United States or Kuwait ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It had led, by its own logical development, to the more far-reaching theory of "mutual inclusion" that is, the doctrine that, as all living organisms are pre-formed, they must of necessity all have existed from the Creation, the one included, or wrapped up, in the other. All humanity must have lain in the ovaries of Eve.
Pitt and Fox completely answered my pre-formed ideas of them. The elegance and high finish of Pitt's periods, even in the most sudden replies, is curious, but that is all. He argues but so so, and does not reason at all. Nothing is rememberable of what he says. Fox possesses all the full and overflowing eloquence of a man of clear head, clear heart, and impetuous feelings.
Such was the state of thought when in 1759 K. F. Wolff published some of his studies in the work Theoria generationis, where he maintained, on the strength of experiments and microscopic observations made on the embryos of fowls, that new organisms are not pre-formed, but that they create themselves entirely, starting from nothing that is, from a microscopic cell, simple as are all primitive cells.
On the contrary, in this lake ore, as it is called, we have an excellent illustration of what is called concretionary action that is, the tendency of matter when in a fine state of division to aggregate its particles into masses about some central nucleus, which may be a fragment of sunken wood, a grain of sand, or indeed a pre-formed small mass of itself."
And it is easy to perceive that his error arose from his pre-formed belief in special creation. So long as a man regards every living organism which he sees as the lineal descendant of a precisely similar organism originally struck out by the immediate fiat of Deity, so long is he justified in holding his axiom, "Contrivance must have had a contriver."
Ascending a flight of steps to the wide terrace, all of whitest marble, upon which the Taj is raised, we realised that the detail of carving and of inlay was as perfect as the general effect of the whole. High as my expectations had been raised, I was not disappointed in the Taj, and that is saying much, for one's pre-formed ideas are apt to soar beyond bounds and to suffer the fate of Icarus.
I do not say that Paley committed this error expressly, but merely that if it had not been for his pre-formed conviction as to the truth of the special-creation theory, he would probably not have written his "Natural Theology." Thus let us take a case of his own choosing, and the one which is adduced by him as typical of "the application of the argument."
If authority supplement rather than supersede good motives, the child will so love authority as to overcome your reluctance to apply it directly, and as a final result will choose the state and act you have pre-formed in its slowly-widening margin of freedom, and will be all the less liable to undue subservience to priest or boss, or fashion or tradition later, as obedience gives place to normal, manly independence.
Think with a clear head, not with any pre-formed judgment, with a heart emptied of all but a willingness to read his meaning aright, be that meaning to shatter your hopes or to give bountifully your desire with a sincere and abiding determination to take it, come what may, and you will understand as plainly as you are understanding me. Try it and see. I have tried and I know.
'Why all these things change from their ordinance, Their natures, and pre-formed faculties, To monstrous quality. 'There's something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out! And what we want in practical philosophy when it comes to this, is a new kind of enchantments, with capacities large enough to swallow up these, as the rod of Moses swallowed up the rods of the Egyptians.
Word Of The Day