An introduction to the elements of science / by St. George Mivart.

Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introduction to the elements of science / by St. George Mivart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    same time equally relate to all the phenomena which will thus have affected the student's senses ? What can be common to them all without exception ? Its nature must be wide indeed, since it must be common to things so different. It must be common to animal life and the life of plants, to colour, to sound and to motion, to the sea's waves, the action of running streams, the formation of rocks and hills, and the move- ments of every breeze; to thunder and to lightning, to earth and to sky, to the sun, moon, and stars, to human history, the progress and decay of institutions, the development of art, and even to the very thoughts which deal with things so various. Such a combination may well at first seem utterly bewildering, and yet a few very simple reflections may serve to solve the puzzle. To know anything whatever, is to know that it is distinct from something else. Two marbles, alike in colour and size, shape and weight, are known with perfect certainty to be distinct, though we may not be able to tell one from the other. We recognise them as two things of the same kind. Together they form a small group composed of two objects. If now these be held in the right hand, while a third marble, exactly like the other two, is held in the left hand, then the contents of the right hand differs from that of the left simply by being two instead of one —that is, by a difference of number. But number is a property possessed by all the Irhings above referred to, since even thoughts, no less than marbles, differ from each other numerically. Enu- meration— accurate enumeration — is necessary for all kinds of knowledge. We may feel things to be hotter or colder, but if we would be accurate we must employ a