"The careful observations and the acute reasonings of the Italian geologists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the speculations of Leibnitz in the 'Protogæa' and of Buffon in his 'Théorie de la Terre;' the sober and profound reasonings of Hutton, in the latter part of the eighteenth century; all these tended to show that the fabric of the earth itself implied the continuance of processes of natural causation for a period of time as great, in relation to human history, as the distances of the heavenly bodies from us are, in relation to terrestrial standards of measurement. The abyss of time began to loom as large as the abyss of space. And this revelation to sight and touch, of a link here and a link there of a practically infinite chain of natural causes and effects, prepared the way, as perhaps nothing else has done, for the modern form of the ancient theory of evolution."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Advance_of_Science_in_the_Last_Half-Century
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century
110 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century →
Related Quotes
"Francis Bacon had essayed to sum up the past of physical science, and to indicate the path which it must follow if it…"
"Descartes was an eminent mathematician, and it would seem that the bent of his mind led him to overestimate the value…"
"The progress of physical science has been effected neither by Baconians nor by Cartesians, as such but by men like Ga…"
"That growth of knowledge beyond imaginable utilitarian ends, which is the condition precedent of its practical utilit…"
"The bare enumeration of the names of the men who were the great lights of science in the latter part of the eighteent…"
"The progress of physical science, since the revival of learning, is largely due to the fact that men have gradually l…"
"The history of physical science teaches (and we cannot too carefully take the lesson heart) that the practical advant…"
"Far be it from me to depreciate the value of the gifts of science to practical life, or to cast a doubt upon the prop…"
"In considering the causes which considering hindered the progress of physical knowledge in the schools of Athens and …"
"The founders of the schools of the Middle Ages included astronomy, along with geometry, arithmetic, and music, as one…"