“It is conceivable that animal life might have the attribute of using the heat of surrounding matter, at its natural temperature, as a source of energy for mechanical effect.... The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific enquiry hitherto entered on. Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demonstrated daily miracle of our human free-will, and in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely different from any possible result of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms.”

—  William Thomson

As quoted in The Life of Lord Kelvin (1910), by Silvanus Phillips, Volume 2, (2005 edition, . p. 1093)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is conceivable that animal life might have the attribute of using the heat of surrounding matter, at its natural tem…" by William Thomson?
William Thomson photo
William Thomson 18
British physicist and engineer 1824–1907

Related quotes

William Thomson photo

“It is impossible by means of inanimate material agency, to derive mechanical effect from any portion of matter by cooling it below the temperature of the coldest of the surrounding objects. [Footnote: ] If this axiom be denied for all temperatures, it would have to be admitted that a self-acting machine might be set to work and produce mechanical effect by cooling the sea or earth, with no limit but the total loss of heat from the earth and sea, or in reality, from the whole material world.”

William Thomson (1824–1907) British physicist and engineer

Mathematical and Physical Papers, Vol.1 http://books.google.com/books?id=nWMSAAAAIAAJ p. 179 (1882) "On the Dynamical Theory of Heat with Numerical Results Deduced from Mr Joule's Equivalent of a Thermal Unit and M. Regnault's Observations on Steam" originally from Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, March, 1851 and Philosophical Magazine iv, 1852
Thermodynamics quotes

Justus von Liebig photo

“Chemistry, in its application to animals and vegetables. Endeavours jointly with physiology to enlighten us respecting the mysterious processes and sources of organic life.”

Justus von Liebig (1803–1873) German chemist

Familiar Letters on Chemistry (London, 1854).

Marie François Xavier Bichat photo

“One might almost say that the plant is the framework, the foundation of the animal, and that to form the animal it sufficed to cover this foundation with a system of organs fitted to establish relations consists forms with the world outside. It follows of the succession substance of the animal form two quite distinct classes. One class in a continual into its own assimilation molecules that the functions and of excretion; through these functions the animal incessantly transsurrounding bodies, later to reject these molecules when they have become heterogeneous to it. Through this first class of functions the animal exists only within itself; through the other class it exists outside; it is an inhabitant of the world, and not, like the plant, of the place which saw its birth. The animal feels and perceives its surroundings, reflects its sensations, moves of its own will under their influence, and, as a rule, can communicate by its voice its desires and its fears, its pleasures or its pains. I call organic life the sum of the functions of the former class, for all organised creatures, plants or animals, possess them to a more or less marked degree, and organised structure is the sole condition necessary to their exercise. The combined functions of the second class form the ' animal' life named because it is the exclusive attribute of the animal kingdom.”

Marie François Xavier Bichat (1771–1802) French anatomist and physiologist

Original: (fr) On dirait que le végétal est l'ébauche, le canevas de l'animal, et que, pour former ce dernier, il n'a fallu que revêtir ce canevas d'un appareil d'organes extérieurs, propres à établir des relations. Il résulte de là que les fonctions de l'animal forment deux classes très-distinctes. Les unes se composent d'une succession habituelle d'assimilation et d'excrétion ; par elles il transforme sans cesse en sa propre substance les molécules des corps voisins, et rejette ensuite ces molécules, lorsqu'elles lui sont devenues hétérogènes. Il ne vit qu'en lui, par cette classe de fonctions ; par l'autre il existe hors de lui : il est l'habitant du monde, et non, comme le végétal, du lieu qui le vit naître. Il sent et aperçoit ce qui l'entoure, réfléchit ses sensations, se meut volontairement d'après leur influenc, et le plus souvent peut communiquer par la voix, ses désirs et ses craintes, ses plaisirs ou ses peines. J'appelle vie organique l'ensemble des fonctions de la première classe, parce que tous les êtres organisés, végétaux ou animaux, en jouissent à un degré plus ou moins marqué, et que la texture organique est la seule condition nécessaire à son exercice. Les fonctions réunies de la seconde classe forment la vie animale, ainsi nommée, parce qu'elle est l'attribut exclusif du règne animal. Recherches Physiologiques sur la Vie et la Mort (1800) Translation: [Russell, E. S., Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology, 1916, London, 28,

https://archive.org/details/formfunctioncont00russ/page/n5/mode/2up]

