Contents Note Introduction By Marcus Hartog, M.A. , D.Sc. , F.L.S. , F.R.H.S. Author's Preface Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Footnotes
By Samuel Butler Author of “Life and Habit,” “Erewhon,” “The Way of All Flesh,” etc. New Edition, entirely reset, with an Introduction by Marcus Hartog, M.A., D.SC., F.L.S., F.R.H.S., Pro- fessor of Zoology in University College, Cork. Op. 5 London A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford’s Inn, E.C. 1910 “As this paper contains nothing which deserves the name either of experiment or discovery, and as it is, in fact, destitute of every species of merit, we should have allowed it to pass among the multitude of those articles which must always find their way into the collections of a society which is pledged to publish two or three volumes every year. . . . We wish to raise our feeble voice against innovations, that can have no other effect than to check the progress of science, and renew all those wild phantoms of the imagination which Bacon and Newton put to flight from her temple.”—Opening Paragraph of a Review of Dr. Young’s Bakerian Lecture. Edinburgh Review, January 1803, p. 450. “Young’s work was laid before the Royal society, and was made the 1801 Bakerian Lecture. But he was before his time. The second number of the Edinburgh Review contained an article levelled against him by Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham, and this was so severe an attack that Young’s ideas were absolutely quenched for fifteen years. Brougham was then only twenty-four years of age. Young’s theory was reproduced in France by Fresnel. In our days it is the accepted theory, and is found to explain all the phenomena of light.”—Times Report of a Lecture by Professor Tyndall on Light, April 27, 1880. This Book Is inscribed to Richard Garnett, Esq. (Of the British Museum) In grateful acknowledgment of the unwearying kindness with which he has so often placed at my disposal his varied store of information.
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