The evidence afforded by the order and adaptations in nature to the existence of a God : a lecture, delivered in connection with the Christian Evidence Society, June 21, 1872 / by Charles Brooke.

  • Brooke, Charles, 1804-1879.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The evidence afforded by the order and adaptations in nature to the existence of a God : a lecture, delivered in connection with the Christian Evidence Society, June 21, 1872 / by Charles Brooke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    24/42 (page 18)
    gation, just as is in unannealed glass it is due to the molecular strain consequent on sudden cooling ; in fact, it is well known that any molecular strain upon a plate of glass, such as that produced by bending or compressing it, or throwing it into a state of sonorous vibration, will confer upon it the power of de-polar- ization. That the de-polarizing power of a plate of unannealed glass is not due to a polar aggregation of its molecules, as in a crystal, is further evident from this, that if a square plate be ground into a round one, and then the circumference of that into a scolloped outline, the visible influence of the plate on a polarized beam will in the three cases be very different, and not as in the crystal, uniform. On the slender analogy just alluded to the author, in p. 116, bases this dogma of “ Scientific Materialism ”:— “ But if in the case of crystals you have rejected this notion of our external architect, I think you are bound to reject it now, and to conclude that the molecules of corn are self-posited by the forces with which they act upon each other. It would be poor philosophy to invoke an external agent in the one case and to reject it in the other.” The author’s inference is plainly this, that the for- mation of the crystal and of the starch-granule is solely due to the action of atomic force. But if this be so, how happens it that while crystals of the same substance, from whatever source derived, pre- sent the same characteristics of external form and iS