Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 4–6. köide

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Biological Society of Washington, 1888

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Page 25 - Letters on the Natural History and Internal Resources of the State of New York (New York, 1822), a work of originality and merit.
Page 88 - Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.
Page 21 - When we shall have existed as a people as long as the Greeks did before they produced a Homer, the Romans a Virgil, the French a Racine and Voltaire, the English a Shakespeare and Milton, should this reproach be still true, we will inquire from what unfriendly causes it has proceeded, that the other countries of Europe and quarters of the earth shall not have inscribed any name in the roll of poets. But neither has America produced "one able mathematician, one man of genius in a single art or a single...
Page 7 - We found him in his garden, sitting upon a grassplot, under a very large mulberry tree, with several other gentlemen and two or three ladies. When Mr. Gerry introduced me, he rose from his chair, took me by the hand, expressed his joy at seeing me, welcomed me to the city, and begged me to seat myself close to him. His voice was low, but his countenance open, frank, and pleasing.
Page 7 - ... (generation) to the new individuals that are produced by them, provided the changes acquired are common to the two sexes, or to those that have produced these new individuals."* These laws are enforced by considerable iteration and all the facts and illustrations that he could command. He condenses his first law into the following form : "The frequent exercise of an organ which through habit has become permanent increases the capacity of such organ...
Page 41 - Yours is one of the few lives precious to mankind, and for the continuance of which every thinking man is solicitous. Bigots may be an exception. What an effort, my dear Sir, of bigotry in politics and religion have we gone through ! The barbarians really flattered themselves they should be able to bring back the times of Vandalism, when ignorance put everything into the hands of power and priestcraft. All advances in science were proscribed as innovations. They pretended to praise and...
Page 41 - We were to look backwards, not forwards, for improvement; the President himself declaring, in one of his answers to addresses, that we were never to expect to go beyond them in real science.
Page 41 - Vandalism, when ignorance put everything into the hands of power and priestcraft. All advances in science were proscribed as innovations. They pretended to praise and encourage education, but it was to be the education of our ancestors. We were to look backwards, not forwards, for improvement ; the President...
Page 7 - I delivered to him my letters. After he had read them, he took me again by the hand, and, with the usual compliments, introduced me to the other gentlemen, who are most of them members of the convention.
Page 41 - ... look backwards, not forwards, for improvement; the President himself declaring, in one of his answers to addresses, that we were never to expect to go beyond them in real science. This was the real ground of all the attacks on you. Those who live by mystery and charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy— the most sublime and benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man— endeavored to crush your well-earned and well-deserved...

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