Nature and Man: Essays Scientific and PhilosophicalGregg International Publ., 1888 - 483 pages |
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accepted action adaptation agency animals annular Argument from Design attraction automatic automatist belief body brought Carpenter causation cause centre cerebrum chamberlets character complete compound eye conception consciousness constitution continental platform continuous depth Descartes determined direction disk doctrine entirely evidence evolution excited exerted existence experience expression external fact fathoms feel Foraminifera force frog give ground Gulf Stream human idea impressions influence inquiry insects intellectual intelligent design J. S. Mill matter mechanism ment mental mind mode moral motion movements muscular Natural Selection nervous object observation ocean orbital revolution Orbitolite organ original phenomena philosophical physical Physiology plants prepossession present produced Professor recognize reflex reflex action regard retina scientific seems sensations sense shown spinal cord stratum structure succession suppose surface temperature thought tion uniformity universe visual volitional whilst whole
Popular passages
Page 296 - Compound for sins they are inclined to By damning those they have no mind to.
Page 291 - I saw that though our character is formed by circumstances, our own desires can do much to shape those circumstances ; and that what is really inspiriting and ennobling in the doctrine of freewill, is the conviction that we have real power over the formation of our own character ; that our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, can modify our future habits or capabilities of willing.
Page 298 - We are conscious automata, endowed with free will in the only intelligible sense of that much-abused term — inasmuch as in many respects we are able to do as we like — but none the less parts of the great series of causes and effects which, in unbroken continuity, composes that which is, and has been, and shall be — the sum of existence.
Page 406 - Now it is not too much to say that if an optician wanted, to sell me an instrument which had all these defects, I should think myself quite justified in blaming his carelessness in the strongest terms, and giving him back his instrument.
Page 401 - I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever ; nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place : I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, — that, for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there.
Page 109 - The Principles of Mental Physiology. With their Applications to the Training and Discipline of the Mind, and the Study of its Morbid Conditions.
Page 195 - With the growth of the scientific study of Nature, the conception of its harmony and unity gained ever-increasing strength. And so, among the most enlightened of the Greek and Roman philosophers, we find a distinct recognition of the idea of the unity of the directing mind from which the order of Nature proceeds ; for they obviously believed that, as our modern poet has expressed it — "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the Soul.
Page 263 - ... are shifted on to the edge of the hand, until he can just prevent himself from falling. If the turning of the hand be slowly continued, he mounts up with great care and deliberation, putting first one leg forward and then another, until he balances himself...
Page 187 - Turning, now, to that other great portal of sensation, the sight, through which we receive most of the me?sages sent to us from the universe around, we recognize the same truth. Thus it is agreed alike by physicists and physiologists, that colour does not exist as such in the object itself; which has merely the power of reflecting or transmitting a certain number of millions of undulations in a second ; and these only produce that affection of our consciousness which we call colour, when they fall...
Page 174 - I can bear it : the die is cast, the book is written ; to be read either now or by posterity, I care not which : it may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.