Volume 183001

Mechanics / By Henry Kater and Dionysius Lardner.

  • Henry Kater
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mechanics / By Henry Kater and Dionysius Lardner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    treme action of that principle which is designed to affect the other. Thus the organs of sense are instruments by which the mind is enabled to determine the existence and the qualities of external things. The effects which these objects produce upon the mind through the organs, are called sensations, and these sensations are the immediate elements of all human knowledge. Marrer is the general name which has been given to that substance, which, under forms infinitely various, affects the senses. Metaphysicians have differed in defining this principle. Some have even doubted of its existence. But these discussions are beyond the sphere of.mechanical philo- sophy, the conclusions of which are in nowise affected by them. Our investigations here relate, not to matter as an abstract existence, but to those qualities which we discover in it by the senses, and of the existence of which we are sure, however the question as to matter itself may be decided. When we speak of “ bodies,” we mean those things, whatever they be, which excite in our minds certain sensations; and the powers to excite those sensations are called “ properties,” or «* qualities.” (2.) To ascertain by observation the properties of bodies, is the first step towards obtaining a knowledge of nature. Hence man becomes a natural philosopher the moment he begins to feel and to perceive. The first stage of life is a state of constant and curious ex- citement. Observation and attention, ever awake, are engaged upon a succession of objects new and wonderful. The large repository of the memory is opened, and every hour pours into it unbounded stores of natural facts and appearances, the rich materials of future know- ledge. The keen appetite for discovery implanted in ‘the mind for the highest ends, continually stimulated ‘by the presence of what is novel, renders torpid every ‘other faculty, and the powers of reflection and compa- rison are lost in the incessant activity and unexhausted vigour of observation. After a season, however, the
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