The Culture Demanded by Modern Life;

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D. Appleton & Company, 1867 - 492 pages

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Page 60 - Onward and on, the eternal Pan Who layeth the world's incessant plan, Halteth never in one shape, But forever doth escape, Like wave or flame, into new forms Of gem, and air, of plants, and worms.
Page 383 - I keep the subject constantly before me, and wait till the first dawnings open slowly by little and little into a full and clear light.
Page 216 - The world little knows how many of the thoughts and theories which have passed through the mind of a scientific investigator have been crushed in silence and secrecy by his own severe criticism and adverse examination ; that in the most successful instances not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the preliminary conclusions have been realized.
Page 48 - For many years it has been one of my constant regrets that no schoolmaster of mine had a knowledge of natural history, so far, at least, as to have taught me the grasses that grow by the wayside, and the little winged and wingless neighbors that are continually meeting me with a salutation which I cannot answer, as things are!
Page 33 - All true political science is, in one sense of the phrase, a priori, being deduced from the tendencies of things, tendencies known either through our general experience of human nature, or as the result of an analysis of the course of history, considered as a progressive evolution.
Page 213 - ... says the same scientist; and further quotes the noble words of Faraday —"occasionally, and frequently the exercise of the judgment ought to end in absolute reservation. It may be very distasteful and a great fatigue to suspend a conclusion, but as we are not infallible, so we ought to be cautious.
Page xii - If we consult reason, experience, and the common testimony of ancient and modern times, none of our intellectual studies tend to cultivate a smaller number of the faculties, in a more partial or feeble manner, than mathematics.
Page 40 - ... at all, it is worth studying scientifically, so as to reach the fundamental laws which underlie and govern all the rest. With regard to the suitableness of this subject for general education, a distinction must be made. There are certain observed laws of our thoughts and of our feelings which rest upon experimental evidence, and, once seized, are a clue to the interpretation of much that we are conscious of in ourselves, and observe in one another. Such, for example, are the laws of association....
Page 289 - They know not how to spend their time (disports excepted, which are all their business), what to do, or otherwise how to bestow themselves ; like our modern Frenchmen, that had rather lose a pound of blood in a single combat, than a drop of sweat in any honest labour.
Page 30 - Do we not feel that he who is totally ignorant of these things, let him be ever so skilled in a special profession, is not an educated man, but an ignoramus? It is surely no small part of education to put us in intelligent possession of the most important and most universally interesting facts of the universe, so that the world which surrounds us may not be a sealed book to us, uninteresting because unintelligible. This, however, is but the simplest and most obvious part of the utility of science,...

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