William Whewell - Nature Quotes

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Nature, so far as it is the object of scientific research, is a collection of facts governed by laws: our knowledge of nature is our knowledge of laws.

William Whewell
Man is the interpreter of nature, science the right interpretation.

William Whewell
In truth, we know causes only by their effects; and in order to learn the nature of the causes which modify the earth, we must study them through all ages of their action, and not select arbitrarily the period in which we live as the standard for all other epochs.

William Whewell
The mystery of creation is not within the range of [Nature's] legitimate territory; [Nature] says nothing, but she points upwards.

William Whewell
To predict what has not been observed, is to attempt ourselves to use the legislative phrases of nature; and when she responds plainly and precisely to that which we thus utter, we cannot but suppose that we have in a great measure made ourselves masters of the meaning and structure of her language.

William Whewell
To discover the laws of operative power in material productions, whether formed by man or brought into being by Nature herself, is the work of a science, and is indeed what we more especially term Science.

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
To trace order and law in that which has been observed, may be considered as interpreting what nature has written down for us, and will commonly prove that we understand her alphabet.

William Whewell
There is a mask of theory over the whole face of nature...

William Whewell
Time, inexhaustible and ever accumulating his efficacy, can undoubtedly do much in geology: — but Force, whose limits we cannot measure, and whose nature we cannot fathom, is also a power never to be slighted: and to call in the one to protect us from the other is equally presumptuous to which ever side out superstition leans.

William Whewell
We may best hope to understand the nature and conditions of real knowledge by studying the nature and conditions of the most certain and stable portions of knowledge which we already possess: and we are most likely to learn the best methods of discovering truth by examining how truths, now universally recognized, have really been discovered.

William Whewell
When we speak of material nature as being governed by laws, it is sufficiently evident that we use the term in a manner somewhat metaphorical.

William Whewell
In order to discover the principles on which the mechanical sciences truly rest, we must examine the nature and origin of our knowledge of Causes.

William Whewell
[The law of gravitation] is indisputably and incomparably the greatest scientific discovery ever made, whether we look at the advance which it involved, the extent of truth disclosed, or the fundamental and satisfactory nature of this truth.

William Whewell
The Senses place before us the Characters of the Book of Nature; but these convey no knowledge to us, till we have discovered the Alphabet by which they are to be read.

William Whewell