“Christendom, as an effect, must be accounted for. It is too large for a mortal cause.”

—  Frederic Dan Huntington

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 135.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Christendom, as an effect, must be accounted for. It is too large for a mortal cause." by Frederic Dan Huntington?
Frederic Dan Huntington photo
Frederic Dan Huntington 8
American bishop 1819–1904

Related quotes

Leonhard Euler photo

“Of course, when the effective causes are too obscure, but the final causes are more readily ascertained, the problem is commonly solved by the indirect method”

Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) Swiss mathematician

introduction to De Curvis Elasticis, Additamentum I to his Methodus Inveniendi Lineas Curvas Maximi Minimive Proprietate Gaudentes 1744; translated on pg10-11, "Leonhard Euler's Elastic Curves" https://www.dropbox.com/s/o09w82abgtftpfr/1933-oldfather.pdf, Oldfather et al 1933
Context: All the greatest mathematicians have long since recognized that the method presented in this book is not only extremely useful in analysis, but that it also contributes greatly to the solution of physical problems. For since the fabric of the universe is most perfect, and is the work of a most wise Creator, nothing whatsoever takes place in the universe in which some relation of maximum and minimum does not appear. Wherefore there is absolutely no doubt that every effect in the universe can be explained as satisfactorily from final causes, by the aid of the method of maxima and minima, as it can from the effective causes themselves. Now there exist on every hand such notable instances of this fact, that, in order to prove its truth, we have no need at all of a number of examples; nay rather one's task should be this, namely, in any field of Natural Science whatsoever to study that quantity which takes on a maximum or a minimum value, an occupation that seems to belong to philosophy rather than to mathematics. Since, therefore, two methods of studying effects in Nature lie open to us, one by means of effective causes, which is commonly called the direct method, the other by means of final causes, the mathematician uses each with equal success. Of course, when the effective causes are too obscure, but the final causes are more readily ascertained, the problem is commonly solved by the indirect method; on the contrary, however, the direct method is employed whenever it is possible to determine the effect from the effective causes. But one ought to make a special effort to see that both ways of approach to the solution of the problem be laid open; for thus not only is one solution greatly strengthened by the other, but, more than that, from the agreement between the two solutions we secure the very highest satisfaction.

John F. Kennedy photo

“Too large a tax cut, of course, could result in inflation and insufficient future revenues--but the greatest danger is a tax cut too little or too late to be effective.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Alexander Herrmann photo

“With a scientific cause he must produce a seemingly opposite effect to that warranted by order and system.”

Alexander Herrmann (1844–1896) French magician

The Art of Magic (1891)
Context: No one regards the magician today as other than an ordinary man gifted with no extraordinary powers. The spectators come, not to be impressed with awe, but fully aware that his causes and effects are natural. They come rather as a guessing committee, to spy out the methods with which he mystifies. Hundreds of eyes are upon him. Men with more knowledge of the sciences than he come to trip and expose him, and to baffle their scrutiny is the study of his life. Long years of training and exercise alone will not make a magician. … There must be some natural aptitude for the art; it must be born in a man, and can never be acquired by rule. He must be alert both in body and in mind; cool and calculating to the movement of a muscle under all circumstances; a close student of men and human nature. To these qualifications he must add the rather incongruous quality of a mind turning on contradictions. With a scientific cause he must produce a seemingly opposite effect to that warranted by order and system.
I know of no life requiring such a series of opposite qualities as the magician's. And after the exercise of all these qualities I have named, resulting in the production of the most startling and novel results, the magician has not the satisfaction, like other men, of the enjoyment of his own product. He must be prepared to see it copied by others, or after a short time discovered by the public.

Erwin Rommel photo

“Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas.”

Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II

Variant: Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas.
Source: The Rommel Papers (1953), Ch. XI : The Initiative Passes, p. 244.

Henry Rollins photo

“You can't right the wrongs because you'll never understand the cause and you'll be too busy dodging the effect.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Eye Scream

Simon Kuznets photo

“The inescapable conclusion is that the direct contribution of man-hours and capital accumulation would hardly account for more than a tenth of the rate of growth in per capita product — and probably less. The large remainder must be assigned to an increase in efficiency in the productive resources, or the effects of changing arrangements, or to the impact of technological change, or to all three”

Simon Kuznets (1901–1985) economist

Source: Modern economic growth,(1966), p. 81

John Buchan photo

“Any large-scale organization must lose some of the merits of its rudimentary beginnings. Quantity will have a coarsening effect on quality.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

Augustus (1937)

“The Holocaust was the product not of Christendom, but of Christendom's collapse. The destruction of Christendom effected (1) the rejection of Catholic natural law and (2) the rise of the absolute nation-state, previously impossible because popes could depose and counterbalance kings. Hitler, to be sure, contributed a neo-paganism and anti-Semitism all his own. But in mobilizing opinion and wielding power, he was helped more by these two innovations than by any Catholic doctrines.”

Mark Riebling (1963) American writer

Jesus, Jews and the Shoah: A Moral Reckoning by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (2003)

Charlie Munger photo

“You can't give the average Wall Street CEO really lenient standards of accounting and expect the figures to be good. The accountant is like the referee in soccer. The accountant has to be the adult that prevents the mayhem. Accountants don't want to be the adults because it causes liability, it causes responsibility, it causes difficulty ... they failed us terribly.”

Charlie Munger (1924) American business magnate, lawyer, investor, and philanthropist

[A Conversation with Charlie Munger, Ross School of Business, YouTube, March 22, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pph3Bg8Pihg] (quote at 23:30 of 1:59:58)

Francis Bacon photo

“Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.”

Francis Bacon book Novum Organum

Aphorism 3
Novum Organum (1620), Book I

Related topics