67 quotes
Now, as the inferior animals were all in being before man, there was language upon earth long ere the history of our race commenced.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
I believe my doctrines to be in the main true; I believe all truth to be valuable, and its dissemination a blessing.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
Indifference to life and indifference to the purity and amenity that sweeten existence must necessarily go together.
Sanitary Economy (1850)
Such is the process which seems to form the destined means for bringing mankind from the darkness of barbarism to the day of knowledge and mechanical and social improvement.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
Mr. Babbage's illustration powerfully suggests that this ordinary procedure may be subordinate to a higher law which only permits it for a time, and in proper season interrupts and changes it.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
There may then be occasion for a nobler type of humanity, which shall complete the zoological circle on this planet, and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the present race.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
We have seen that the law which causes rotation in the single solar masses, is exactly the same which produces the familiar phenomenon of a small whirlpool or dimple in the surface of a stream.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
The probability may now be assumed that the human race sprung from one stock which was at first in a state of simplicity if not barbarism.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
The style of living is ascertained to have a powerful effect in modifying the human figure in the course of generations, and this even in its osseous structure.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
We are drawn on to the supposition, that the first step in the creation of life upon this planet was a chemico-electric operation, by which simple germinal vesicles were produced.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
Let the reconciliation of whatever is true in my views with whatever is true in other systems come about in the fulness of calm and careful inquiry.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
There is of course no extraordinary fact resting on testimony only, of which it is not possible to presume some error in the observation or reporting, if we be set upon finding one.
Testimony: its Posture in the Scientific World (1859)
Of late years... it has been successfully shewn that the human race might have had one origin, for anything that can be inferred from external peculiarities.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
We cannot doubt after what we know of the power of heat that the nebulous form of matter was attended by the condition of a very high temperature.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
My sincere desire in the composition of the book was to give the true view of the history of nature, with as little disturbance as possible to existing beliefs, whether philosophical or religious.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
One important remark has been made, that a comparatively small variety of species is found in the older rocks, although of some particular ones the remains are very abundant...
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
The monkeys themselves, without instruction from any quarter, learn to use sticks in fighting, and some build houses—an act which cannot in their case be considered as one of instinct, but of intelligence.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
The facts, indeed, connected with this gloomy department of statistics show that the most valuable period of human life—that in which a man is producing more than he is consuming—is that which provides the greatest number of victims.
Sanitary Economy (1850)
Abstract perfection should always be the direction aimed at by human efforts, however imperfect they may be; and the success of sanitary legislation will be indicated by the nearness or the distance of its actual practice from this perfect idea.
Sanitary Economy (1850)
I may here refer to a curious mathematical calculation by Dr. Thomas Young, to the effect, that if three words coincide in two different languages, it is ten to one they must be derived in both cases from some parent language, or introduced in some other manner.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)