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Morphology.
We have seen that the members of the same class, independently of their habits of life, resemble each other in the general plan of their organisation. This resemblance is often expressed by the term "unity of type;" or by saying that the several parts and orga...
IV. How the follies of Learned Men have dishonoured Learning
(1) Now I proceed to those errors and vanities which have intervened amongst the studies themselves of the learned, which is that which is principal and proper to the present argument; wherein my purpose is not to make a justification of the errors, but by a c...
II. Of Civil History
(1) For civil history, it is of three kinds; not unfitly to be compared with the three kinds of pictures or images. For of pictures or images we see some are unfinished, some are perfect, and some are defaced. So of histories we may find three kinds: memoria...
I. Triple Distribution of Human Learning. Of Natural History
(1) The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of man’s understanding, which is the seat of learning: history to his memory, poesy to his imagination, and philosophy to his reason. Divine learning receiveth the same distribution; for, the s...
The Advancement of Learning commended to the care of Kings
To the King. (1) It might seem to have more convenience, though it come often otherwise to pass (excellent King), that those which are fruitful in their generations, and have in themselves the foresight of immortality in their descendants, should likewise be ...
VIII. Excellencies of Learning enumerated
(1) To proceed now from imperial and military virtue to moral and private virtue; first, it is an assured truth, which is contained in the verses:— “Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artesEmollit mores nec sinit esse feros.” It taketh away the wildne...
VII. Human Proofs
(1) As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as in a discourse of this nature and brevity it is fit rather to use choice of those things which we shall produce, than to embrace the variety of them. First, therefore, in the degrees of human honour amongst ...
VI. Divine Proofs of the Dignity of Learning
(1) First, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in the archetype or first platform, which is in the attributes and acts of God, as far as they are revealed to man and may be observed with sobriety; wherein we may not seek it by the name of learning,...
V. Other Errors of Learned Men which mar the Progress and Credit of Learning
(1) The first of these is the extreme affecting of two extremities: the one antiquity, the other novelty; wherein it seemeth the children of time do take after the nature and malice of the father. For as he devoureth his children, so one of them seeketh to de...
III. Pretended discredits to Learning by learned men
(1) Now therefore we come to that third sort of discredit or diminution of credit that groweth unto learning from learned men themselves, which commonly cleaveth fastest: it is either from their fortune, or from their manners, or from the nature of their studi...
Development and Embryology.
This is one of the most important subjects in the whole round of natural history. The metamorphoses of insects, with which every one is familiar, are generally effected abruptly by a few stages; but the transformations are in reality numerous and gradual, thou...
II. Objections of Politicians
(1) And as for the disgraces which learning receiveth from politics, they be of this nature: that learning doth soften men’s minds, and makes them more unapt for the honour and exercise of arms; that it doth mar and pervert men’s dispositions for matter of gov...
I. Of Cavils against Learning
(1) In the entrance to the former of these—to clear the way and, as it were, to make silence, to have the true testimonies concerning the dignity of learning to be better heard, without the interruption of tacit objections—I think good to deliver it from the d...
Dedication to King James the First
To the King. There were under the law, excellent King, both daily sacrifices and freewill offerings; the one proceeding upon ordinary observance, the other upon a devout cheerfulness: in like manner there belongeth to kings from their servants both tribute of...
2. Answer to an Insisting Friend
YOU ask for items, details of my early life—of genealogy and parentage, particularly of the women of my ancestry, and of its far back Netherlands stock on the maternal side—of the region where I was born and raised, and my father and mother before me, and thei...
1. A Happy Hour’s Command
DOWN in the Woods, July 2d, 1882.—If I do it at all I must delay no longer. Incongruous and full of skips and jumps as is that huddle of diary-jottings, war-memoranda of 1862–’65, Nature-notes of 1877–’81, with Western and Canadian observations afterwards, all...
Recapitulation and Conclusion
As this whole volume is one long argument, it may be convenient to the reader to have the leading facts and inferences briefly recapitulated. That many and serious objections may be advanced against the theory of descent with modification through variation an...
Summary.
In this chapter I have attempted to show that the arrangement of all organic beings throughout all time in groups under groups — that the nature of the relationships by which all living and extinct organisms are united by complex, radiating, and circuitous lin...
Rudimentary, Atrophied, and Aborted Organs.
Organs or parts in this strange condition, bearing the plain stamp of inutility, are extremely common, or even general, throughout nature. It would be impossible to name one of the higher animals in which some part or other is not in a rudimentary condition. I...
III. Ecclesiastical History
(1) History ecclesiastical receiveth the same divisions with history civil: but further in the propriety thereof may be divided into the history of the Church, by a general name; history of prophecy; and history of providence. The first describeth the times o...