Lectures and Essays
Cód:
491_9781443740029
LECTURES AND ESSAYS BY THE LATE WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD. CONTENTS: BODY AND MIND ON THE NATURE, OF THINGS IN THEMSELVES ON THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF MORELS RIGHT AND WRONG : THE SCIENTIFIC GROUND OF THEIR DISTINCTION THE ETHICS OF BELIEF THE ETHICS OF RELIGION THE INFLUENCE UPON MORALITY OF A DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF COSMIC EMOTION ON THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE8 BODY AND MIND THE subject of this Lecture is one in regard to which a great change has recently taken place in the public mind. Some time ago it was the custom to look with suspicion upon all questions of a metaphysical nature as being questions that could not be discussed with any good result, and which, leading inquirers round and round in the same circle, never came to an end. But quite of late years there Is an indication that a large number of people are waking up to the fact that Science has something to say upon these subjects and the English people have always been very ready to hear what Science can sayunderstanding by Science what we shall now understand by it, that is, organised common sense, When I say Science, I do not mean what some people are pleased to call Philosophy. The word philosopher, which meant originally lover of wisdom, has come in some strange way to mean a man who thinks it his business to explain everything in a certain number of large books. It will be found, I think, that in proportion to his colossal ignorance is the perfection and symmetry of the system which he sets up because it is so much easier to put an empty room tidy than a full one. A man of science, on the other hand, explains as much as ever he can, and then he says, This is all I can do for the rest you must ask the next man, And with regard to such explanations as he has given, whether the next man comes at all, whether there is any next man or any further explanation or no and we may have to wait hundreds or even thousands of years before another step is made,yet if the original step was a scientific step, was mad
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