DOOR NUMBER ONE PRESENTS - Nature and Life - By Fernand Papillon

 The Complete Free eBook In PDF Format

NATURE AND LIFE

Facts and Doctrines Relating To The Constitution of Matter, The New Dynamics, and the Philosophy of Nature

By Fernand Papillon

TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND FRENCH EDITION, BY

A. R. MACDONOUGH, Esq

NEW YORK:

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

548 AND 551 BROADWAY.

Originally Published in 1875.

 
Cover Page Title  Page
 
  Page Updated - Thursday, 01 June 2017
 

 

Nature And Life  
TABLE OF CONTENTS  
PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR. 3
THE CONSTITUTION OF MATTER, AND THE NEW DYNAMISM. 6
THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE, AND LEIBNITZ'S IDEAS. 32
THE GENERAL CONSTITUTION OF LIVING BEINGS. 60
LIGHT AND LIFE. 96
HEAT AND LIFE. 122
ELECTRICITY AND LIFE. 146
ODORS AND LIFE. 169
MEDICAMENTS AND LIFE. 192
ANIMAL GRAFTS AND REGENERATIONS. 214
FERMENTS, FERMENTATIONS, AND LIFE. 238
GREAT EPIDEMICS-ASIATIC CHOLERA. 259
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DEATH. 282
HEREDITY IN PHYSIOLOGY, MEDICINE & PSYCHOLOGY. 307
INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES 339
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE "INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES" 341
   

Free Download Complete Book Below

Nature and Life by Fernand Papillon

 
 
 
 
" In eternal despair of knowing either the beginning or the end," as Pascal says, the mind will be content with grasping the most certain and defined appearances.
 
  Door Number One

 

Excerpt From Nature And Life

THE CONSTITUTION OF MATTER, AND THE NEW DYNAMISM.

WHATEVER empirics and utilitarians may say on the subject, there are certainties apart from the experimental method, and there is progress disconnected with brilliant or beneficent applications. The mind of man may put forth its power in laboring in harmony with reason, yet discover genuine truths in a sphere as far above that of laboratories and manufactures as their sphere is above the region of the coarsest arts. In a word, there is a temple of light that unfolds its portals to the soul neither through calculation nor rough experiment, which the soul nevertheless enters with authority and confidence, so long as it holds the consciousness of its sovereign prerogatives. When will professed scientists, better informed of the close connection between metaphysics and science, whence our modern knowledge of Nature has sprung, better taught in the necessary laws that govern the conflict of reason with the vast unknown, confess that there are realities beyond those they attain? When will science, instead of the arrogant indifference it assumes in presence of philosophy, admit the fertility beyond estimate of the latter ? It may be that the hour of this reconciliation, so much to be longed for, is less remote than many suppose; at least, every day brings us nearer to it. The spirit of Descartes cannot fail to arouse before long some genius mighty enough to revive among us a taste and respect for thought in all the departments of scientific activity. Deserted as high abstractions are for the moment, they are not, thank Heaven, so utterly abandoned as to deprive study of its ardor, and essays of their success, when these relate to the problem of the constitution of matter.

In fact, this is a question which for several years past has occupied some among our own savants and thinkers, as completely as it has employed most of those of the rest of Europe, a question which bears witness with peculiar eloquence to this fact, that, if philosophers are forced to borrow largely from science, in its turn science can retain clearness, and elevation, and strength, only by drawing its inspiration from, and recognizing its inseparable connection with, the abstract consideration of hidden causes and of first principles.

 

arfalpha.com = nature and life by fernand papillon