Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon].

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    vegetation—the power of the galvanic current to re-assemble the particles of copper from a solution, and make them again into a solid plate — the rending force of the thunderbolt as it strikes the oak. See also how both heat and light observe the angle of incidence in reflection, as exactly as does the grossest stone thrown obliquely against a wall. So mental action may be imponderable, intangible, and yet a real existence, and ruled by the Eternal through his laws.* Common observation shews a great general su- periority of the human mind over that of the infe- rior animals. Man’s mind is almost infinite in device; it ranges over all the world; it forms the most wonderful combinations; it seeks back into * If mental action is electric, the proverbial quickness of thought—that is, the quickness of the transmission of sensation and will—may be presumed to have been brought to an exact measurement. The speed of light has long been known to be about 192,000 miles per second, and the experiments of Wheat- stone have shewn that the electric agent travels (if I may so speak) at the same rate, thus shewing a likelihood that one law rules the movements of all the “ imponderable bodies.” Mental action may accordingly be presumed to have a rapidity equal to one hundred and ninety-two thousand miles in the second—a rate evidently far beyond what is necessary to make the design and execution of any of our ordinary muscular movements appa- rently identical in point of time, which they are. Q
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