The argument for the intellectual character of the first cause as affected by recent investigations of physical science. The Burney prize essay |
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The Argument for the Intellectual Character of the First Cause as Affected ... George Gilbert Scott No preview available - 2019 |
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abstract action admit advance analysis animal antecedent appears apply argument from design assume assumption atheist belief Burney causation centre chemical Christ's College commencement conceive conception confirm considerations considered demonstration derived Descartes direction distinct dwelt effect elements ence endeavour Essay evidence of design existence experience external world fact finite force give hypothesis Infinite Infinite Mind instance intel intelligent design intuition Joule Kant knowledge known laws limited matter ment mental metaphysical mode moral movement natural selection Natural Theology nature Nebular Hypothesis necessary notion object observation origin ourselves pheno phenomena Physical Science possess possible posteriori present principle priori produce progress proof Pure Rea question quod racter realise reality reasoning reflection remark result scientific seek seen sensation sense shew shewn shown simplicity Solar System tend tendency theory things thought tion tourmaline truth uniformity of nature unity universe unthinkable validity vegetable Vice-Chancellor whole
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Page 81 - Ultimate Scientific Ideas, then, are all representative of realities that cannot be comprehended. After no matter how great a progress in the colligation of facts and the establishment of generalizations ever wider and wider — after the merging of limited and derivative truths in truths that are larger and deeper has been carried no matter how far ; the fundamental truth remains as much beyond reach as ever. The explanation of that which is explicable, does but bring out into greater clearness...
Page 52 - Quinta via sumitur ex gubernatione rerum. Videmus enim quod aliqua quae cognitione carent, scilicet corpora naturalia, operantur propter finem. Quod apparet ex hoc quod semper aut frequentius eodem modo operantur, ut consequantur id quod est optimum. Unde patet quod non a casu, sed ex intentione perveniunt ad finem. Ea autem quae non habent cognitionem, non tendunt in finem, nisi directa ab aliquo cognoscente et intelligente, sicut sagitta a sagittante. Ergo est aliquid intelligens, a quo omnes res...
Page 64 - That our harmonious universe once existed potentially as formless diffused matter, and has slowly grown into its present organized state, is a far more astonishing fact than would have been its formation after the artificial method -vulgarly supposed. Those who hold it legitimate to argue from phenomena to noumena, may rightly contend that the Nebular Hypothesis implies a First Cause as much transcending "the mechanical God of Paley," as this does the fetish of the savage.
Page 59 - He who can trace, through by-gone times, the stream of our knowledge to its primitive source, will learn from history how, for thousands of years, man has labored, amid the ever-recurring changes of form, to recognize the invariability of natural laws, and has thus by the force of mind gradually subdued a great portion of the physical world to his dominion. In interrogating the history of the past, we trace the mysterious course of ideas yielding the first glimmering perception of the same image...
Page 14 - No doubt it appears as if this were in thorough contradiction to all the notions which people have hitherto entertained in regard to the procedure of the human understanding. According to these opinions, it is by means of the perception and comparison of similar consequences following upon certain antecedent phenomena, that the understanding is led to the discovery of a rule, according to which certain events always follow certain phenomena, and it is only by this process that we attain to the conception...
Page 68 - The difference between germinal or living matter and the pabulum which nourishes it, on the one hand, and the formed material which is produced by it, on the other, is, I believe, absolute. The pabulum does not shade by imperceptible gradations into the living matter, and this latter into the formed material...