Vital dynamics : the Hunterian oration before the Royal College of Surgeons in London, 14th February 1840 / by Joseph Henry Green.

  • Green, Joseph Henry, 1791-1863.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vital dynamics : the Hunterian oration before the Royal College of Surgeons in London, 14th February 1840 / by Joseph Henry Green. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    Others have thought it no objection to the doctrine, that the material universe might be compressed within the compass of a nutshell ? Will he find any authority or support for the opinion in the speculations of the materialist, Priestley, who leaves us in doubt whether the question between matter and spirit be not a mere verbal dispute? Let me entreat him, lastly, to weigh, whether the investigations of physics are not ever really and truly directed to the powers and forces with which matter is endowed, rather than to this imagined sub- stratum, which the modern science of physics at least is content to keep out of view, as far as its doubtful nature renders it desirable, and to waive the boast of Ralpho, who “ profest He had First Matter seen undrest: He took her naked, all alone, Before one rag of form was on.” It is very true that the metaphysical question of the nature of the matter is one Mdiich has been lost sight of, or banished, by modern ])hysics, and that the experimental school has been content to take matter as a datum unex- plained, or not requiring elucidation. It is, however, more than a question, whether the inherent difficulties of a sensuous and essen- tially mechanical philosophy of nature have been removed, by substituting or giving pro- minence to the Atomic Doctrine.