Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- Contents
- Illustrations
- I Nature and Tradition
- II The Natural and Superstition
- III Life in Little
- IV The Wisdom of the Body
- V Earth's Reshuffling
- VI A Whole Presupposed of its Parts
- VII The Brain and its Work
- VIII The Organ of Liaison
- IX Brain Collaborates with Psyche
- X Earth's Alchemy
- XI Two Ways of one Mind
- XII Conflict with Nature
- Index
IV - The Wisdom of the Body
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- Contents
- Illustrations
- I Nature and Tradition
- II The Natural and Superstition
- III Life in Little
- IV The Wisdom of the Body
- V Earth's Reshuffling
- VI A Whole Presupposed of its Parts
- VII The Brain and its Work
- VIII The Organ of Liaison
- IX Brain Collaborates with Psyche
- X Earth's Alchemy
- XI Two Ways of one Mind
- XII Conflict with Nature
- Index
Summary
Or a giggle at a Wonder.
Keats.Anatomise the eye: survey its structure and contrivance; and tell me, from your own feeling, if the idea of a contriver does not immediately flow in upon you with a force like that of a sensation.
Hume'sDialogues concerning Natural Religion, Edit. Kemp Smith, p. 191.I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over.
Charles Darwin.L'admiration est toujours une fatigue pour l'espèce bumaine.
Le Bal de Sceaux.We dismiss wonder commonly with childhood. Much later, when life's pace has slackened, wonder may return. The mind then may find so much inviting wonder the whole world becomes wonderful. Then one thing is scarcely more wonderful than is another. But, greatest wonder, our wonder soon lapses. A rainbow every morning who would pause to look at? The wonderful which comes often or is plentifully about us is soon taken for granted. That is practical enough. It allows us to get on with life. But it may stultify if it cannot on occasion be thrown off. To recapture now and then childhood's wonder, is to secure a driving force for occasional grown-up thoughts. Among the workings of this planet, there is a tour deforce, if such term befits the workings of a planet. Wonder is the mood in which I would ask to approach it for the moment.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Man on his Nature , pp. 103 - 136Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009