William Whewell - Mind Quotes

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By speaking of space as an Idea, I intend to imply... that the apprehension of objects as existing in space, and of the relations of position, &c., prevailing among them, is not a consequence of experience, but a result of a peculiar constitution and activity of the mind, which is independent of all experience in its origin, though constantly combined with experience in its exercise.

William Whewell
According to the technical language of old writers, a thing and its qualities are described as subject and attributes; and thus a man's faculties and acts are attributes of which he is the subject. The mind is the subject in which ideas inhere. Moreover, the man's faculties and acts are employed upon external objects; and from objects all his sensations arise. Hence the part of a man's knowledge which belongs to his own mind, is subjective: that which flows in upon him from the world external to him, is objective.

William Whewell
Advances in knowledge are not commonly made without the previous exercise of some boldness and license in guessing. The discovery of new truths requires, undoubtedly, minds careful and fertile in examining what is suggested; but it requires, no less, such as are quick and fertile in suggesting.

William Whewell
How impossible the formation of these sciences [mechanics, optics, physiology and chemistry], without a constant and careful reference to observation and experiment; - how rapid and prosperous their progress may be when they draw from such sources the materials on which the mind of the philosopher employs itself.

William Whewell
No scientific discovery can, with anyjustice, be considered due to accident. In whatever manner facts may be presented to the notice of a discoverer, they can never become the materials of exact knowledge, except they find his mind already provided with precise and suitable conceptions by which they may be analyzed and connected.

William Whewell
True knowledge is the interpretation of nature; and therefore it requires both the interpreting mind, and nature for its subject; both the document, and the ingenuity to read it aright.

William Whewell
Newton's theory [of gravitation] is the circle of generalization which includes all the others [as Kepler's laws, Ptolemy's theory, etc.]; - the highest point of the inductive ascent; - the catastrophe of the philosophic drama to which Plato had prologized; - the point to which men's minds had been journeying for two thousand years.

William Whewell
The cultivation of ideas is to be conducted as having for its object the connexion of facts; never to be pursued as a mere exercise of the subtilty of the mind, striving to build up a world of its own, and neglecting that which exists about us.

William Whewell