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. 1874 Excerpt: ...of environment through which his correspondences reach confined to the surface and the substance of the earth. It stretches into the surrounding sphere of infinity. It was extended to the moon when the Chaldeans discovered how to predict eclipses; to the sun and nearer planets when the Copernican system was established ...
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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. 1874 Excerpt: ...of environment through which his correspondences reach confined to the surface and the substance of the earth. It stretches into the surrounding sphere of infinity. It was extended to the moon when the Chaldeans discovered how to predict eclipses; to the sun and nearer planets when the Copernican system was established; to the remoter planets when an improved telescope disclosed one and calculation fixed the position of the other; to the stars when their parallax and proper motion were measured; and, in a vague way, even to the nebulae when their composition and forms of structure were ascertained.'x 1 Spencer's Principles of Psychology, p. 406. To correspondence in space, correspondence in time adds itself. The living being at first seizes upon the simplest and shortest mechanical sequences, then by successive conquests, he adjusts himself to longer and longer periods; he takes possession of the future; he foresees future events, like the dog who hides a bone for the time when he shall be hungry. 'This higher order of correspondence in time, which, for the reasons assigned, is impossible to creatures of inferior type, which is but vaguely discernible in the higher animals, and which is definitely exhibited only when we arrive at the human race, has made marked progress in the course of civilisation. Among the lowest tribes of men, who are without habitations, and who wander from place to place as the varying supplies of wild animals, roots, and insects dictate, a year is the longest period to which their conduct is adapted. Hardly yet worthy to be defined as creatures "looking before and after," they show.by their utter improvidence and their apparent incapacity to realize future consequences, that it is only to the conspicuous and often-recurrin...
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