This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846 edition. Excerpt: ...run off with Saturn's ring. What would become of that lonely individual, -the man in the moon? No more full moons, half moons, nor even quarters. As for our own nice little ball--but we cannot bear to think of it. Mr. Lewes is equally strong in Metaphysics. Let us take a specimen from the life of Zeno of Elea. ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846 edition. Excerpt: ...run off with Saturn's ring. What would become of that lonely individual, -the man in the moon? No more full moons, half moons, nor even quarters. As for our own nice little ball--but we cannot bear to think of it. Mr. Lewes is equally strong in Metaphysics. Let us take a specimen from the life of Zeno of Elea. In Aristotle's Physics (Lib. 6, 9) are given four arguments of Zeno against the possibility of motion: of which We need here consider only three. It is necessary to premise that they are founded on the assumed divisibility of space and time; and which, if once allowed, must be a divisibility ad The first problem is, that (on such an assumption) a body in motion could never reach the end of its journey, because it must first pass the middle point. But if space be infinitely divisible, how can it ever reach that point? The second is the famous Achilles problem. Achilles, the swiftest of foot, could never overtake the slowest animal, say a tortoise, because he must first reach the point which the tortoise has left. But whilst Achilles was running _a hundred feet, the tortoise might run ten, and so on ad infinitum. It is evident that these two problems rest on precisely the same ground, and differ only in their enunciation; the first taking half a. given space, and the second a different quantity. The third problem is, that if time, one of the elements of motion, cousists of instants, the flying arrow is at rest, since at every instant it is in a space equal to itself, and cannot, therefore, be at once in that space and out of"it. This problem, therefore, like the preceding, is founded on the divisibility of time, though it does not contemplate its infinite divisibility. Victor Cousin, in his life of Zeno, in the Biographie...
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