Volume 1

The philosophy of health, or, An exposition of the physical and mental constitution of man : with a view to the promotion of human longevity and happiness / by Southwood Smith.

  • Smith, Southwood, 1788-1861.
Date:
1835-1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The philosophy of health, or, An exposition of the physical and mental constitution of man : with a view to the promotion of human longevity and happiness / by Southwood Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    120/430 (page 104)
    Chemists tell us that the adjustment of the com- ponent elements of water is such, that although they readily admit of separation and are subservient to their most important uses in the economy of na- ture by this very facility of decomposition, yet that their tendency to recombination is equal, so that the quantity of water actually existing at this pre- sent moment in the globe is just the same as on the first day of the creation, neither the operations of nature, nor the purposes to which it has been applied by man, having used up, in the sense of destroying, a single particle of it. Alike inde- structible are the separate truths that make up the great mass of human knowledge. In their ready divisibility and their manifold applications, some of them may sometimes seem to be lost; but if they disappear, it is only to enter into new combinations, many of which themselves become new truths, and so ultimately extend the boundaries of knowledge. Whatever may have been the case in time past, when the loss of an important truth, satisfactorily and practically established, may be supposed pos- sible, such an event is inconceivable now when the art of printing at once multiplies a thousand records of it, and, with astonishing rapidity, makes it part and parcel of hundreds of thousands of minds. A thought more full of encouragement to those who labour for the improvement of their fellow beings there cannot be. No onward step is lost; no onward step is final; every such step