"What a fearful object a long-neglected duty gets to be"
"In the scale of life there is a gradual decline in physical variability, as the organism has gathered into itself resources for meeting the exigencies of changing external conditions; and that while in the mindless and motionless plant these resources are at a minimum, their maximum is reached in the mind of man, which, at length, rises to a level with the total order and powers of nature, and in its scientific comprehension of nature is a summary, an epitome of the world."
6 likes
Source: Chauncey Wright (2003). “Philosphical Discussions”, p.76, A&C Black
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Chauncey Wright
"If they are, then the only ultimate truths are the particulars of concrete experience, and no postulate or general assumption is inherent in science until its proceedings become systematic, or the truths already reached give direction to further research."
"All observers not laboring under hallucinations of the senses are agreed, or can be made to agree, about facts of sensible experience, through evidence toward which the intellect is merely passive, and over which the individual will and character have no control."
"The questions of philosophy proper are human desires and fears and aspirations - human emotions - taking an intellectual form."
"And we owe science to the combined energies of individual men of genius, rather than to any tendency to progress inherent in civilization."
"The pains of disconcerted or frustrated habits, and the inherent pleasure there is in following them, are motives which nature has put into our wills without generally caring to inform us why; and she sometimes decrees, indeed, that her reasons shall not be ours."