As for Waldo, he died as the mist rises from the brook, which the sun will soon dart his rays through. Do not the flowers die ever...y autumn? He had not even taken root here. I was not startled to hear that he was dead; it seemed the most natural event that could happen. His fine organization demanded it, and nature gently yielded its request. It would have been strange if he had lived. Neither will nature manifest any sorrow at his death, but soon the note of the lark will be heard down in the meadow, and fresh dandelions will spring from the old stocks where he plucked them last summer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The frequency of personal questions grows in direct proportion to your increasing girth. . . . No one would ask a man such a perso...nally invasive question as "Is your wife having natural childbirth or is she planning to be knocked out?" But someone might ask that of you. No matter how much you wish for privacy, your pregnancy is a public event to which everyone feels invited.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Fate then is that necessity by which a certain result will surely be brought to pass according to the natural course of events how...ever we may vary the particular circumstances which precede the event.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Soon after John's death I listened to a music-box, and if, at any time, that event had seemed inconsistent with the beauty and har...mony of the universe, it was then gently constrained into the placid course of nature by those steady notes, in mild and unoffended tone echoing far and wide under the heavens. But I find these things more strange than sad to me. What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder? We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any pure grief is ample recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful; for a great grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as natural as the resin on Arabian trees. Only Nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful if he is not.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For my own part, I commonly attend more to nature than to man, but any affecting human event may blind our eyes to natural objects.... I was so absorbed in him as to be surprised whenever I detected the routine of the natural world surviving still, or met persons going about their affairs indifferent.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Let us say, then, that both the realist and the antirealist accept the results of scientific investigations as "true," on a par wi...th more homely truths.... And call this acceptance of scientific truths the "core position." What distinguishes realists from antirealists, then, is what they add onto this core position ... a third alternative emerges--and an attractive one at that. It is the core position itself, and all by itself.... Let me introduce the acronym NOA (pronounced as in "Noah"), for natural ontological attitude, and, henceforth, refer to the core position under that designation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Science is the knowledge of many, orderly and methodically digested and arranged, so as to become attainable by one. The ...>knowledge of reasons and their conclusions constitutes abstract, that of causes and their effects, and of the laws of nature, natural science.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The whole of natural theology ... resolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous proposition, That the cause or causes... of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I shall venture to affirm, that there never was a popular religion, which represented the state of departed souls in such a light,... as would render it eligible for human kind, that there should be such a state. These fine models of religion are the mere product of philosophy. For as death lies between the eye and the prospect of futurity, that event is so shocking to nature, that it must throw a gloom on all the regions which lie beyond it; and suggest to the generality of mankind the idea of Cerberus and Furies; devils, and torrents of fire and brimstone.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »