Books with author James Allanson Picton

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Pantheism is a philosophical and/or religious world view that sees the entire universe as a single, eternal, divine unity. It usually goes hand in hand with monism—the idea that the universe is made up of a single substance (matter) in a multitude of changing forms. Since nothing exists outside of this all-encompassing whole, the universe itself must be God. The Pantheistic God is not an anthropomorphic god, and individual believers differ on the level of divinity to ascribe to the deity. This ambiguity allows Pantheism to be compatible with the beliefs of various religions or even with the personal philosophies of secular freethinkers. Pantheism: Its Story and Significance is an essay by J. Allanson Picton that was originally published in 1905 as a 94-page book. Picton defines Pantheism and offers a brief overview of its history. The whole book centers, not surprisingly, around the writings of the philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The title of the work and its brevity might lead you to believe that it’s an elementary overview, but it really requires a good deal of prior philosophical knowledge on the part of the reader. Spinoza’s Ethics is one of the most challenging books I’ve ever read, but somehow Picton manages to make Spinozan Pantheism sound even more complicated than Spinoza himself did. Picton opens with a discussion of Pantheistic beliefs among the ancient cultures of India, Egypt, and Greece. He explains that Chinese Buddhism is not a form of Pantheism, but he doesn’t even mention Daoism, which is. When Picton discusses whether various philosophies or religions were Pantheistic, he expects the reader to know their doctrines beforehand. When he brings up the Neo-Platonists or Hegel, for example, he assumes that the reader is already familiar with their works. Picton explains clearly how Pantheism differs from Atheism, and tends to emphasize how much Pantheism agrees with mainstream religions rather than how it differs from them. At one point he even goes so far as to compare Spinoza with Jesus. Throughout the book Picton seems to be leery of offending Christians. He doesn’t even mention prominent Pantheists Giordano Bruno, who was burned as a heretic, or John Toland, who published radical anti-Church tracts. Only in the concluding paragraphs does Picton indicate some sympathy towards a freethought viewpoint within the broad assertion that Pantheism can unite believers of all creeds or beliefs. In the original printed volume, each paragraph had a subtitle printed along its margin. In the Kindle file that’s available for free on Amazon, these subtitles were converted into separate lines in the text that begin with “[Sidenote:”. Unfortunately the sidenotes don’t always appear next to the paragraph they refer to. Eventually the reader learns to ignore these annoyances and just read the text. There are also footnotes at the end of every chapter, but not necessarily footnote numbers within the text to indicate what passages they refer to.

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

It has been the customary and perhaps inevitable method of writers on Pantheism to trace its main idea back to the dreams of Vedic poets, the musings of Egyptian priests, and the speculations of the Greeks. But though it is undeniable that the divine unity of all Being was an almost necessary issue of earliest human thought upon the many and the one, yet the above method of treating Pantheism is to some extent misleading; and therefore caution is needed in using it. For the revival of Pantheism at the present day is much more a tangible resultant of action and reaction between Science and Religion than a ghost conjured up by speculation.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Pantheism differs from the systems of belief constituting he main religions of the world in being comparatively freerom any limits of period, climate, or race. For while what we roughly call the Egyptian Religion, the Vedic Religion,he Greek Religion, Buddhism, and others of similar fame have been necessarily local and temporary, Pantheismhas been, for the most part, a dimly discerned background, an esoteric significance of many or all religions, rather than a “denomination” by itself.