This volume is based upon the first series of lectures delivered at Yale University on the Foundation established by the late Dwight H. Terry of Plymouth, Connecticut, through his gift of an endowment fund for the delivery and subsequent publication of "Lectures on Religion in the Light of Science and Philosophy." The deed of gift declares that "the object of this Foundation is not the promotion of scientific investigation and discovery, but rather the assimilation and interpretation of that which has been or shall be hereafter discovered, and its application to human welfare, especially by the building of the truths of science and philosophy into the structure of a broadened and purified religion.
The aim of this book is to give a general idea of the way in which Modern Science looks out on the world. By selecting a few salient illustrations, it seeks to show how the various sciences are disclosing the Order of Nature. It is hoped that it may be of service to the able minded reader who wishes an introduction of an informal type to the chief scientific problems of today. The book is meant to be suggestive as well as informative; and two characteristic features may be noted, for they are deliberate: the illustrations of scientific progress that have been selected are taken from all the great orders of facts – from astronomy to anthropology; and they deal not with easy things, but with the big problems that matter most.
The aim of this book is to give a general idea of the way in which Modern Science looks out on the world. By selecting a few salient illustrations, it seeks to show how the various sciences are disclosing the Order of Nature. It is hoped that it may be of service to the able minded reader who wishes an introduction of an informal type to the chief scientific problems of today. The book is meant to be suggestive as well as informative; and two characteristic features may be noted, for they are deliberate: the illustrations of scientific progress that have been selected are taken from all the great orders of facts – from astronomy to anthropology; and they deal not with easy things, but with the big problems that matter most.
This book, "The Study Of Animal Life", by J. Arthur Thomson, is a replication of a book originally published before 1892. It has been restored by human beings, page by page, so that you may enjoy it in a form as close to the original as possible. This book was created using print-on-demand technology. Thank you for supporting classic literature.
This volume attempts to give a short account of Herbert Spencer's life, an appreciation of his characteristics, and a statement of some of the services he rendered to science. Prominence has been given to his Autobiography, to his Principles of Biology, and to his position as a cosmic evolutionist; but little has been said of his psychology and sociology, which require another volume, or of his ethics and politics, or of his agnosticism-the whetstone of so many critics. Our appreciation of Spencer's services is therefore partial, but it may not for that reason fail in its chief aim, that of illustrating the working of one of the most scientific minds that ever lived, "whose excess of science was almost unscientific." The story of Spencer's life is neither eventful nor picturesque, but it commands the interest of all who admire faith, courage, and loyalty to an ideal. It is a story of plain living and high thinking, of one who, though vexed by an extremely nervous temperament, was as resolute as a Hebrew prophet in delivering his message. It is the story of a quiet servant of science, indifferent to conventional honours, careless about "getting on," disliking controversy, sensationalism, and noise, trusting to the power of truth alone, that it must prevail. Another aspect of interest is that Spencer was an arch-heretic, one of the flowers of Nonconformity, against theology and against metaphysics, against monarchy and against molly-coddling legislation, against classical education and against socialism, against war and against Weismann. So that we can hardly picture the man who has not some crow to pick with Spencer.
