"Natural phenomenon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fact. As the impalpable moisture in the air changes to palpable rain so does this vague cognisance become a comprehensible revelation by being resolved into a shower of words on occasion by some process psychically analogous to the condensation of moisture in the air. It is a natural phenomenon known to babes like Beth, but ill-observed, and not at all explained, because man has gone such a little way beyond the bogey of the supernatural in psychical matters that he is still befogged, and makes up opinions ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
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... distinction between that state of exhaustion which is due to the discharge of nervous energy in response to trauma and that due to other causes. The manner of the discharge of energy is specific for each type of stimulation. On this conception, traumatic shock takes its place as a natural phenomenon and is divested of its mask ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
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... a vitalist. Life, he says,[117] is usually supposed to be a particular being or entity; a sort of principle whose nature is unknown, and which possesses living bodies. This notion he denies as absurd, saying that life is a very natural phenomenon, a physical fact; in truth a little complicated in its principles, but not in any sense a particular or special being ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
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... insisting on the commonplace to remind you, ma'am, that the darkest hour comes before dawn. Yet it is a well-known natural phenomenon." ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
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... word, it frees other minds. Here, using facts as a means, it gives meanings to the hackberry tree, limestone, mockingbird, Inca dove, Mexican primrose, golden eagle, the Davis Mountains, cedar cutters, and many another natural phenomenon. Adventures with a Texas Naturalist is regarded by some good judges as the wisest book in the realm of natural history produced in ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
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... gift from Olympus, then of course History had no scientific basis, but was dependent upon the arbitrary caprices of the Gods, and Homer's Iliad was a specimen of accurate descriptive sociology. If on the other hand the great man was a natural phenomenon, the theory stopped short half way toward its goal, for it gave us no explanation of the genesis of the Great Man nor of the reasons for the superhuman influence ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
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... our enquiry it has, I trust, been made clear that there is another natural phenomenon to which the conception of death and resurrection is as applicable as to sunset and sunrise, and which, as a matter of fact, has been so conceived and represented in folk-custom. That phenomenon is the annual growth and decay of vegetation. A strong reason for ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
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... Manchus. The two most successful leaders of bands were Li Tzu-ch'eng and Chang Hsien-chung. Li came from the province of Shensi; he had come to the fore during a disastrous famine in his country. The years around 1640 brought several widespread droughts in North China, a natural phenomenon that was repeated in the nineteenth century, when unrest again ensued. Chang Hsien-chung returned for a time to the support of the government, but later established himself in western China. It was typical, however, of all these insurgents ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
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... Sturm's "Observations Concerning God's Works in Nature" (Betrachtungen uber die Werke Gottes in der Natur), which he recommended to the priests for wide distribution among the people. He saw the hand of God in even the most insignificant natural phenomenon. God was to him the Supreme Being whom he had jubilantly hymned in the choral portion of the Ninth Symphony in the words of Schiller: "Brothers, beyond you starry canopy there must dwell a loving Father!" Beethoven's relationship to God was that of a child toward his loving father to whom he ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
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... given in all his African journeys,—the Victoria Falls. We have seen how genuine his respect was for his Sovereign, and it was doubtless a real though quiet pleasure to connect her name with the grandest natural phenomenon in Africa, This is one of the discoveries[43] that have taken most hold on the popular imagination, for the Victoria Falls are like a second Niagara, but grander and more astonishing; but except as illustrating his ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
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... of the famous Wetherill brothers and trader at Kayenta, Arizona, is the man who discovered Nonnezoshe, which is probably the most beautiful and wonderful natural phenomenon in the world. Wetherill owes the credit to his wife, who, through her influence with the Indians finally after years succeeded in getting the ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
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... in her Cape Journal,[180] referring to Dessin or Rabbit Island at the Cape of Good Hope, says that it is "dreadfully exposed to the south-east winds. A gentleman told me of a natural phenomenon he had met with when shooting there; his dog pointed at a rabbit's hole, where the company within were placed so near the opening that he could see Mynheer, Madame, and the whole rabbit family. Pompey, encouraged, brought ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
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... Nevertheless, feeling that I had had a good night's rest, and understanding from Pearce that day would dawn in less than half-an-hour's time, I turned out and, slipping into my trousers and jacket, went up on deck. And very glad I was that I had done so, for I was thus enabled to observe a very curious natural phenomenon, which one might knock about in those seas for years without seeing, for the simple reason that the circumstances must be favourable or the ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
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... to these imaginary beings various qualities, but all important to man. They are good or bad, useful or hurtful, weak or powerful, kind or cruel. One remains stupefied before the swarming of these numberless genii whom no natural phenomenon, no act of life, no form of sickness escapes, and these beliefs remain unbroken even among the tribes that are in contact with old civilizations.[53] Primitive man lives and moves among the ceaseless phantoms ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
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... by science, says Bloom. It's only a natural phenomenon, don't you see, because on ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
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... time getting to this 83 deg.!" Being anxious to make up, in some measure, for the drift which the present northerly wind was in all probability occasioning, we rose earlier than usual, and set off at half past four in the evening. At half past five P.M. we saw a very beautiful natural phenomenon. A broad white fog-bow first appeared opposite the sun, as was very commonly the case; presently it became strongly tinged with, the prismatic colours, and soon afterward no less than five other complete ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
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... condition is most frequently a product of maternity, there would seem to be some reasonable degree of justification for the assumption that the wrecked health is the result of a legitimate physiological act, and consequently a natural phenomenon. This is not, however, altogether true. A displacement is not, under any circumstances, a natural process. It is the result of causes which are avoidable. Most of them are the penalties imposed by nature because of the infraction of her laws. We will not consider those causes which have their beginning ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
