Annual of Scientific Discovery: Or, Year-book of Facts in Science and Art

Front Cover
Gould, Kendall, and Lincoln, 1869 - Industrial arts
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 276 - In affirming that the growth of the body is mechanical, and that thought, as exercised by us, has its correlative in the physics of the brain, I think the position of the " Materialist " is stated, as far as that position is a tenable one. I think the materialist will be able finally to maintain this position against all attacks; but I do not think, in the present condition of the human mind, that he can pass beyond this position.
Page 310 - Hence ovules and pollen grains — the fertilized seed or egg, as well as buds — include and consist of a multitude of germs thrown off from each separate atom of the organism.
Page 310 - Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm — a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars in heaven.
Page 369 - University on the condition of the State Cabinet of natural history, and the historical and antiquarian collection annexed thereto.
Page 276 - Every particle that enters into the composition of a muscle, a nerve, or a bone, has been placed in its position by molecular force. And unless the existence of law in these matters be denied, and the element of caprice introduced, we must conclude that, given the relation of any molecule of the body to its environment, its position in the body might be determined mathematically.
Page 275 - Instead of cutting our grain of corn into thin slices, and subjecting it to the action of polarized light, let us place it in the earth, and subject it to a certain degree of warmth. In other words, let the molecules, both of the corn and of the surrounding earth, be kept in a state of agitation ; for warmth is, in the eye of science, tremulous molecular motion.
Page 275 - ... science, the animal body is just as much the product of molecular force as the stalk and ear of corn, or as the crystal of salt or sugar.
Page xi - A time may therefore come when this ultra-scientific region by which we are now enfolded may offer itself to terrestrial, if not to human investigation. Two-thirds of the rays emitted by the sun fail to arouse in the eye the sense of vision. The rays exist, but the visual organ requisite for their translation into light does not exist.
Page 274 - This tendency on the part of matter to organize itself, to grow into shape, to assume definite forms in obedience to the definite action of force, is, as I have said, all-pervading. It is in the ground on which you tread, in the water you drink, in the air you breathe. Incipient life, as it were, manifests itself throughout the whole of what we call inorganic nature.

Bibliographic information