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CHAPTER X - FORCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2010

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Summary

We may endeavour to cast a glance on some of the subjects which thus open themselves out before us, and briefly note how the phenomena of the physical world present themselves as a book to be read by the light of our moral and emotional nature. First among these subjects stands Force.

We are familiar enough by our own experience with the idea which this word conveys. We use force whenever we effect any motion of ourselves or other things; we feel it as acting on us when we are moved. Naturally from this basis we extend the idea into the whole series of physical events, and conceive a force as operating in every change which takes place around us. But in this natural idea we are not suffered to remain. It is true we feel force, and cannot but feel it, when we are conscious of exerting ourselves either for action or resistance; but also, almost whenever we are conscious at all, we feel sensations—of pleasure, pain, light, sound, or taste, and so on. Yet, though feeling these, we do not infer the existence of such sensations in nature. They are our own merely; only the child fancies his pleasure or pain to be also in the things that impart it to him. But that which the child does in ascribing his feeling of pain to the insensitive table, we do in ascribing our feeling of force, which is really that of exertion, to the material world.

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Life in Nature , pp. 189 - 195
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009
First published in: 1862

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  • FORCE
  • James Hinton
  • Book: Life in Nature
  • Online publication: 29 August 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511692925.011
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  • FORCE
  • James Hinton
  • Book: Life in Nature
  • Online publication: 29 August 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511692925.011
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • FORCE
  • James Hinton
  • Book: Life in Nature
  • Online publication: 29 August 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511692925.011
Available formats
×