Author: HOUGHTON, FREDERICK.
Title: The Voice Of Nature.
Description: First Edition; pp. xvi, 256; frontispiece; numerous b/w illustrations; original brown cloth; cloth worn and faded, page edges flecked, pages foxed, a good copy. Melbourne, Rae Brothers, 1888. Includes a J. B. Prentice bookplate. A radical philosophical sceptic, the author questions the value of sensory data, especially sight and sound. Since all sciences depend upon the senses the author turns his attention upon the latter. After examining the nature of light and sound he turns to language, the operation of the mind, and the existence of external reality: the 'apparent forces and general appearances of nature are not actual, but merely a language of the actual'. In no time, and 'by means of a little inferential reasoning, we discover the positive existence of God.'

Keywords: miscellaneous voice nature philosophy sciences geology external internal world chemistry astronomy senses