J. Peter Lesley
Published: 2015-07-02
Total Pages: 456
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Excerpt from Man's Origin and Destiny: Sketched From the Platform of the Physical Sciences Twelve years have elapsed since the appearance of the little book which contains the first ten of the following lectures, and the author still finds people now and then reading it and asking for its republication at a price less unreasonable than that at which the London edition was sold. In the present edition I have expunged the eleventh lecture, on "Arkite Symbolism," as unnecessary; and nave carried out the original intention of the course by adding six new lectures on "The Destiny of Man." The notes appended to the former edition are here omitted, because they were merely indicative of the progress made in various branches of science, touching the history of man, during the two years intervening between the delivery of my lectures and their publication. To continue and complete such an appendix would greatly swell the size of the volume; and yet it would contain nothing but fresh illustrations of the general view presented, without materially modifying the integrity of the text, which is therefore reprinted from the stereotype plates, with only such corrections as were called for by typographical errors. The form of lecture is condemned by critics who admire an essay or memoir conveying the same information and expressing the same opinions in essentially the same language. There is no good reason for this condemnation, except on the score of style; and the essay or memoir must necessarily lack that ardor of feeling and direct insistence of argument which characterize and fortify the lecturer. Besides, I may frankly confess that I have neither time nor strength to spend on the reconstruction of the literary form of matter whose justification must be found in its substance. For seven years, since accepting the direction of the Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, I have laid aside scholarly pursuits, and especially those philological and archaeological studies which, begining in 1834, continued to be the recreations of a busy life till 1874. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."
