Address delivered before the British Association assembled at Belfast — John Shaqi
Address delivered before the British Association assembled at BelfastTyndall, John
Religion
Address delivered before the British Association assembled at Belfast
Tyndall, John
Evolution; Religion and science; Science -- History
By myriad blows (to use a Lucretian phrase) the image and
superscription of the external world are stamped as states of
consciousness upon the organism, the depth of the impression
depending upon the number of the blows. When two or more phenomena
occur in the environment invariably together, they are stamped to the
same depth or to the same relief, and indissolubly connected. And
here we come to the threshold of a great question. Seeing that he
could in no way rid himself of the consciousness of Space and Time,
Kant assumed them to be necessary 'forms of intuition,' the moulds
and shapes into which our intuitions are thrown, belonging to
ourselves solely and without objective existence. With unexpected
power and success Mr. Spencer brings the hereditary experience
theory, as he holds it, to bear upon this question. 'If there exist
certain external relations which are experienced by all organisms at
all instants of their waking lives--relations which are absolutely
constant and universal--there will be established answering internal
relations that are absolutely constant and universal. Such relations
we have in those of Space and Time. As the substratum of all other
relations of the Non-Ego, they must be responded to by conceptions
that are the substrata of all other relations in the Ego. Being the
constant and infinitely repeated elements of thought, they must
become the automatic elements of thought--the elements of thought
which it is impossible to get rid of--the "forms of intuition."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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