The Beginnings of Things, Or, Science Versus Theology: An Address by Prof. Tyndall Before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, August 19, 1874 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Alhazen ancient Greece animal anthropomorphic Aristotle atoms Bishop Butler body BOSTON INVESTIGATOR brain Bruno cause Church combination conception consciousness consider Copernicus Darwin death Democritus Descartes discussion doctrine domain Draper earth elements emotion enunciated Epicurus errors evolution existence experience external fact faculties flower forms Gassendi gods Goethe hand hive-bee human mind Huxley idea immortal reason impression increment individual infinite inherited intellectual intelligence Kant knowledge LABOR Leibnitz less Lucretian Lucretius material matter mechanical MENDUM ment mental Middle Ages molecular force molecules natural phenomena natural selection ness Newton noble notion object observation organism and environment origin of species perceiving power percipient philosopher physical pollen-mass possess Princeton University principle produced question race reach regards relation render retina rience Samos scientific sensation senses soul space Spencer strength substratum tactual theory things thought tion touch universe Whewell whole word
Popular passages
Page 62 - I feel bound to make before you is that I prolong the vision backward across the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in that matter, which we in our ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of life.
Page 34 - You cannot satisfy the human understanding in its demand for logical continuity between molecular processes and the phenomena of consciousness. This is a rock on which Materialism must inevitably split whenever it pretends to be a complete philosophy of life.
Page 72 - ... of any kind, but with the enlightened recognition that ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable, and that each succeeding age must be held free to fashion the mystery in accordance with its own needs — then...
Page 27 - And if we see with our eyes only in the same manner as we do with glasses, the like may justly be concluded, from analogy, of all our other senses.
Page 11 - Is there not a temptation to close to some extent with Lucretius, when he affirms that' Nature is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself, without the meddling of the gods'?
Page 63 - In fact, the whole process of evolution is the manifestation of a Power absolutely inscrutable to the intellect of man.
Page 8 - Nor over falls the least white star of snow, Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans, Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar Their sacred everlasting calm.
Page 62 - I am really conscious of is an affection of my own retina. And if I urge that I can check my sight of you by touching you, the retort would be that I am equally transgressing the limits of fact ; for what I am really conscious of is, not that you are there, but that the nerves of my hand have undergone a change. All we hear, and see, and touch, and taste, and smel], are, it would be urged, mere variations of our own condition, beyond which, even to the extent of a hair's breadth, we cannot go.
Page 3 - Au impulse inherent in primeval man," he says, " turned his thoughts and questionings betimes towards the sources of natural phenomena. The same impulse, inherited and intensified, is the spur of scientific action to-day.
Page 8 - tis terrible no way — for consider, brother Toby, — when we are — death is not; — and when death is — we are not.