Edwyn Bevan

SYMBOLISM AND BELIEF by EDWYN BEVAN London GEORGE ALLEN UNWIN LTD Museum Street TO MY FRIEND ALFRED EDWARD TAYLOR without whose prompting and encouragement these lectures would never have been written PREFACE JL HE lectures contained in this volume were given for the University of Edinburgh on Lord Giffords founda tion In the years 1933 and 1934. I have delayed their publication in the hope that with process of time I might, by further reading and thought, be able to expand and modify them, so as to make them more worthy of presen tation to the public in the form of a book. This hope has been so meagrely realized that it now seems best to let them go forth, with all their imperfections on their head, hardly at all altered from the form in which they were delivered. Some changes in arrangement have been made in the order of lectures the two on Time now follow immediately the two on the spatial symbol of Height. Four lectures have been omitted altogether from the present volume, those on image-worship and doctrines ondemning the manufacture of images in antiquity and in the Christian Church. Since in the rest of the lectures ihe symbolism of material objects in worship was not the kind of symbolism under consideration, these four lectures seemed somewhat of a digression from the main ine of argument. I hope later on to issue them as a small book by themselves. As is generally known, Lord Giffords Will prescribes hat lecturers on his foundation are not to ask their iudience to believe any statement on the ground of any special revelation, whether contained in Scripture or the iogma of a Church, but to rest what they affirm solely upon grounds of reason. That is to say, their basis must be the facts of the world so far as they are accessible to the reason common to mankind. I hope that I have nowhere transgressed this restriction imposed t by the munificent benefactor to whom these lectures owe their existence. Of course beliefs entertained by the Christian Church, or by Theists, are, as psychological facts, among the indisputable facts of the world, and a Gifford lecturer is, I take it, permitted to point to them, as such, though he may not ask his hearers to accept them on the authority of Church or Scripture. Since my two lectures on Time were written, a note worthy contribution to the subject, from a Christian standpoint, has been made by Mr. F. H. Brabant in his Bampton Lectures, Time and Eternity in Christian Thought delivered in 1936, published in 1937. It was unfortunate for me that I had not Mr. Brabants book before me, when I wrote my two lectures. Of one thing I am sure that the questions I have raised regarding the element of symbolism in our religious conceptions take us to the very heart of the religious problem. How inadequate my attempts to answer them have been no one can be more conscious than I am. But if I have succeeded in putting the questions themselves in a somewhat clearer light, so that the thought of others may be directed upon them with richer result, that at any rate is something which I trust the University which honoured me by appointing me to this lectureship will accept as something worth doing. January 1938 Contents LECTURE PAGE Preface 7 I. Introductory 1 1 II. Height 28 III. Height continued 58 IV. Tiihe 82 V. Time continued 102 VI. Light 125 VII. Spirit 151 VIII. Spirit continued 177 IX. The Wrath of God 206 X. The Wrath of God continued 23 1 XI. Distinction of Literal and Symbolical 252 XII. Symbols Without Conceptual Meaning 275 XIII. Pragmatism and Analogy 297 XIV. Mansel and Pragmatism 318 XV. Rationalism and Mysticism 341 S XVI. The Justification of Belief 364 Index 387 A 9 LECTURE ONE INTRODUCTORY SYMBOLISM and Belief is the subject chosen for these lectures. In his little book on Symbolism Professor Whitehead gives a definition of that term with which we may start...

Symbolism and Belief

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Stoics And Sceptics

"The lectures contained in this volume were given for the University of Edinburgh on Lord Gifford's foundation in the years 1933 and 1934. I have delayed their publication in the hope that with process of time I might, by further reading and thought, be able to expand and modify them, so as to make them more worthy of presentation to the public in the form of a book. This hope has been so meagerly realized that it now seems best to let them go forth, with all their imperfections on their head, hardly at all altered from the form in which they were delivered." --From the preface

Lectures on Stoicism and Scepticism by Prof. Edwyn Bevan.This is not an OCR neither a phototocopy. It is a new edition.

Stoics and Sceptics

First published in 1927, this title presents a well-regarded study of this intriguing and often over-looked period of Egyptian history, both for the general reader and the student of Hellenism. Edwyn Bevan describes his work as ‘an attempt to tell afresh the story of a great adventure, Greek rule in the land of the Pharaohs...which ends with the astounding episode of Cleopatra’. The result is a remarkable synthesis of historical scholarship, prose style and breadth of vision, which will still prove to be of value to Egypt enthusiasts and students of Egyptology.

A History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty (Routledge Revivals)

Sextus Empiricus

Diogenes Laërtius

Mary Mills Patrick

"The truth is hypothetical." Scepticism (or skepticism), the belief that requires all information to be well supported by evidence, originated in the Skeptikoi, a first century BC Greek school who "asserted nothing." The school was founded by Aenesidemus; our main source of the school's teachings is Sextus Empiricus and the leader of the Sceptics was Pyrrho of Elis (365-275 BC) who had traveled to India and studied with the gymnosophists (naked lovers of wisdom). From India, Pyrrho brought back the idea that nothing can be known for certain. The senses are easily fooled, and reason follows too easily our desires. Along with Stoicism and Epicureanism, Scepticism was one of the three dominant schools of Hellenistic Philosophy. A sextet of sceptic texts has been collected in Stoic Six Pack 4 - The Sceptics: Pyrrhonic Sketches by Sextus Empiricus Life of Pyrrho by Diogenes Laërtius Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism by Mary Mills Patrick The Greek Sceptics: from Pyrrho to Sextus by Norman MacColl Stoics and Sceptics by Edwyn Bevan Life of Carneades by Diogenes Laërtius A key concept for the sceptics was ataraxia ("tranquility"), a Greek term used by Pyrrho to describe a lucid state of robust tranquility, characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry. By applying ideas of what he called "practical skepticism" to Ethics and to life in general, Pyrrho concluded that ataraxia could be achieved. Arriving at a state of ataraxia became the ultimate goal of the early Skeptikoi. "Skepticism is the first step toward truth." - Denis Diderot

The Sceptics

Stoic Six Pack 4

Norman MacColl

A sextet of sceptic texts has been collected in Stoic Six Pack 4 - The Sceptics: Pyrrhonic Sketches by Sextus Empiricus, Life of Pyrrho by Diogenes Laertius, Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism by Mary Mills Patrick, The Greek Sceptics: from Pyrrho to Sextus by Norman MacColl Stoics and Sceptics by Edwyn Bevan and Life of Carneades by Diogenes Laertius.

Stoic Six Pack 4: The Sceptics

A sextet of sceptic texts has been collected in Stoic Six Pack 4 - The Sceptics: Pyrrhonic Sketches by Sextus Empiricus, Life of Pyrrho by Diogenes Laërtius, Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism by Mary Mills Patrick, The Greek Sceptics: from Pyrrho to Sextus by Norman MacColl, Stoics and Sceptics by Edwyn Bevan and Life of Carneades by Diogenes Laërtius. A key concept for the sceptics was ataraxia ("tranquility"), a Greek term used by Pyrrho to describe a lucid state of robust tranquility, characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry. By applying ideas of what he called "practical skepticism" to Ethics and to life in general, Pyrrho concluded that ataraxia could be achieved. Arriving at a state of ataraxia became the ultimate goal of the early Skeptikoi.

Edwyn Bevan

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