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... explains, by physical causes, many of the prodigies of antiquity; and Fabricius, who is abused by both parties, vainly tries to introduce the celestial cross of Constantine among the solar halos. Bibliothec. Graec. tom. iv. p. 8-29. * Note: The great difficulty in resolving it into a natural phenomenon, arises from the inscription; even the most heated or awe-struck imagination would hardly discover distinct and legible letters in a solar halo. But the inscription may have been a later embellishment, or an interpretation of the meaning ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
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... unhesitatingly received for centuries, yet which modern critics are not disposed to accept as a miracle, although attested by Eusebius, and confirmed by the emperor himself on oath. Whether some supernatural sign really appeared or not, or whether some natural phenomenon appeared in the heavens in the form of an illuminated Cross, it is not worth while to discuss. We know this, however, that if the greatest religious revolution of antiquity was worthy to be announced by special signs and wonders, it was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
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... of a natural phenomenon, identical with that produced on the moon when she is in her octants, the contour of the terrestrial globe could be traced. Its entire disc appeared slightly visible through an effect of pale light, less appreciable than that of the moon. The reason of this lessened intensity is easy ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
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... Physics have been long accustomed to coalesce, and here they form a single section. No matter how subtle a natural phenomenon may be, whether we observe it in the region of sense, or follow it into that of imagination, it is in the long run reducible to mechanical laws. But the mechanical data once guessed or given, mathematics are all-powerful as an instrument ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
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... sad and edifying history. Your account of your little niece's naive delight in beholding the morning sea for the first time amused and pleased me; it proves she has some sensations—a refreshing circumstance in a day and generation when the natural phenomenon of children wholly destitute of all pretension to the same is by no means an ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
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... it! This monster, this natural phenomenon that had puzzled the learned world, and over thrown and misled the imagination of seamen of both hemispheres, it must be owned was a still more astonishing phenomenon, inasmuch as it was ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
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... 'little Teat'. It occurred on various parts of the body; was said to secrete milk and to give suck to the familiars, both human and animal; and was sometimes cut off by the witch before being searched. The descriptions of the 'teat' point to its being that natural phenomenon, the supernumerary nipple. Cases of polymastia or supernumerary breasts, and of polythelia or supernumerary nipples, are constantly recorded by modern medical observers. 'These accessory structures are usually situated on the chest wall, the upper part of the abdominal wall, or in the axillae, ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
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... "because I am I, I am not anybody else." But let the individual address to himself the question he puts to the universe, let him investigate his own pressing sense of spiritual individuality, just as he investigates any other natural phenomenon, and he will find himself applying that principle of Purpose, and thinking of himself in ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
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... wishes first to know concerning the organization of labor is whether it is a natural phenomenon which should be welcomed and left to itself. Does it help to establish wages on the basis of the productivity of labor, and does it do it without much reducing that productivity? We shall find that it works both well and ill in these particulars ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
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... of that natural phenomenon," answered Donald, somewhat curtly. "But ... Great Scott, can't I describe a fifteen—no, sixteen-year-old little savage, without all you people imagining that I'm going to be such a fool as to fall in ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
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... shower just past, though brief, had been heavy enough to turn a thick layer of white dust into a greasy, grey paste of mud. On our left was a sudden drop into the rushing river, on the right a deep ditch, and the road between was as round-shouldered as a hunchback. Seeing this natural phenomenon, and feeling the slightly uncertain step of our fat tyres as they waddled through the pasty mud, the pleasant smile of the proud motor-proprietor which I had been wearing hardened upon my face. I didn't know ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
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... that works only by general laws was wholly alien to the feelings of the age. Every political event, as well as every natural phenomenon, was believed to be the immediate result of a special mandate of God. This led to the belief that his holy angels and saints were constantly employed in executing his commands and mingling in the affairs of men. The Church encouraged these feelings, and at the same time sanctioned the concurrent ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
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... the unfailing recurrence of day and night and that upon the regularity with which one followed the other all creatures relied, while man depended upon this constancy to carry out any given purpose. From thoughts upon this natural phenomenon and its effects on the actions of men, ideas arose that led the Indian to the conception of truth, that something, as between man and man, that can be depended on both in word and in deed. "Thus," the old men said, "Wakon'da taught us the necessity of truthfulness, ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
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... and terrible to a child of a believing and trustful character. These Oriental bogies do not appear in the dark alone, or only in haunted houses, or at cross- roads, or in gloomy woods. They are everywhere: every man has his own ghost, every place has its peculiar haunting fiend, every natural phenomenon has its informing spirit; every quality, as hunger, greed, envy, malice, has an embodied visible shape prowling about seeking what it may devour. Where our science, for example, sees (or rather smells) ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
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... that the original is well-nigh lost. This was the classical work on the subject in the VIIth century before our era, and the astronomers-royal, to whom applications were accustomed to be made to explain a natural phenomenon or a prodigy, drew their answers ready-made from it. Astronomy, as thus understood, was not merely the queen of sciences, it was the mistress of the world: taught secretly in the temples, its adepts—at least, those who had passed through the regular curriculum of study which it required—became ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
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... small, and walked shabbily. Each man inclined at his own angle, and jolted to his own convenience, as he went. There was nothing of the superb gait with which a regiment of tall Highlanders moves behind its music, solemn and inevitable, like a natural phenomenon. Who that has seen it can forget the drum-major pacing in front, the drummers' tiger-skins, the pipers' swinging plaids, the strange elastic rhythm of the whole regiment footing it in time—and the bang of the drum, when the brasses cease, and the shrill pipes take up ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
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... Ruins of the Chateaux of Montfaucon and Vaite, to be seen on the way. At Baume-les-Daines, visit the ancient Abbey Church, now turned into a public granary, also the valley of the Cuisancin, last, the Glaciere de la Grace-Dieu, a natural phenomenon of great beauty ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
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