Essays and addresses / by professors and lecturers of the Owens College, Manchester.
- Victoria University of Manchester
- Date:
- 1874
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Essays and addresses / by professors and lecturers of the Owens College, Manchester. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
115/576 page 95
![in.] violent blow producing all this enormous effect, but they rather pull the trigger, and immediately a very great change takes place. Delicacy of Construction. 38. I have thus given, both from theory and observation, reasons for believing that the sun's atmosphere, as well as that of our earth, owing perhaps to the presence of condensable vapour, is in a delicate state of equilibrium, so that a very small cause may often produce a very great effect, and now, in conclusion, it may be desirable to say a few words about this same delicacy of construction. On a previous occasion* I ventured to introduce certain views as to the position of life in the Uni- verse of Energy, endeavouring to show that the essential physical condition of the existence of a living being (at least such a being as man) is the pos- session of a frame denoting delicacy of construction. It is no doubt somewhere in the mysterious brain- chamber that the trigger is pulled, and where an exceedingly small motion determines ultimately it may be some very violent action on the part of the indi- vidual. Thus, in an animal a very considerable physical effect may be produced by a very small physical cause ; and, without pretending to know what life is, we may feel assured that it cannot exist except in conjunction with a frame possessing delicacy of construction. Now, * See Lecture On Cosmical Physics, being the Opening Lecture at Owens College for the Session 1870-71. See also article on The Place of Life in a Universe of Energy By B. Stewart and J. N. Lockyer (Macmillarfs Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 319, 1868).](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21727910_0115.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
