Natural knowledge

“ It follows that Thought and Discourse, in furnishing us with Knowledge, must themselves be active, and must in some way or other reproduce the activity of Nature. Thought, in short, is an Activity which reproduces the activity of things, the activity in which the phenomena of Nature arise.
But how do we arrive at any apprehension of Natural Action? What informs us that Nature is a potency ever operative? What suggests to us [61] the conception of potency at all? We reply that we arrive at the idea of potent action because we are ourselves active beings. ”

“ All the knowledge we acquire concerning natural objects by such a train of observation and reasoning as merits the appellation of science, is comprehended under the two divisions of natural philosophy and natural history. ”

“ To promote the increase of natural knowledge and to forward the application of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems of life to the best of my ability, in the conviction which has grown with my growth and strengthened with my strength, that there is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except veracity of thought and of action, and the resolute facing of the world as it is when the garment of make-believe by which pious hands have hidden its uglier features is stripped off. ”

“ Experience once recognized as the fountain of all our knowledge of nature, it follows that, in the study of nature and its laws, we ought at once to make up our minds to dismiss as idle prejudices, or at least suspend as premature, any preconceived80 notion of what might or what ought to be the order of nature in any proposed case, and content ourselves with observing, as a plain matter of fact, what is. ”

“ READER. The Divine Wisdom so variously displayed in the Works of Nature, even the lowest Order of them, entertains the human Eye with Prospects exquisitely beautiful and pleasurable: As our Knowledge is defective, we are at a loss how to account perfectly for the particular Ends of their Formation, and Manner of their Subserviency to the Whole of the Eternal Design. ”

“ The senses are well calculated to make discoveries of external objects and to communicate those notices, or simple images of things to the mind, with all the magnificent simplicity of nature, which opens an extensive field of contemplation to the understanding, enabling the mind to examine into the natural causes and consequences of things, and to investigate the knowledge of moral good and evil, from which, together with the power of agency, results the human conscience. ”

“ But Man may have one way of Knowledge in Philosophy and other Arts, and other Creatures another way, and yet other Creatures manner or way may be as Intelligible and Instructive to each other as Man's, I mean, in those things which are Natural. ”

“ But doubtless the reasoning faculty, the mind, is the leading and characteristic attribute of the human race. By the exercise of this, man arrives at the knowledge of the properties of natural bodies. This is science, properly and emphatically so called. ”

“ B. It is the mark of superior genius to find matter for wonder, observation, and research, in circumstances which, to the ordinary mind, appear trivial, because they are common; and with which they are satisfied, because they are natural; without reflecting that nature is our grand field of observation, that within it, is contained our whole store of knowledge; in a word, that to study the works of nature, is to learn to appreciate and admire the wisdom of God. ”

“ I use the term, as I explained in Chapter II., in opposition to ‘natural.’ I call those philosophers preeminently ‘metaphysical’ who have recognised most clearly that not everything which is is a ‘natural object.’ ‘Metaphysicians’ have, therefore, the great merit of insisting that our knowledge is not confined to the things which we can touch and see and feel. ”

“ These may be considered as some of the principal sources of the beauties of nature to mankind in general. Inquisitive and philosophical persons have some others, arising from their peculiar knowledge and study of natural history, astronomy, and philosophy, in general. ”

“ One natural result of the fact that such a principle dominated human thought was the prevalence of a belief that the explanation of Nature and natural processes could be derived from the cognitive faculty itself. Our cognition of our immediate surroundings was doubtless continuously corrected by immediate practical tests. But the science of a more extended view of Nature was vitiated by this false principle and in consequence for many centuries our whole Knowledge of Nature remained unprogressive and unfruitful. ”

“ Furthermore, it is altogether reasonable to conclude that the heavenly bodies, alias worlds, which move or are situate within the circle of our knowledge, as well all others throughout immensity, are each and every one of them possessed or inhabited by some intelligent agents or other, however different their sensations or manners of receiving or communicating their ideas may be from ours, or however different from each other. For why would it not have been as wise or as consistent with the perfections which we adore in God, to have neglected giving being to intelligence in this world as in those other worlds, interspersed with aether of various qualities in his immense creation? ”

“ That there are degrees in the knowledge of rational beings, and also in their capacities to acquire it, cannot be disputed, as it is so very obvious among mankind. ”

“ The fundamental convictions of naturalism, its general tendencies, and the points of view which determine its outlook, are primarily related to that order of facts which forms the subject of the natural sciences, to “Nature.” ”

“ If these classifications are not mere inventions, if they are not an attempt to classify for our own convenience the objects we study, then they are thoughts which, whether we detect them or not, are expressed in Nature,—then Nature is the work of thought, the production of intelligence carried out according to plan, therefore premeditated,—and in our study of natural objects we are approaching the thoughts of the Creator, reading His conceptions, interpreting a system that is His and not ours. ”

“ The second aspect of the study of nature, which we have designated as philosophical, regards the logic of nature, or what the older writers spoke of as General Physiology. This is sometimes appropriately termed Natural Philosophy, a designation which is the correlative of Natural History. ”

“ Whoever wearies of Platonic or of Scholastic subtleties, must recognize, if he knows how to read the meaning of current science, that the notion of Possible Being, or of Being whose reality lies in its validity, or in its value as making assertions about it true, is, as I said at the last time, the favorite type of reality in the writings of a great number of the recent philosophical expositors of the meaning of natural science. ”

