Abstract
EVERY phenomenan which a human being can perceive may be traced by scientific investigation to motions going on in the world around him. This is obvious to every scientific man in regard to such phenomena as those of colour and sound, and these simpler cases were first adduced by the lecturer. He then pointed out that the statement is also true of all other material phenomena, and be specially dwelt on the phenomena investigated in the science of mechanics, showing that all the quantities treated of in that science, such as force and mass, prove, when the investigation is pushed far enough, to be expressible in terms of mere motion. He also showed that the prevalent conviction that motion cannot exist unless there is some “thing” to move will not stand examination. It proves to be a fallacious conviction traceable to the limited character of the experience of motions which we and our ancestry from the first dawn of organised thought on the earth have had within reach of our senses. This conviction accordingly has no authority with respect to molecular motions and to some others that have been brought to light by scientific study. He also showed that the “thing” which in common experience moves, proves in every case to be nothing else than these underlying molecular motions, the transference of which from place to place is the only kind of motion which common experience can reach, when unassisted by science.
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How Thought Presents Itself Among the Phenomena of Nature 1 . Nature 31, 422 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/031422a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/031422a0