The Sciences of Nature Versus the Science of Man: A Plea for the Science of ManDodd & Mead, 1871 - 98 strani "Upon musing on the progress of science since Newton I come to the conclusion that Newton would most have desired to see the things which we see and to hear the things which we hear: Would, indeed, that he could live again and witness the completion of the work which he so nobly began. As I awake from my musing, and, abjuring any scepticism which I may have cherished, I confess my faith in modern science. Though hard-hearted as any metaphysician ought to be, I prostrate myself before her shrine--nay, so ardent is my neophytic zeal, that I am tempted to glorify the photographic spectrum which a fellow displayed as a revered relic on his wall. Indeed, had I nothing else to reverence, I could easily worship this. |
Druge izdaje - Prikaži vse
Pogosti izrazi in povedi
According to Spencer æon answer assert assume Atheism believe brain philosophies causation claim common sense Comte Comte's concede concerning confess contend culture daring Davy defects definition devotee discover discovery earnest ence evolution evolved experiment explain expound facts faith forces formally formula fundamental furnish Harvard and Trinity human hydrogen inductive method inseparable associations intelligence interior relations interpret nature John Tyndall justified Kirchhoff law of evolu laws of nature light logic man's matter and spirit meta metaphysical metaphysicians Mill mind modern physics mystery narrow Newton observation phenomena philosophies of nature philosophy of science Plato Positive Philosophy postern power to know question reason recognized rela science of nature scientist secret sensations sequence and similitude series of feelings Socrates solid soul special sciences spectrum student of nature study of nature subreption suggestion theory things thought tion Trinity College truth unconscious universe urge wise Xenophon
Priljubljeni odlomki
Stran 57 - In distant parts of the stellar regions, where the phenomena may be entirely unlike those with which we are acquainted, it would be folly to affirm confidently that this general law prevails, any more than those special ones which we have found to hold universally on our own planet.
Stran 23 - Society, that when he saw the minute globules of potassium burst through the crust of potash, and take fire as they entered the atmosphere, he could not contain his joy — he actually bounded about the room in extatic delight ; and that some little time was required for him to compose himself sufficiently to continue the experiment.
Stran 35 - We have no knowledge of any thing but Phenomena; and our knowledge of phenomena is relative, not absolute. We know not the essence, nor the real mode of production, of any fact, but only its relations to other facts in the way of succession or of similitude. These relations are constant; that is, always the same in the same circumstances. The constant resemblances which link phenomena together, and the constant sequences which unite them as antecedent and consequent, are termed their laws. The laws...
Stran 10 - As he sat alone in a garden, he fell into a speculation on the power of gravity ; that as this power is not found sensibly diminished at the remotest distance from the centre of the earth, to which we can rise, neither at the tops of the loftiest buildings, nor even on the summits of the highest mountains ; it appeared to him reasonable to conclude, that this power must extend much...
Stran 47 - If, therefore, we speak of the Mind as a series of feelings, we are obliged to complete the statement by calling it a series of feelings which is aware of itself as past and future ; and we are reduced to the alternative of believing that the Mind, or Ego, is something different from any series of feelings, or possibilities of them, or of accepting the paradox, that something which ex hypolhesi is but a series of feelings, can be aware of itself as a series.
Stran 57 - The uniformity in the succession of events, otherwise called the law of causation, must be received not as a law of the universe, but of that portion of it only which is within the range of our means of sure observation, with a reasonable degree of extension to adjacent cases.
Stran 10 - Why not as high as the moon ?" said he to himself; " and if so, her motion must be influenced by it; perhaps she is retained in her orbit...
Stran 50 - ... the possibilities are conceived as standing to the actual sensations in the relation of a cause to its effects, or of canvas to the figures painted on it, or of a root to the trunk, leaves, and flowers, or of a substratum to that which is spread over it, or, in transcendental language, of Matter to Form.
Stran 63 - ... is called self-consciousness is one set of brain fibres dancing a mazy antistrophe to similar fibres in a corresponding brain lobe. Granting that all of man which we call thought, emotion, and aspiration, is reducible to the workings of mechanical statics and dynamics, we fail altogether to explain how man so constituted and so acting can form a science of nature; how Newton came to connect the falling stone with the moon steadily detained and impetuously struggling in its path, and ventured...
Stran 64 - It is by a kind of inspiration that we rise from the wise and sedulous contemplation of facts to the principles on which they depend. The mind is, as it were, a photographic plate, which is gradually cleansed by the effort to think rightly, and which, when so cleansed, and not before, receives impressions from the light of truth.