St. Pierre's Studies of Nature |
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Common terms and phrases
adapted agreeable ancient animals appear ascribe Asia Atlantic Ocean attraction beautiful bestowed birds body Cape Horn character climates colours conformities consonances continent contrary contrasts DEITY delight diffused divine earth effect elevation employed Europe existence eyes farther felicity fire fishes flowers forests frequently fruit globe ground habitation happy harmonies heart heat heaven human race India Indian Ocean infinity inhabitants insects instinct islands kingdom labours land Lapland laws laws of attraction leagues likewise live lively colours mankind means ments miserable monuments moral motion mountains nations Nature never Nova Zembla objects observed ocean opposite passions perceive Peru plants pleasure Pliny Plutarch pole present principles produce quadrupeds reason religion rendered respect rivers rocks sensible sentiment shade shores single soul south pole species sublime subsistence thing tion torrid zone trees truth vegetables virtue winds
Popular passages
Page 132 - Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul...
Page 146 - Wandering, without a protector or asylum, when he heard by night the howlings of ferocious animals demanding their prey, could he have made supplication to the generous dog, and said to him: Be thou my defender, and I will make thee my slave? Who could have subjected to his authority so many animals which stood in no need of him, which surpassed him in cunning, in speed, in strength, unless the hand which, notwithstanding his fall, destined him still to empire, had humbled their heads to the obedience...
Page 379 - I am going to yield thee up ? To Europeans, who will tie thee close, — who will beat thee, — who will render thee miserable. Return with me, my beauty, my jewel, and rejoice the hearts of my children.
Page 70 - God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged ; the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained...
Page 12 - I have never made observation of the corolla simply, of the smallest flower, without finding it composed of an admirable substance, half transparent, studded with brilliants, and shining in the most lively colours. The beings which live under a reflex thus enriched must have ideas very different from ours of light, and of the other phenomena of nature. A drop of dew filtering in the capillary and transparent tubes of a plant presents to them thousands of cascades: the same drop, fixed as a wave on...
Page 71 - While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Page 70 - And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.
Page 11 - Insects, book ii. chap. 3, had not demonstrated the possibility of it, by a piece of mechanism abundantly simple. We are certain, at least, of the existence of those beings whose different figures have actually been drawn. Others are found, whose feet are armed with claws, on the body of the fly, and even on that of the flea. It is credible, then, from analogy, that there are animals feeding on the leaves of plants, like the cattle in our meadows...
Page 169 - All things are double one against another: and he hath made nothing imperfect. One thing establisheth the good of another: and who shall be filled with beholding his glory?
Page 29 - ... the earth where the whole vegetable crop may not be reaped. Those plants which are rejected by one, are a delicacy to another ; and even among the finny tribes contribute to their fatness. The hog devours the horse-tail and henbane ; the goat the thistle and the hemlock. All return in the evening to the habitation of man, with murmurs, with bleatings, with cries of joy, bringing back to him the delicious tribute of innumerable plants, transformed by a process the most inconceivable, into honey,...