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William Ernest Hocking Biography

William Ernest Hocking (August 10, 1873, Cleveland, Ohio – June 12, 1966, Madison, New Hampshire) was an American idealist philosopher at Harvard University. He continued the work of his philosophical teacher Josiah Royce in revising idealism to integrate and fit into empiricism, naturalism and pragmatism. He said that metaphysics has to make inductions from experience: "That which does not work is not true." His major field of study was the philosophy of religion, but his 22 books included discussions of philosophy and human rights, world politics, freedom of the press, the philosophical psychology of human nature; education; and more. In 1958 he served as president of the Metaphysical Society of America.

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William Ernest Hocking Quotes

Mr. Rihani, we met once a thousand years ago and we may not meet again for another thousand years.

May, Met, Mets, Thousand, Years

Principle II:;: The presumptions of the law are creative presumptions:;: they are aimed at conditions to be brought about, and only for that reason ignore conditions which exist.

Aimed, Creative, Law, Presumptions, Principles

Man is the only animal that contemplates death, and also the only animal that shows any sign of doubt of its finality.

Animal, Crazy, Death, Finality, Man, Sign

Nothing is more evident, I venture to think, as a result of two or three thousand years of social philosophizing, than that society must live and thrive by way of the native impulses of individual human beings.

Native, Nothing, Thinking, Two, Venture, Years

Without good-will, no man has any presumptive right, except the right or opportunity to change his will, so long as there is hope of it.

Change, Long, Men, Opportunity, Presumptive

It is right, or absolute right, that an individual should develop the powers that are in him. He may be said to have a "natural right" to become what he is capable of becoming. This is his only natural right.

Absolute, Becoming, Individual, May, Natural

We are driven to confess that we actually care more for religion than we do for religious theories and ideas: and in merely making that distinction between religion and its doctrine-elements, have we not already relegated the latter to an external and subordinate position? Have we not asserted that "religion itself" has some other essence or constitution than mere idea or thought?

Asserted, Care, Distinction, Essence, Ideas, Religious

For those who have only to obey, law is what the sovereign commands. For the sovereign, in the throes of deciding what he ought to command, this view of law is singularly empty of light and leading. In the dispersed sovereignty of modern states, and especially in times of rapid social change, law must look to the future as well as to history and precedent, and to what is possible and right as well as to what is actual.

Command, Law, Leading, Light, Possible, Views

Principle I:;: Legal rights are presumptive rights.

Rights, Principles, Legal Rights, Principle, Legal

No religion is a true religion that does not make men tingle to their finger tips with a sense of infinite hazard.

Doe, Hazards, Men, Religion, Sense, Tingle

We cannot swing up a rope that is attached only to our own belt.

Attached, Inspirational, Learning, Rope, Swing, Teaching

Where men cannot freely convey their thoughts to one another, no other liberty is secure.

Libertarian, Liberty, Men, Secure

Principle III:;: Presumptive rights are the conditions under which individual powers normally develop.

Conditions, Individual, Individual Power, Principle, Principles, Rights

What our view of the effectiveness of religion in history does at once make evident as to its nature is--first, its necessary distinction; second, its necessary supremacy. These characters though external have been so essential to its fruitfulness, as to justify the statement that without them religion is not religion. A merged religion and a negligible or subordinate religion are no religion.

Character, Effectiveness, Evident, Justify, Supremacy, Views

Pure community is a matter of no interest to any will; but a community which pursues a common good is of supreme interest to all wills; and what we have here said is that whatever the nature of that common good. . . it must contain the development of individual powers, as a prior condition for all other goods.

Common, Community, Development, Individual, Matter, Supreme

A person who wills to have a good will, already has a good will--in its rudiments. There is solid satisfaction in knowing that the mere desire to get out of an old habit is a material advance upon the condition of submergence in that habit. The longest step toward cleanliness is made when one gains--nothing but dissatisfaction with dirt.

Advance, Desire, Knowing, Old Habits, Satisfaction