p. 142)
XX. On Transmigration of Souls, and how Souls are said to migrate into brute beasts.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
“Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.”
Source: Tunnel in the Sky (1955), Chapter 2, “The Fifth Way” (p. 42)
“One must be rational about such matters and being rational need not mean being cold.”
The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert
Source: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), p. 483
Context: Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair. If one truly responds to man and his future, ie, concernedly and "responsibly." one can respond only by faith or by despair. Rational faith as well as rational despair are based on the most thorough, critical knowledge of all the factors that are relevant for the survival of man.
“Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.”
De toutes les définitions de l'homme, la plus mauvaise me paraît celle qui en fait un animal raisonnable.
Le Petit Pierre (1918), ch. XXXIII
On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: There are ages in which the rational man and the intuitive man stand side by side, the one in fear of intuition, the other with scorn for abstraction. The latter is just as irrational as the former is inartistic. They both desire to rule over life: the former, by knowing how to meet his principle needs by means of foresight, prudence, and regularity; the latter, by disregarding these needs and, as an "overjoyed hero," counting as real only that life which has been disguised as illusion and beauty.