The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal: Exhibiting a View of the Progressive Discoveries and Improvements in the Sciences and the Arts, Volume 29A. and C. Black, 1840 |
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Page 263 - ... in which he is supposed not to be possessed of science. Hence the phrases used by Scripture are precisely those which science soon teaches man to consider as inaccurate. Yet they are not on that account the less fitted for their proper purpose : for if any terms had been used, adapted to a more advanced state of knowledge, they must have been unintelligible among those to whom the Scripture was first addressed.
Page 124 - there is undoubtedly a very close connection between the ABSOLUTE SIZE of the brain and the INTELLECTUAL POWERS AND FUNCTIONS of the mind ;" and proceeding on this principle, he compares the weight of the whole brain, as ascertained in upwards of fifty Europeans of different ages and countries, with its weight in several Negroes, examined either by himself or others. He gives extensive tables...
Page 264 - ... been disturbed in their thoughts, or driven to some wild and baseless imaginations by a declaration to them so strange. If the Divine Speaker, instead of saying that he would set his bow in the clouds, had been made to declare that he would give to water the property of refracting different colours at different angles, how utterly unmeaning to the hearers would the words have been ! And in these cases, the expressions, being unintelligible, startling, and bewildering, would have been such as...
Page 86 - Each of the succeeding twin cells presents a nucleus, which, having first passed to the centre of its cell, resolves itself into cells in the manner above described. By this means the twin cells, in their turn, become filled with other cells. Only two of these in each twin cell being destined to continue, the others, as well as the membrane of each parent-cell, disappear by liquefaction, when four cells remain. These four produce eight, and so on, until the germ consists of a mulberry-like object,...
Page 163 - ... an elevated ridge, more than a mile in length and rising more than forty feet, covered by a confused assemblage of broken strata and immense blocks of rock, invested with seaweed and corallines, and scattered over with shells and starfish, and other productions of the deep, forms an extended reef in front of the present range of cliffs.
Page 192 - As each separate herd approaches the river, the deer draw more closely together, and the largest and strongest takes the lead. He advances, closely followed by a few of the others, with head erect, and apparently intent on examining the locality. When he has satisfied himself, he enters the river, the rest of the herd crowd after him, and in a few minutes the surface is covered with them.
Page 112 - His materials, in this department, are so ample, that he has been enabled to give a full exposition of the subject. He has also bestowed particular attention on the crania from the mounds of this country, which have been compared with similar relics, derived both from ancient and modern tribes, " in order to examine, by the evidence of osteological facts, whether the American aborigines, of all epochs, have belonged to one race, or to a plurality of races.
Page 263 - Science*, and have attempted to draw from it some lessons which may be useful to us when any similar conflict of opinions may occur. I will here add a few reflections with a similar view. 6. Such difficulties inevitable. — In the first place, I remark that such modifications of the current interpretation of the words of Scripture appear to be an inevitable consequence of the progressive character of Natural Science. Science is constantly teaching us to describe known facts in new language, but...
Page 137 - That the American nations, excepting the polar tribes, are of one race and one species, but of two great families, which resemble each other in physical, but differ in intellectual character.
Page 250 - GH is subjected to a pressure in the direction of the tangent to the curve at the point D ; the under surface KI to a pressure upwards in the direction of the curve at the point E.