FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31  
32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   >>   >|  
o be clear that a similar intelligence was needed to account for the _living machine_. The blind action of physical forces seemed inadequate. Thus the phenomena of life, which had been studied longer than any other phase of nature, continued to stand aloof from the rest and refused to fall into line with the general drift of thought. The living world seemed to give no promise of being included among natural phenomena, but still persisted in retaining its supernatural aspect. It is the attempt to explain the phenomena of the living world by the same kind of natural forces that have been adequate to account for other phenomena, that has created modern Biology. So long as students simply studied animals and plants as objects for classification, as museum objects, or as objects which had been stationary in the history of nature, so long were they simply following along the same lines in which their predecessors had been travelling. But when once they began to ask if living nature were not perhaps subject to an intelligent explanation, to study living things as part of a general history and to look upon them as active moving objects whose motion and whose history might perhaps be accounted for, then at once was created a new department of thought and a new science inaugurated. ==Historical Geology==.--Preparation had been made for this new method of studying life by the formulation of a number of important scientific discoveries. Prominent among these stood historical geology. That the earth had left a record of her history in the rocks in language plain enough to be read appears to have been impressed upon scientists in the last of the century. That the earth has had a history and that man could read it became more and more thoroughly understood as the first decades of this century passed. The reading of that history proved a somewhat difficult task. It was written in a strange language, and it required many years to discover the key to the record. But under the influence of the writings of Lyell, just before the middle of the century, it began to appear that the key to this language is to be found by simply opening the eyes and observing what is going on around us to-day. A more extraordinary and more important discovery has hardly ever been made, for it contained the foundation of nearly all scientific discoveries which have been made since. This discovery proclaimed that an application of the forces still at work to-d
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31  
32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

history

 

living

 

phenomena

 

objects

 

simply

 

nature

 

forces

 

century

 
language
 
important

natural

 
scientific
 

created

 

record

 

discoveries

 
account
 

thought

 
general
 

studied

 

discovery


contained

 
scientists
 

extraordinary

 
impressed
 

appears

 

geology

 
number
 

application

 

formulation

 

studying


method
 

proclaimed

 
historical
 

Prominent

 

foundation

 

strange

 

required

 

written

 

difficult

 

opening


middle

 

influence

 
discover
 
proved
 

writings

 

understood

 

reading

 

observing

 

passed

 

decades