Proceedings of the Literary & Philosophical Society of Liverpool, Volumes 14-15

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Page 95 - Genuine and innocent wit like this, is surely the flavour of the mind! Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food ; but God has given us wit, and flavour, and brightness, and laughter, and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to " charm his pained steps over the burning marie.
Page 105 - Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar...
Page 168 - The situation in which these weapons were found may tempt us to refer them to a very remote period indeed ; even beyond that of the present world...
Page 84 - Under changed conditions of life, it is at least possible that slight modifications of instinct might be profitable to a species; and if it can be shown that instincts do vary ever so little, then I can see no difficulty in natural selection preserving and continually accumulating variations of instinct to any extent that was profitable. It is thus, as I believe, that all the most complex and wonderful instincts have originated.
Page 82 - I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number. Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype.
Page 171 - At the first the piles which bear np the platforms were fixed in their places by the whole body of the citizens, but since that time the custom which has prevailed about fixing them is this:^ They are brought from a hill called Orbelus, and every man drives in three for each wife that he marries. Now the men have all many wives apiece, and this is the way in which they live. Each has his own hut, wherein he dwells, upon one of the...
Page 82 - Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth, have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.
Page 167 - Somme, in an area fifteen miles in length. I infer that a tribe of savages, to whom the use of iron was unknown, made a long sojourn in this region ; and I am reminded of a large Indian mound, which I saw in St. Simond's...
Page 121 - Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head? How begot, how nourished! Reply, reply. It is engendered in the eyes. With gazing fed ; and fancy dies In the cradle where it lies. Let us all ring fancy's knell : I'll begin it, — Ding, dong, bell.
Page 229 - ... without an aim. I myself am one of these images ; nay, I am not even thus much, but only a confused image of images.

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