Inhaltsangabe
Excerpt from The Course of Nature: An Address Delivered Before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, St. Louis, August 22, 1878
You take a contracted and unphilosophical view of nature when you say that the world is governed by inexorable laws. These laws are not governors, but only the instruments of government by which the real governor executes his p'urposes. With them, but without subverting or violating them, he can reward or punish, bring on prosperity or call down disaster, according to the dictates of his sovereign will. The child and the peasant call the thunder the voice of God. The modern philosopher attempts to correct them by showing that it is the product of evaporation and of atmospheric electricity. But the view of the child is really the more correct of the two, because he ascends at once to the first cause, and thus sees further than the philosopher who corrects him because the latter stops short at the immediate or secondary cause without even trying to raise his eyes to the higher source of power. I think I am not far wrong in giving this as the substance of the most cogent objections which may be anticipated in any quarter against the mechanical theory of the course of nature.
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Reseña del editor
Excerpt from The Course of Nature: An Address Delivered Before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, St. Louis, August 22, 1878
You take a contracted and unphilosophical view of nature when you say that the world is governed by inexorable laws. These laws are not governors, but only the instruments of government by which the real governor executes his p'urposes. With them, but without subverting or violating them, he can reward or punish, bring on prosperity or call down disaster, according to the dictates of his sovereign will. The child and the peasant call the thunder the voice of God. The modern philosopher attempts to correct them by showing that it is the product of evaporation and of atmospheric electricity. But the view of the child is really the more correct of the two, because he ascends at once to the first cause, and thus sees further than the philosopher who corrects him because the latter stops short at the immediate or secondary cause without even trying to raise his eyes to the higher source of power. I think I am not far wrong in giving this as the substance of the most cogent objections which may be anticipated in any quarter against the mechanical theory of the course of nature.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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