Natural Theology: Or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity

Voorkant
Turner, Hughes, & Hayden, 1843 - 334 pagina's

Vanuit het boek

Overige edities - Alles bekijken

Veelvoorkomende woorden en zinsdelen

Populaire passages

Pagina 278 - It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. " The insect youth are on the wing.
Pagina 279 - If we look to what the waters produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the margins of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy, that they know not what to do with themselves. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it, which 1 have noticed a thousand times with equal attention and amusement, all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess.
Pagina 1 - I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone...
Pagina 299 - that in a vast plurality of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the contrivance is beneficial ." The second, " that the Deity has superadded pleasure to animal sensations beyond what was necessary for any other purpose, or when the purpose, so far as it was necessary, might have been effected by the operation of pain.
Pagina 6 - ... of water ground corn ; but no latitude of expression would allow us to say, no stretch of conjecture could lead us to think, that the stream of water built the mill, though it were too ancient for us to know who the builder was. What the stream of water does in the affair is neither more nor less than this; by the application of an unintelligent impulse to a mechanism previously arranged, arranged independently of it, and arranged by intelligence, an effect is produced, viz., the corn is ground.
Pagina 284 - If he had been indifferent about our happiness or misery, we must impute to our good fortune (as all design by this supposition is excluded) both the capacity of our senses to receive pleasure, and the supply of external objects fitted to produce it.
Pagina 285 - This is to irritate; this to inflame; this duct is to convey the gravel to the kidneys; this gland to secrete the humour which forms the gout: if by chance he come at a part of which he knows not the use, the most he can say is, that it is useless; no one ever suspects that it is put there to incommode, to annoy, or to torment.
Pagina 13 - ... are instruments of the same kind. The end is the same ; the means are the same. The purpose in both is alike ; the contrivance for accomplishing that purpose is in both alike. The lenses of the telescope and the humours of the eye bear a complete resemblance to one another, in their figure, their position, and in their power over the rays of light, viz. in bringing each pencil to a point at the right distance from the lens ; namely, in the eye, at the exact place where the membrane is spread...
Pagina 285 - But if you had occasion to describe instruments of torture or execution, this engine, you would say, is to- extend the sinews ; this to dislocate the joints ; this to break the bones ; this to scorch the soles of the feet. Here, pain and misery are the very objects of the contrivance. Now, nothing of this sort is to be found in the works of nature. We never discover a train of contrivance to bring about an evil purpose.
Pagina 11 - ... the contrivances of nature surpass the contrivances of art, in the complexity, subtilty, and curiosity of the mechanism ; and still more, if possible, do they go beyond them in number and variety ; yet, in a multitude of cases, are not less evidently mechanical, not less evidently contrivances, not less evidently accommodated to their end, or suited to their office, than are the most perfect productions of human ingenuity.

Bibliografische gegevens