The Gospel of Evolution: From "The Atheistic Platform", Twelve LecturesAveling, Edward B.
Religion
The Gospel of Evolution: From "The Atheistic Platform", Twelve Lectures
Aveling, Edward B.
Evolution
Harsh as it may seem, an idea in any branch of knowledge has never
attained a sure basis until it is expressible in terms of mathematics.
There was a time when physics and chemistry were divorced from
mathematics to a large extent. Now even the phenomena of electricity
and the reactions one upon another of chemical bodies are expressed in
algebraical formulae. This is the result of the increased precision of
our knowledge. Following in the footsteps of physics and chemistry the
biological sciences are becoming every day more mathematical. We have
formulas to express the manner of the arrangement of leaves upon a stem,
the manner of arrangement of the parts of a flower. One of these days
every structural and functional fact in regard to every living thing
will be related to some formula of mathematics more or less general.
We shall not all become martinets or dryasdusts. There is a beauty in
exactness. I sometimes think that the difference between the loveliness
of our thinking and of our dreaming on natural phsenomena, as compared
with that which the older thinkers and dreamers enjoyed, will be as the
difference between the joy of a game of chess between skilled players or
between those that know not even the moves. The child pushes the kings
and queens and rooks and knights and bishops and pawns about at random,
and laughs gaily. But the master' of the game, moving them according
to definite rules, obtains a far higher enjoyment, and produces a
combination that has its poetry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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