An easy outline of evolution / Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited.

  • Dennis Hird
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An easy outline of evolution / Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    divide all things into the phenomenal and the real. What the real is we have no means of knowing, because, if it is something different from phenomena, it is outside of human experience. Perhaps Dr. Paul Carus is right when he says “the phenomenal is real.” At any rate, it is the real for us, who know and can know nothing else. By some thinkers all phenomena have been reduced to matter and motion, or matter and energy. Of the real nature of matter and energy we know nothing yet. But it has been found that neither matter nor energy can ever be destroyed. So that we know that matter and energy never had a beginning and cannot have an end. This important truth is often called the indestructibility of matter and the persistence of force. Force is another word for energy. But some writers use force for the power which drives the particles of matter together, and energy for the power which drives them apart. If we adopt this dis- tinction, then force is said to be centripetal (making to a centre), and energy is said to be centrifugal (making from the centre). As a rule, we know matter in the mass, or, as we say, in large pieces or forms. These forms are made up of very small bodies, called molecules, and the molecules are made up of atoms. Molecule (from molecula, a little mass) is the smallest quantity into which the mass of any substance can be physically divided and retain its characteristic properties, or the smallest quantity that can exist in a free state. A molecule may be chemically separated into two or more atoms. The integrity and properties of a substance reside in its molecules. Molecular means that which belongs to or is made up of molecules. Molecular motion is the movement of the molecules of a substance within that substance.
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