Quotations Flashcards
The author of Nature has not given laws to the universe, which like the institutions of men, carry in themselves the elements of their own destruction. He has not permitted, in his works, any symptom of infancy or of old age, any sign by which we may estimate either their future or their past duration.
Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (119)
Playfair, 1802
Playfair is talking Hutton’s work; the world machine. Once the wheel’s of the world are set in motion they cannot stop, as each stage starts the next.
We think him a better artist that makes a clock that strikes regularly at every hour from the springs and wheels which he puts in the work, than that he hath so made his clock that he must put his finger to it every hour to make it strike: and if one should contrive a piece of clock-work so that it should beat all the hours, and make all its motions regularly for such a time, and that time being come, upon a signal given, or a spring touched, it should of it own accord fall to pieces; would not this be looked upon as a piece of greater art, than if the workman came at that time prefixed, and with a great hammer beat it into pieces?
Burnet 1684 — The Sacred Theory of the Earth
He’s explaining how God made it right the first time.
The uniformity of natural law in space and time.
First, that in the successive groups of strata, from the oldest to the most recent, there is a progressive development of organic life, from the simplest to the most complicated forms; — secondly, that man is of comparatively recent origin
Lyell, Principles of Geology
Trying to defend his theory vs fossil record. He calls this statement baseless.
Then might those genera of animals return, of which the memorials are preserved in the ancient rock of our continents. The huge iguanodon might reappear in the woods, and the ichthyosaur in the sea, while the pterodactyl might flit again through umbrageous groves of tree-ferns
Lyell, Principles of Geology
Defending theory vs fossil record. Life follows climates, and climates will reverse one day bringing back oldies.
The lands once dry have been re-inundated several times, whether by invasions of the sea or by transient floods; and it is further apparent to whoever studies the regions liberated by the water in its last retreat, that these areas, now inhabited by men and land animals, had already been above the surface at least once — possibly several times — and that they had formerly sustained quadrupeds, birds, plants, and terrestrial productions of all types. The sea, therefore, has now departed from lands which it had previously invaded. The changes in the height of the waters did not consist simply of a more or less gradual and universal retreat. There were successive uprisings and withdrawals of which, however, the final result was a general subsidence of the sea level.
But it is also extremely important to notice that these repeated inroads and retreats were by no means gradual. On the contrary, the majority of the cataclysms that produced them were sudden, This is particularly easy to demonstrate for the last one which by a double movement first engulfed and then exposed our present continents, or at least a great part of the ground which forms them. It also left in northern countries the bodies of great quadrupeds, encased in ice and preserved with their skin, hair, and flesh down to our own times. If they had not been frozen as soon as killed, putrefaction would have decomposed the carcasses. And, on the other hand, this continual frost did not previously occupy the places whether the animals were seized by the ice, for they could not have existed in such a temperature. The animals were killed, therefore, at the same instant when glacial conditions overwhelmed the countries they inhabited. This development was sudden, not gradual, and what is so clearly demonstrable for the last catastrophe is not less true of those which preceded it. The dislocations, shiftings, and overturnings of the older strata leave no doubt that sudden and violent causes produced the formations we observe, and similarly the violence of the movements which the seas went through is still attested by the accumulations of debris and of rounded pebbles which in many places lie between solid beds of rocks. Life in those times was often disturbed by these frightful events. Numberless living things were victims of such catastrophes: some, inhabitants of the dry land, were engulfed in deluges; others, living in the heart of the seas, were left stranded when the ocean floor was suddenly raised up again; and whole races were destroyed forever, leaving only a few relics which the naturalist can scarcely recognize.
Cuvier, Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles (1812)
->Research on fossil bones
TLDR catastrophism (though he never called it himself)
There are many parts of the Earth’s surface to which we have never penetrated, many others that men capable of observing have merely passed through, and many others again, like the various parts of the sea-bottom, in which we have few means of discovering the animals living there. The species that we do not know might well remain hidden in these various places.
Lamarck, Zoological Philosophy 1914
Explaining how extinction could be a lie, they’re just on Skull Island or something.
every change that is wrought in an organ through a habit of frequently using it, is subsequently preserved by reproduction, if it is common to the individuals who unite together in fertilization for the propagation of their species. Such a change is thus handed on to all succeeding individuals in the same environment, without their having to acquire it in the same way that it was actually created
Lamarck, Zoological Philosophy 1914: 124
Commenting on acquired characteristics (they never provide a mechanism).
e.g. Giraffe neck
For nothing is created in the operations either of art or of nature, and it can be taken as an axiom that in every operation an equal quantity of matter exists both before and after the operation, that the quality and quantity of the principles remain the same and that only changes and modifications occur. The whole art of making experiments in chemistry is founded on this principle: we must always suppose an exact equality of equation between the principles of the body examined and those of the products of its analysis.
Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry
He was the first to push a “CoM”
Linnaeus Book?
Natural System
Burnet Book?
Sacred Theory of the Earth
Lamarck book?
Zoological Philosophy (directed variation)
Lyell ?
Principles of Geology
Cuvier ?
Essay on the Theory of the Earth
Priestley ?
Experiments and Observations on different kinds of air
Lavoisier?
Elements of Chemistry
