First PrinciplesWilliams and Norgate, 1870 - 559 |
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absolute abstract action aggregate amount animals arise assertion atoms become belief body carbonic acid cause centre centre of gravity changes chemical chemical affinity common complete compound conceive conception conclusion consciousness constitute continue correlation definite differentiation diffused direction Earth effects elements equally equilibration equilibrium Evolution existence external fact faint manifestations further gravity groups heat heterogeneous homogeneous hypothesis ideas illustrations implies incident forces increase inference infinite infinite divisibility integration John Herschel kind lative least resistance less limit mass matter ment mental modes modified molecular motion movements moving multiform muscular nebular hypothesis object objective science organic ovum persistence of force phenomena Philosophy plants position present produced progress quantity racter relations relative Religion rhythm Science secondary re-distributions separate Sidereal similarly Sir William Hamilton social Solar System space species surface things thought tion transformation truth ultimate undergo uniform units unlike vertebræ vivid manifestations whole
Popularne fragmenty
Strona 92 - We are thus taught the salutary lesson, that the capacity of thought is not to be constituted into the measure of existence; and are warned from recognizing the domain of our knowledge as necessarily coextensive with the horizon of our faith. And by a wonderful revelation, we are thus, in the very consciousness of our inability to conceive aught above the relative and finite, inspired with a belief in the existence of something unconditioned beyond the sphere of all comprehensible reality.* 2.
Strona 75 - To think is to condition; and conditional limitation is | the fundamental law of the possibility of thought. For, as the greyhound cannot outstrip his shadow, nor (by a more appropriate simile) the eagle outsoar the atmosphere in which he floats, and by which alone he may be supported ; so the mind cannot transcend that sphere of limitation, within and through which exclusively the possibility of thought is realized.
Strona 88 - To say that we cannot know the Absolute, is, by implication, to affirm that there is an Absolute. In the very denial of our power to learn what the Absolute is, there lies hidden the assumption that it is ; and the making of this assumption proves that the Absolute has been present to the mind, not as a nothing, but as a something.
Strona 123 - But nature makes that mean; so over that art, Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock, And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race. This is an art Which does mend nature — change it rather; but The art itself is nature.
Strona 556 - Hence the reasonings contained in the foregoing pages, afford no support to either of the antagonist hypotheses respecting the ultimate nature of things. Their implications are no more materialistic than they are spiritualistic ; and no more spiritualistic than they are materialistic.
Strona 31 - Self-existence, therefore, necessarily means existence without a beginning; and to form a conception of self-existence is to form a conception of existence without a beginning. Now by no mental effort can we do this. To conceive existence through infinite past-time, implies the conception of infinite past-time, which is an impossibility.
Strona 113 - Very likely there will ever remain a need to give shape to that indefinite sense of an Ultimate Existence, which forms the basis of our intelligence. We shall always be under the necessity of contemplating it as some mode of being ; that is — of representing it to ourselves in some form of thought, however vague. And we shall not err in doing this so long as we treat every notion we thus frame as merely a symbol, utterly without resemblance to that for which it...
Strona 41 - How, for example, can Infinite Power be able to do all things, and yet Infinite Goodness be unable to do evil? How can Infinite Justice exact the utmost penalty for every sin, and yet Infinite Mercy pardon the sinner? How can Infinite Wisdom know all that Is to come, and yet Infinite Freedom be at liberty to do or to forbear.
Strona 76 - The mind is not represented as conceiving two propositions subversive of each other, as equally possible ; but only, as unable to understand as possible, either of two extremes ; one of which, however, on the ground of their mutual repugnance, it is compelled to recognise as true.
Strona 396 - And it has to bo shown that this universality of process, results from the same necessity which determines each simplest movement around us, down to the accelerated fall of a stone or the recurrent beat of a harp-string. In other words, the phenomena of Evolution have to be deduced from the Persistence of Force. As before said— '' to this an ultimate analysis brings us down; and on this a rational synthesis must build up.