Discourses on Various Subjects: Read Before Literary and Philosophical SocietiesLongman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1852 - 276 pages |
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Discourses on Various Subjects: Read Before Literary and Philosophical ... Samuel Bailey No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
amongst animal appears astronomer Bacon beautiful bodies Calendar causes changes circumstances combination of ideas common defalcation difficulty DISCOURSE Dugald Stewart earth Edinburgh Review effect of wit electric fluid employed English language example existence explain express external object facts Gregorian Calendar HISTORY Horace Walpole human mind hypothesis illustration images induction inflections inquiry instance inverted John Herschel kind knowledge language laughable light Lord Lord Bacon Lord Macclesfield ludicrous Mammoth matter meaning namely nature nerves observe occasion optic optic nerves origin perception perspective projections phenomena philosophers physical investigation picture Political Economy present principles produced qualities rays remarkable result retina says scarcely science of Political seen sense Siberia similar solid object sound species stances striking suppose theory thing tion TREATISE truth vacuum verb vernal equinox vision Wheatstone whole William Swainson witty words writers
Popular passages
Page 241 - And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight, than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air.
Page 252 - The sun had long since, in the lap Of Thetis, taken out his nap, And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn From black to red began to turn...
Page 257 - The character of the reputed ancestors of some men has made it possible for their descendants to be vicious in the extreme without being degenerate. Those of your Grace, for instance, left no distressing examples of virtue even to their legitimate posterity, and you may look back with pleasure to an illustrious pedigree in which heraldry has not left a single ;gooil quality upon record to insult or upbraid you*.
Page 274 - But when wit is combined with sense and information ; when it is softened by benevolence, and restrained by strong principle ; when it is in the hands of a man who can use it and despise it. who can be witty and something much letter than witty, who loves honour, justice, decency, good-nature, morality, and religion, ten thousand times better than wit ; wit is then a beautiful and delightful part of our nature.
Page 180 - There are seven windows in the head: two nostrils, two eyes, two ears, and a mouth; so in the heavens there are two favorable stars, two unpropitious, two luminaries, and Mercury alone undecided and indifferent. From which and many other similar phenomena of nature, such as the seven metals, etc., which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number of planets is necessarily seven.
Page 152 - ... a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention...
Page 253 - Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar, Comes down upon the waters ; all its hues, From the rich sunset to the rising star, Their magical variety diffuse : And now they change ; a paler shadow strews Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new color as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till — 'tis gone — and all is gray.
Page 180 - There are seven windows given to animals in the domicile of the head, through which the air is admitted to the tabernacle of the body, to enlighten, to warm, and to nourish it...
Page 8 - Attentive turn; from dim oblivion call Her fleet, ideal band; and bid them, go! Break through time's barrier, and o'ertake the hour That saw the heavens created: then declare If aught were found in those external scenes To move thy wonder now.