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HPB-SD(ed.1) v.1 p.2 sec.14: Difference between revisions
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Says Sir W. Grove, F.R.S., speaking of the correlation of forces, “ The ancients when they witnessed a natural phenomenon, removed from ordinary analogies, and unexplained by any mechanical action known to them, referred it to a soul, a spiritual or preternatural power. Air and gases were also at first deemed spiritual, but | Says Sir W. Grove, F.R.S., speaking of the correlation of forces, “ The ancients when they witnessed a natural phenomenon, removed from ordinary analogies, and unexplained by any mechanical action known to them, referred it to a soul, a spiritual or preternatural power. Air and gases were also at first deemed spiritual, but | ||
subsequently they became invested with a more material character ; and the same words πνεῦμα, spirit, etc., were used to signify the soul or a gas ; the very word gas, from ''geist'', a ghost or spirit, affords us an instance of the gradual transmutation of a spiritual into a physical conception . . . . . .” (P. 89.) This, the great man of science (in his preface to the fifth edition of “ Correlation of Physical Forces ”) considers as the ''only ''concern of exact science, which has no business to meddle with the causes. “ Cause and effect,” he explains, “ are therefore, in their abstract relation to these forces, words solely of convenience. We are totally unacquainted ''with the ultimate generating power ''of each and all of them, and probably shall ever remain so ; we can only ascertain the norma of their actions ; we must humbly refer their causation to one omnipresent influence, and content ourselves with studying their effects and developing, by experiment, their mutual relations ” (p. xiv.). | subsequently they became invested with a more material character ; and the same words πνεῦμα, spirit, etc., were used to signify the soul or a gas ; the very word gas, from ''geist'', a ghost or spirit, affords us an instance of the gradual transmutation of a spiritual into a physical conception . . . . . .” (P. 89.) This, the great man of science (in his preface to the fifth edition of “ Correlation of Physical Forces ”) considers as the ''only ''concern of exact science, which has no business to meddle with the {{Style S-Small capitals|causes}}. “ Cause and effect,” he explains, “ are therefore, in their abstract relation to these forces, words solely of convenience. We are totally unacquainted ''with the ultimate generating power ''of each and all of them, and probably shall ever remain so ; we can only ascertain the norma of their actions ; we must humbly refer their causation to one omnipresent influence, and content ourselves with studying their effects and developing, by experiment, their mutual relations ” (p. xiv.). | ||
This policy once accepted, and the system virtually admitted in the above-quoted words, namely, the ''spirituality ''of the “ ultimate generating power,” it would be more than illogical to refuse to recognise this quality which is inherent in the ''material elements'', or rather, in their com- | This policy once accepted, and the system virtually admitted in the above-quoted words, namely, the ''spirituality ''of the “ ultimate generating power,” it would be more than illogical to refuse to recognise this quality which is inherent in the ''material elements'', or rather, in their com- | ||