“ Gentlemen, I close to-day the first part of the lectures that I have undertaken to give you. Let me formulate the last conclusions.
We have asked only general questions, those which bear on the entire human race, and which may consequently conduct us to the foundation of the nature of man. We have asked them exclusively from the point of view of natural science; we have studied man as we study an animal or a plant. The result of this examination is to show in man a résumé of the entire creation. ”

“ The scientific researches of his day attracted him; investigating anatomy, botany, natural philosophy, the history of the earth, he came to see man as a portion of nature, or at least as a creature whose life is largely determined by natural laws. ”

“ Nature is the source of language, words being the signs of natural facts. But ‘every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.’ In brief, ‘the world is emblematic.’ Nature is a discipline of the understanding, devoting herself to forming the common-sense. ”

“ The like in Natural Philosophy, although Natural Philosophers cannot find out the absolute truth of Nature, or Natures ground-works, or the hidden causes of natural effects; nevertheless they have found out many necessary and profitable Arts and Sciences, to benefit the life of man ”

“ If it is true on the one hand that the interpretation of nature by the supposition of ends external to it, with reference to which its processes are directed, has been discarded, and that its rejection has been the condition of growth in an exact knowledge of nature, on the other hand the recognition of ends immanent in nature, of ideas realised within it, is the basis of a scientific explanation of life. ”

“ Is it the philosophy of nature in general, or any one of those subdivisions of it, which we call the philosophy of Mind, Ethics, Medicine, Astronomy, Geometry, &c., the moment we occupy ourselves in observing and arranging in order the facts, which are discovered in the course of observation, we acquire positive knowledge, and may safely undertake to develope it to others. ”

“ More to the point, at this stage of our inquiry, than a formally precise definition of Nature, is a consideration of the motives which lead us to acknowledge as real the facts that we all call physical, — viz. to acknowledge the existence of matter, the laws of natural processes, and the dependence of our own mental life upon these processes. To this aspect of the problem of Nature we accordingly at once proceed. ”

“ The constancy of the laws of nature is the foundation of the industry and foresight of the husbandman, the indefatigable ingenuity of the artificer, the skilful researches of the physician and anatomist, and the watchful observation and patient investigation of the natural philosopher. To this constancy we owe all the greatest and noblest efforts of intellect. ”

“ Let us try to make this clear by taking at once the highest example—man and his origin. Let it be assumed that natural science could discover all the causes and factors which, operating for many thousands of years, have produced man and human existence. ”

“ But we believe it in such an extensive, thorough, and unhesitating manner because the universal experience of mankind verifies it, and we can verify it ourselves at any time; and that is the strongest possible foundation on which any natural law can rest. ”

“ I will now try to establish this science or rock and upon it I will build the Science of Life. The starting-point is animal matter or life which set in action, leads to thought. Thoughts, like grains of sand, are held together by their own sympathy or attraction. The natural man is composed of these particles of thought combined and arranged to make a form called man. As thought is always changing, so man is always throwing off particles or thoughts and receiving others. ”

“ Let us call it philosophy of nature; then we may say that only by becoming a true philosophy of nature are natural sciences of all sorts able to contribute to the highest questions which man’s spirit of inquiry can suggest. ”

“ And these experiences of ours in the formulation and working out of our ideal give us the clue to the manner in which Nature on her part works out her ideal. We are the representations and representatives of the whole, and we may assume that the whole works in much the same way as we ourselves work. ”

“ The truth is, by the help of Philosophy our minds are raised above our selves, into the knowledg of the Causes of all natural effects. But leaving the commending of this noble study, you are pleased to desire my opinion of a very difficult and intricate argument in Natural Philosophy, to wit, of Generation, or Natural Production. ”

“ We have arrived at the facts which prove this representative idea by the aid of natural science, of which the old spiritual writers knew next to nothing, and who consequently, looking at nature through the black mists of man’s defilement, sometimes took distorted views of laws and facts the exquisite harmony of which come out in the deductions of modern research, and so establish the claim we are now making to the absolute beauty and sanctity of all the fashion of human existence as leading up by typical forms to spiritual truths. ”

“ Therefore man must be on his guard against this cup of enchantments, and must look at nature with a supernatural eye. By piety alone, by conversing with the cause of nature, is he safe and commands it. And because all knowledge is assimilation to the object of knowledge, as the power or genius of nature is ecstatic, so must its science or the description of it be. ”

“ I will illustrate the two men so that each shall be a separate and distinct identity. I will take for my illustration the man as we see him, and Science as the man who cannot see through the natural man (for Science cannot be seen, only its effects) and show how they differ. The natural man is made of flesh and blood; Science is not. Man has life; Science is life. Man has sight; Science is sight. Man has feeling; Science is feeling. Man has all of the five senses; Science is all of the five senses. ”

“ This thought is the aim of all the inquiries by which we strive to become thoroughly acquainted with nature, and which we finally discover or at least ought to discover when we succeed in attaining true knowledge. We say that we know nature only when we are able to recognise an idea in nature: that is, an idea in each of its elements, and a system of ideas in the whole of nature. ”

“ But to conclude, The Rational degree of Matter is the most intelligible, and the wisest part of Nature, and the Sensitive is the most laborious and provident part in Nature, both which are the Creators of all Creatures in Infinite Matter ”

“ They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. ”