As well might it be said that, because we are ignorant of the laws by which metals are produced and trees developed, we cannot know anything of the origin of steamships and railways.
But I think that a little consideration will show you that belief is quite independent of our will, and our common expressions show it.
But naturalists are now beginning to look beyond this, and to see that there must be some other principle regulating the infinitely varied forms of animal life.
Civilisation has ever accompanied emigration and conquest - the conflict of opinion, of religion, or of race.
I am decidedly of the opinion that in very many instances we can trace such a necessary connexion, especially among birds, and often with more complete success than in the case which I have here attempted to explain.
I am thankful I can see much to admire in all religions.
I have since wandered among men of many races and many religions.
I have studied man and nature in all its aspects, and I have sought after truth.
I hold with Henry George, that at the back of every great social evil will be found a great political wrong.
I spent, as you know, a year and a half in a clergyman's family and heard almost every Tuesday the very best, most earnest and most impressive preacher it has ever been my fortune to meet with, but it produced no effect whatever on my mind.
I survey the soft brown mud between us, look anxiously for some root to set my foot on, and then cautiously advance towards him: one more step and I have him, but alas! My foot slips off the root, down I go into the bog and the treasure escapes, perhaps a species I may never obtain again.
I then walk off into the swamp along the path of logs and tree-trunks, picking my way cautiously, now glancing right and left on the foliage, and then surveying carefully the surface of the smooth round log I am walking on.
If this is not done, future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations.
In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found.
In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death.
It has been generally the custom of writers on natural history to take the habits and instincts of animals as the fixed point, and to consider their structure and organization as specially adapted to be in accordance with them..
Modification of form is admitted to be a matter of time.
Nature seems to have taken every precaution that these, her choicest treasures, may not lose value by being too easily obtained.
On the spiritual theory, man consists essentially of a spiritual nature or mind intimately associated with a spiritual body or soul, both of which are developed in and by means of a material organism.
The Durian grows on a large and lofty forest-tree, something resembling an Elm in character, but with a more smooth and scaly bark.
The foregoing considerations lead us to the very important conclusion, that matter is essentially force, and nothing but force; that matter, as popularly understood, does not exist, and is, in fact, philosophically inconceivable.
The morning is fine, and thus equipped I first walk to some dead trees close to the house frequented by Buprestidae.
There is a tendency in nature to the continued progression of certain classes of varieties further and further from the original type.
There is no escape from this dilemma - either all matter is conscious, or consciousness is something distinct from matter, and in the latter case, its presence in material forms is a proof of the existence of conscious beings, outside of, and independent of, what we term matter.
There is, I conceive, no contradiction in believing that mind is at once the cause of matter and of the development of individualised human minds through the agency of matter.
To expect the world to receive a new truth, or even an old truth, without challenging it, is to look for one of those miracles which do not occur.
To say that mind is a product or function of protoplasm, or of its molecular changes, is to use words to which we can attach no clear conception.
To the mass of mankind religion of some kind is a necessity.
Truth is born into this world only with pangs and tribulations, and every fresh truth is received unwillingly.
What birds can have their bills more peculiarly formed than the ibis, the spoonbill, and the heron?
What we need are not prohibitory marriage laws, but a reformed society, an educated public opinion which will teach individual duty in these matters.
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