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Xavier Bichat / Quotes

Thomas Aquinas photo

“I answer that, It was necessary for woman to be made, as the Scripture says, as a "helper" to man; not, indeed, as a helpmate in other works, as some say, since man can be more efficiently helped by another man in other works; but as a helper in the work of generation. This can be made clear if we observe the mode of generation carried out in various living things. Some living things do not possess in themselves the power of generation, but are generated by some other specific agent, such as some plants and animals by the influence of the heavenly bodies, from some fitting matter and not from seed: others possess the active and passive generative power together; as we see in plants which are generated from seed; for the noblest vital function in plants is generation. Wherefore we observe that in these the active power of generation invariably accompanies the passive power. Among perfect animals the active power of generation belongs to the male sex, and the passive power to the female. And as among animals there is a vital operation nobler than generation, to which their life is principally directed; therefore the male sex is not found in continual union with the female in perfect animals, but only at the time of coition; so that we may consider that by this means the male and female are one, as in plants they are always united; although in some cases one of them preponderates, and in some the other. But man is yet further ordered to a still nobler vital action, and that is intellectual operation. Therefore there was greater reason for the distinction of these two forces in man; so that the female should be produced separately from the male; although they are carnally united for generation. Therefore directly after the formation of woman, it was said: "And they shall be two in one flesh"”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

Gn. 2:24
I, q. 92, art. 1 (Whether the Woman should have been made in the first production of things?)
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

Johann Heinrich Lambert photo

“We will found our hypothesis in the general laws of motion, whose effects are every where the same, and whose influence extends to the utmost limits of matter.”

Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777) German mathematician, physicist and astronomer

The System of the World (1800)

Herbert Marcuse photo

“Can the human appropriation of nature ever achieve the elimination of violence, cruelty, and brutality in the daily sacrifice of animal life for the physical reproduction of the human race? To treat nature "for its own sake" sounds good, but it is certainly not for the sake of the animal to be eaten, nor probably for the sake of the plant. The end of this war, the perfect peace in the animal world — this idea belongs to the Orphic myth, not to any conceivable historical reality. In the face of the suffering inflicted by man on man, it seems terribly "premature" to campaign for universal vegetarianism or synthetic foodstuffs; as the world is, priority must be on human solidarity among human beings. And yet, no free society is imaginable which does not, under its "regulative idea of reason," make the concerted effort to reduce consistently the suffering which man imposes on the animal world.”

Herbert Marcuse book Counterrevolution and Revolt

Source: Counterrevolution and Revolt (1972), Chapter "Nature and Revolution," in The Essential Marcuse: Selected Writings of Philosopher and Social Critic Herbert Marcuse, edited by Andrew Feenberg and ‎William Leiss, Beacon Press, 2007, pp. 240 https://books.google.it/books?id=JqoyBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA240-241

William John Macquorn Rankine photo

“Science Of Energetics. Although the mechanical hypothesis just mentioned may be useful and interesting as a means of anticipating laws, and connecting the science of thermodynamics with that of ordinary mechanics, still it is to be remembered that the science of thermodynamics is by no means dependent for its certainty on that or any other hypothesis, having been now reduced, to a system of principles, or general facts, expressing strictly the results of experiment as to the relations between heat and motive power. In this point of view the laws of thermodynamics may be regarded as particular cases of more general laws, applicable to all such states of matter as constitute Energy, or the capacity to perform work, which more general laws form the basis of the science of energetics, — a science comprehending, as special branches, the theories of motion, heat, light, electricity, and all other physical phenomena.”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

Source: A Manual of the Steam Engine and Other Prime Movers (1859), p. 31

Robert Grosseteste photo

“I hold that the first form of a body is the first corporeal mover. But this is light, which as it multiplies itself and expands without the body of matter moving with it, makes its passage instantaneously through the transparent medium and is not motion but a state of change. But, indeed, when light is expanding itself in different directions it is incorporated with matter, if the body of matter extends with it, and it makes a rarefaction or augmentation of matter; for when light is itself charged with the body of matter, it produces condensation or rarefaction. So when light generates itself in one direction drawing matter with it, it produces local motion; and when light within matter is sent out and what is outside is sent in, it produces qualitative change. From this it is clear that corporeal motion is a multiplicative power of light, and this is a corporeal and natural appetite.”

Robert Grosseteste (1175–1253) English bishop and philosopher

see De Luce Tr. Ludwig Baur (1912) pp. 51-52
De Luce seu de Inchoatione Formarum (c. 1215-1220)

Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo

“What, then, is the animal? First of all, a system of plant-souls. The unity of those plant-souls, which unity nature itself produces, is the soul of the animal. Its world is therefore partly that of the plants — its nourishment, for instance, it receives partly through synthesis from vegetable, and through analysis from animal nature — and partly that of the animals, whereof we shall speak directly. Each product of nature is an organically in-itself completed totality in space, like the plant. Hence, the unknown x which we are looking for must also be such a whole or totality, and in so far it must also have a principle of organization, a sphere and central point of this organization; in short, the same which we have called the soul of the plant, which thus remains common to both. … The animal is a system of plant-souls, and the plant is a separated, isolated part of an animal. Both reciprocally affect each other.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 502, 503, 504

Charles Babbage photo

“If we define a miracle as an effect of which the cause is unknown to us, then we make our ignorance the source of miracles! and the universe itself would be a standing miracle. A miracle might be perhaps defined more exactly as an effect which is not the consequence or effect of any known laws of nature.”

Charles Babbage Passages from the life of a philosopher

"Passages from the life of a philosopher", Appendix, p. 489
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864)

Related topics