Pantheism, a lecture |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
appears argument attributes believe Christian theist conceive conception Condorcet constitute creative Creator Darwin Darwin's Natural Selection deism and Scottish denies the existence development hypothesis differ from atheism divine power Divine Providence embodies and adopts English deism escape essen everlasting fact faith fasci Flourens fortuitous concourse germ-cell Germany harmony human reason Hume idea immensely less impersonal divinity imply infinite inorganic matter intellectual interfused lecture living mammals ment metaphysical microscopic miraculous moral evil moral influence natural science necessity omnipresent organization painful mysteries pantheistic hypothesis pantheistic philosophy personal Deity personal God personifications pheno phenomena philoso physical plan and purpose position power of selec primary cells principles of Pantheism Protean Force protoplasm providence providential Mind race reality Rénan scientific Scottish scepticism sense sense-idealism speak Surely sympathy things thought thro tion to-day true truly truth unbelief unerring unfolding unintelligent universe unscientific utilitarianism utterly verse whence whole wisdom word unity
Popular passages
Page 14 - Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent ; Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns: To him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Page 35 - The Lord of all, Himself through all diffused Sustains and is the life of all that lives. Nature is but a name for an effect Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire By which the mighty process is maintained, Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight Slow-circling ages are as transient days; Whose work is without labour, whose designs No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts, And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.
Page 30 - I can see no limit to the amount, of change, to the beauty and complexity of the coadaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may have been effected in the long course of time through nature's power of selection, that is by the survival of the fittest.
Page 30 - It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest ; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good ; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life.
Page 17 - What Robespierre is reported to have said with reference to political government and national well-being, that, if there were not a God, it would be necessary to invent one, is felt by Pantheistic philosophers to be true in regard to nature.
Page 36 - And they have worked at the facts like gallant and honest men ; and their work, like all good work, has produced, in the last fifty years, results more enormous than they even dreamed. But what are they finding, more and more, below their facts, below all phenomena which the scalpel and the microscope can show ? A something nameless, invisible, imponderable, yet seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent, retreating before them deeper and deeper, the deeper they delve : namely, the life which shapes and...
Page 16 - Pantheism," as is said by the author of Lothair, " is but atheism in domino. Nothing," as the same writer adds, " can surely be more monstrous than to represent a creator as unconscious of creating.
Page 36 - I mention them only to show that beneath all these theories — true or false — still lies the unknown x. Scientific men are becoming more and more aware of it ; I had almost said ready to worship it. More and more the noblest-minded of them are engrossed by the mystery of that unknown and truly miraculous element in Nature, which is always escaping them, though they cannot escape it. How should they escape it ? Was it not written of old : " Whither shall I go from Thy presence, or whither shall...
Page 31 - Either Natural Selection is nothing, or it is Nature, but Nature endowed with the attribute of Selection — NATURE PERSONIFIED, which is the last error of the last century; the nineteenth century has done with personifications
Page 34 - ... that is beginning to glow with wonder at this seeming wisdom, and to swell with thankfulness because of this seeming love, must be chilled into blank confusion and amazement by the thought that there is no Being of Wisdom and Benevolence Who is to be thanked and adored because of these His marvellous works. Surely this is enough to darken the universe to the explorer of nature's mysteries, and to fill his soul with perpetual melancholy. Nor is it easy to understand how any man of true science,...