The Great Problem: The Higher Ministry of Nature Viewed in the Light of Modern Science, and as an Aid to Advanced Christian PhilosophyG.P. Putnam, 1872 - 543 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
absolutely action affirm animals appear argument Ascidian atheistic attri attributes becomes believe body cause Christian conceive conception conclusion consciousness continually creation Creator Darwin death Deity distinct Divine doctrine earth eternal Evolution evolved existence facts faculties feel finite force Herbert Spencer Higher Ministry highest human hypothesis idea ignorance immortality individual infinite instincts intelligence kind knowledge laws Leibnitz light limited living manifest material materialists matter means ment mind Ministry of Nature mode monads motion natura naturans Natural Selection Natural Theology naturalists never object observed organic origin Origin of Species Pangenesis Pantheism perfect phenomena philosophical physical present principle produced Protoplasm purpose reason regard relation religion religious result Science scientific Sexual Selection Sir William Hamilton soul Special Creation species Spencer Spinoza spiritual substance supposed term theory things thought tion true truth ultimate unity universe unknowable vidual whole
Popular passages
Page 49 - For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness ; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shewed it unto them.
Page 264 - There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Page 510 - True love in this differs from gold and • clay, That to divide is not to take away.
Page 264 - It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth...
Page 113 - Besides that definite consciousness of which Logic formulates the laws, there is also an indefinite consciousness which cannot be formulated. Besides complete thoughts, and besides the thoughts which though incomplete admit of completion, there are thoughts which it is impossible to complete; and yet which are still real, in the sense that they are normal affections of the intellect.
Page 313 - The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable — namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed as in man.
Page 32 - If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number'} No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
Page 33 - We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner ho can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.
Page 227 - It has been said that I speak of natural selection as an active power or Deity; but who objects to an author speaking of the attraction of gravity as ruling the movements of the planets? Everyone knows what is meant and is implied by such metaphorical expressions; and they are almost necessary for brevity.
Page 99 - Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?