Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Human Physiology
In fact, at how vast a distance do we see the innate mental properties of man standing above those of the most sagacious brute! How immensely does the volition of the lowest animal raise it above the whole vegetable kingdom And how deep the chasm between the vital organisation of the meanest vegetable and a mass of inanimate matter! Gradation must be admitted, but it is far from regular or insensible. Neither does it at all regard perfection of system, nor very much the degree, but chie?y the excellence, and, within the limits of the visible world, the combination, of properties. 'man, placed at the summit 'of terrestrial objects by the excellence of his mind and the combi nation of the common properties of matter, of those of vege tables, and of those of brutes, with those peculiar to himself, is surpassed by the dog in acuteness of smell and by the oak in magnitude, nor can he boast of more perfection than the gnat or the thistle in their kinds.
Substances consist of Particles endowed with certain properties without which their existence cannot be conceived, viz. Extension and impenetrability; with others which proceed, indeed, from their existence, but are capable of being subdued by Opposing energies, viz. Mobility, inertness; and with others apparently neither necessary to their existence nor ?owing from it, but merely superadded: for example, various attractions and repul sions, and various powers of affecting animated systems.
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