As well might it be said that, because we are ignorant of the laws by which metals are produced and trees developed, we cannot know anything of the origin of steamships and railways
Interpretation
Our lack of understanding of natural processes does not prevent us from recognizing and utilizing human inventions.
In this quote, Alfred Russel Wallace highlights the idea that just because we may not fully understand the natural laws governing the creation of materials or living things, it does not mean that we cannot appreciate or comprehend the innovations that arise from them, such as steamships and railways. This reflects a broader theme about the relationship between knowledge, ignorance, and the advancement of technology, emphasizing that human ingenuity can thrive even in the absence of complete understanding of nature.
In practice
This quote can be used in a lecture on the history of technology to illustrate how we advance despite gaps in knowledge.
In less than eight years "The Origin of Species" has produced conviction in the minds of a majority of the most eminent living men of science. New facts, new problems, new difficulties as they arise are accepted, solved, or removed by this theory; and its principles are illustrated by the progress and conclusions of every well established branch of human knowledge.
If this is not done, future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations.
On the spiritual theory, man consists essentially of a spiritual nature or mind intimately associated with a spiritual body or soul, both of which are developed in and by means of a material organism
In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death.
The opinion prevailed among advanced minds that it was time that belief should be replaced increasingly by knowledge; belief that did not itself rest on knowledge was superstition, and as such had to be opposed.
Imagination alone is not enough, because the reality of nature is far more wondrous than anything we can imagine
If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.
I think the rise of quantitative econometrics and a highly mathematical approach to risk management was the obverse of a decline in interest in financial history.
Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world.
Is not Fire a Body heated so hot as to emit Light copiously? For what else is a red hot Iron than Fire? And what else is a burning Coal than red hot Wood?
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