John Gerard - The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer

Lesson of Evolution , p. 14.

Darwin and after Darwin , p. 17.

Riddle of the Universe , p. 64.

Über die Grenzen der Naturerkennens: Die Sieben Welträthsel , Leipzic, 1882.

Riddle of the Universe , p. 64.

Du Bois-Reymond does not say that they are soluble, but only that he cannot pronounce them "transcendental."

Samuel Laing, Modern Science and Modern Thought , Cheap Edition, p. 19.

Riddle of the Universe , p. 86.

Ibid.

P. 78.

P. 64.

Origin of the Laws of Nature , p. 23.

Belfast Address , 1874.

Lay Sermons. "On the Physical Basis of Life," p. 143.

Professor Tait, Properties of Matter , § 108.

Contemporary Review , January, 1878, p. 301.

Story of Creation , p. 11.

Edinburgh Review , October, 1903, p. 399.

Or "primal stuff." This looks remarkably like the old Materia Prima of the Schoolmen translated into Greek.

Ibid. The Revelations of Radium.

Ibid. , p. 398.

{ Note. – It is often assumed that the composite character of the atom – if fully established – must upset the Atomic Theory. This is not so; all that the new hypothesis does is to go further back in accounting for the Atomic Theory, and for all practical purposes things remain exactly as they were; except, indeed, that the dissolution of matter does away with what was held as one of the most assured conclusions of science.}

The Nebular Hypothesis itself is, of course, far from being an established certainty, and is not devoid of grave difficulties. Into these, however, it is not necessary now to enter.

Apud Gaynor, The New Materialism , p. 83.

Encyclopaedia Britannica , "Biology."

Apud Gaynor, p. 84.

Professor Marsh.

Professor Dewar at Belfast, 1902.

Recent Advances in Physical Science , 3rd Edition, p. 6.

Gaynor, p. 102.

Lay Sermons , p. 18.

Critiques and Addresses , p. 305.

Being the year in which this passage was written.

Viz. that of the derivation of life from life alone, as opposed to Abiogenesis , or its production from lifeless matter.

See Fragments of Science , "Spontaneous Generation," for a full account.

March 18, 1863. Life and Letters , i. 352.

April 30, 1870. Ibid. ii. 17.

Critiques and Addresses , p. 238.

Lay Sermons , p. 18.

Evolution and the Origin of Life , 1874, p. 23.

Encyclopaedia Britannica , "Biology."

Fragments of Science. "Rev. James Martineau and Belfast Address."

Ibid. "Scientific use of the imagination."

Fragments of Science , "Spontaneous Generation."

Ibid. "Rev. James Martineau and Belfast Address."

Ibid. "Vitality."

Nineteenth Century , May, 1886, p. 769.

Italics mine.

It has been established by Pasteur and others that the highest temperature at which organic life is possible is 45° Centigrade (113° Fahrenheit ). When the globe had cooled to this point from its primitive molten condition, the epoch of terrestrial life commenced.

According to what is perhaps the latest theory, that of M. Quinton, the temperature immediately below this, 44° Centigrade , remains always the best for living things, and those creatures are highest in the scale of life, and consequently the most developed, which have contrived means of keeping their internal heat at, or about, this level, despite the refrigeration of their surroundings. In their blood-heat M. Quinton therefore finds an absolute rule for fixing the relative rank of organic forms, and the date of their appearance; those whose blood is warmest being the most recently evolved. The results of this new system are sufficiently startling. Birds are to be classed as the highest and newest of all; while man, with the other Primates , has to take a much lower place, the ungulates, including the horse and donkey, and the carnivora, as dogs and cats, being his superiors. ( La Revue des Idées , January 15, 1904, pp. 29 seq.)

To D. Mackintosh, February 28, 1882.

To Sir J. D. Hooker, March 29, 1863.

To V. Carus, November 21, 1866.

To D. Mackintosh, February 28, 1882.

Riddle of the Universe , p. 6.

As regards Protoplasm , p. 21.

Encyclopaedia Britannica , "Biology."

Printed in Lay Sermons .

Nature , June 5, 1902, p. 121.

Id. ibid.

Op. cit. p. 27.

Presidential Address , British Association, 1887.

Les Emules de Darwin , ii. 66.

Op. cit. ii. 63.

Darwinism , p. 474.

The other stages presenting similar difficulties are the 5th and 6th of Du Bois-Reymond's Enigmas, viz. the introduction of sensation or consciousness (animal life), and of rational thought and speech.

Contemporary Review , January, 1878, p. 298.

Die sieben Welträthsel , D. 82.

Professor Huxley, it must be remarked, speaks of Homer as a "half savage Greek" ( Lay Sermons , p. 12), and intimates a mild wonder that such a being could share our feelings in presence of nature to so large an extent as his poems testify. This is undoubtedly a fine example of the good conceit of ourselves which the pursuit of science is rather apt to produce.