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    Nature and the Gods From "The Atheistic Platform", Twelve Lectures
    Nature and the Gods From "The Atheistic Platform", Twelve Lectures
    Nature and the Gods From "The Atheistic Platform", Twelve Lectures
    Ebook44 pages30 minutes

    Nature and the Gods From "The Atheistic Platform", Twelve Lectures

    By Arthur B. Moss

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    Nature and the Gods From "The Atheistic Platform", Twelve Lectures

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      Book preview

      Nature and the Gods From "The Atheistic Platform", Twelve Lectures - Arthur B. Moss

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nature and the Gods, by Arthur B. Moss

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: Nature and the Gods

             From The Atheistic Platform, Twelve Lectures

      Author: Arthur B. Moss

      Release Date: May 29, 2011 [EBook #36271]

      Last Updated: January 25, 2013

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NATURE AND THE GODS ***

      Produced by David Widger

      NATURE AND THE GODS

      From The Atheistic Platform, Twelve Lectures

      By Arthur B. Moss

      London: Freethought Publishing Company

      63, Fleet Street, E.C.

      1884

      NATURE AND THE GODS

      Ladies and Gentlemen,—No word has played a more important part in the discussion of scientific and philosophical questions than the word Nature. Everyone thinks he knows the meaning of it. Yet how few have used it to express the same idea; indeed it has been employed to convey such a variety of impressions that John Stuart Mill asserts that it has been the fruitful source of the propagation of false taste, false philosophy, false morality, and even bad law. Now, I propose in this lecture that we start with some clear ideas concerning the meaning of such words, upon the right understanding of which the whole force of my arguments depends. What, then, is meant by the word Nature? When used by a materialist it has two important meanings. In its large and philosophical sense it means, as Mr. Mill says: The sum of all phenomena, together with the causes which produce them, including not only all that happens, but all that is capable of happening—the unused capabilities of matter being as much a part of the idea of Nature as those which take effect. But the word Nature is often used, and rightly used, to distinguish the natural from the artificial object—that is, to indicate the difference between a thing produced spontaneously by Nature, from a thing wrought by the skill and labor of man.

      But it must not be supposed that the artificial object forms no part of Nature. All art belongs to Nature. Art simply means the adaptation, the moulding into certain forms of the things of Nature, and therefore the artistic productions of man are included in the comprehensive sense of the term Nature which I just now used.

      Now in Nature there is a permanent and a changeable-element, but man only takes cognisance of the changeable or phenomenal element; of the substratum underlying phenomena he knows and

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