Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Based on the Doctrine of Evolution: With Criticisms on the Positive Philosophy, Volume 2

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Macmillan, 1874 - Evolution

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Page 397 - Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one thing which he shall not do : he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellowcreatures ; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.
Page 206 - It is full, in all its provinces, of the clearest indications that society in primitive times was not what it is assumed to be at present, a collection of individuals. In fact, and in the view of the men who composed it, it was an aggregation of families. The contrast may be most forcibly expressed by saying that the unit of an ancient society was the Family, of a modern society the Individual.
Page 278 - ... to be correct, and he would refer back to the first couple of sticks ; and then his mind got hazy and confused, and wandered from one sheep to the other, and he broke off the transaction until two sticks were put into his hand, and one sheep driven away, and then the other two sticks given him, and the second sheep driven away...
Page 270 - But the peculiarity is that in no case do these rules " purport to emanate from the personal authority of their author or authors, which rests on grounds of reason not on grounds of innocence and sanctity ; nor do they assume to be dictated by a sense of equity ; there is always, I am assured, a sort of fiction under which some customs as to the distribution of water are supposed to have emanated from a remote antiquity, although, in fact, no such artificial supply had ever been so much as thought...
Page 334 - The prolonged helplessness of the offspring must keep the parents together for longer and longer periods in successive epochs ; and when at last the association is so long kept up that the older children are growing mature while the younger ones still need protection, the family relations begin to become permanent. The parents have lived so long in company that to seek new companionships involves some disturbance of ingrained habits...
Page 278 - When bartering is going on each sheep must be paid for separately. Thus, suppose two sticks of tobacco to be the rate of exchange for one sheep, it would sorely puzzle a Damara to take two sheep and give him four sticks.
Page 278 - Once while I watched a Dammara floundering hopelessly in a calculation on one side of me, I observed Dinah, my spaniel, equally embarrassed on the other. She was overlooking half a dozen of her new-born puppies, which had been removed two or three times from her, and her anxiety was excessive, as she tried to find out if they were all present, or if any were still missing. She kept puzzling and running her eyes over them, backwards and forwards, but could not satisfy herself.
Page 397 - If in ascribing goodness to God I do not mean what I mean by goodness ; if I do not mean the goodness of which I have some knowledge, but an incomprehensible attribute of an incomprehensible substance, which for aught I know may be a totally different quality from that which I love and venerate — and even must, if Mr.
Page 231 - That the progress of mankind depends on the success with which the laws of phenomena are investigated, and on the extent to which a knowledge of those laws is diffused.
Page 416 - Be of comfort ! Thou art not alone, if thou have Faith. Spake we not of a Communion of Saints, unseen, yet not unreal, accompanying and brotherlike embracing thee, so thou be worthy ? Their heroic Sufferings rise up melodiously together to Heaven, out of all lands, and out of all times, as a sacred Miserere ; their heroic Actions also, as a boundless everlasting Psalm of Triumph.

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