The Life of Matter: An Inquiry and AdventureArthur Turnbull The work covers: the chemical elements and their changes --- evolution of the stars --- relation between element and tissue --- Charles Darwin and natural selection --- force or energy, its conservation and dissipation --- philosophic discussion on relation of man to nature. |
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Alfred Russel Wallace aluminium August Weismann average average-figure average-value body brain cancer cause centimetres Charles Darwin chemical child colour copper dark diagram difference difference-figure direction disc distinct Divergence earth Echo Echo.-Yes Edinburgh egg series electric action electric shock electro-magnet elements energy experiment external eyes facts fall figures force form of matter frog germ Glasgow grams hand heat Hertwig Hold illustrate inbreeding inches iron J. H. van't Hoff Jacques Loeb kneecaps light magnet Maria Montessori mealworm mean mean-figure mean-value measure mechanical metal Michael Faraday Mid-shaft motor muscle Music Natural Selection neck nerve number of units observed Oscar Hertwig particles passive Photo photographic plate plants and animals radium result salts Scotland Scottish sensory series of units shaft simple species specimens strain substance temperature thigh bone thing tissue trainer tree weight Weismann wire words X-rays yellow young
Popular passages
Page 117 - One Moment in Annihilation's Waste. One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste— The Stars are setting and the Caravan Starts for the Dawn of Nothing— Oh, make haste!
Page 94 - Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.
Page 125 - ... the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.
Page 311 - Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.
Page 95 - They were almost entirely converted into water, which water was collected, and its temperature ascertained to be 35°, after remaining in an atmosphere of a lower temperature for some minutes. The fusion took place only at the plane of contact of the two pieces of ice, and no bodies were in friction but ice.
Page 284 - The thousand soft, voices of the earth have truly found their way to me — the small rustle in tufts of grass, the silky swish of leaves, the buzz of insects, the hum of bees in blossoms I / have plucked, the flutter of a bird's wings after his bath, and the slender rippling vibration of water running over pebbles. Once having been felt, these loved voices rustle, buzz, hum, flutter, and ripple in my thought forever, an undying part of happy memories.
Page 114 - The old argument from design in Nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.
Page 103 - If the Solar System is slowly dissipating its forces — if the Sun is losing his heat at a rate which will tell in millions of years — if with diminution of the Sun's radiations there must go on a diminution in the activity of geologic and meteorologic processes as well as in the quantity of vegetal and animal existence — if Man and Society are similarly dependent on this supply of force that is gradually coming to an end ; are we not manifestly progressing towards omnipresent death?
Page 87 - I have long held an opinion, almost amounting to conviction, in common I believe with many other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin; or, in other words, are so directly related and mutually dependent, that they are convertible, as it were, one into another, and possess equivalents of power in their action.
Page 95 - It is hardly necessary to add that anything which any insulated body, or system of bodies, can continue to furnish without limitation, cannot possibly be a material substance; and it appears to me to be extremely difficult, if not quite impossible, to form any distinct idea of anything capable of being excited and communicated in the manner the Heat was excited and communicated in these experiments, except it be MOTION.