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William Whewell -
The philosophy of the inductive sciences (1840)
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Terminology must be conventional, precise, constant; copious in words, and minute in distinctions, according to the needs of the science. The student must understand the terms, directly according to the convention, not through the medium of explanation or comparison.
William Whewell
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The distinction of Fact and Theory is only relative. Events and phenomena, considered as particulars which may be colligated by Induction, are Facts; considered as generalities already obtained by colligation of other Facts, they are Theories.
William Whewell
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Knowledge requires us to possess both Facts and Ideas...
William Whewell
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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
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These sciences have no principles besides definitions and axioms, and no process of proof but deduction; this process, however, assuming a most remarkable character; and exhibiting a combination of simplicity and complexity, of rigor and generality, quite unparalleled in other subjects.
William Whewell
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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
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The character of the true philosopher is, not that he never conjectures hazardously, but that his conjectures are clearly conceived, and brought into rigid contact with facts. He sees and compares distinctly the Ideas and the Things; - the relations of his notions to each other and to phenomena.
William Whewell
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All who discover truths, must have reasoned upon many errours to obtain each truth.
William Whewell
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The hypotheses which we accept ought to explain phenomena which we have observed. But they ought to do more than this: our hypotheses ought to foretell phenomena which have not yet been observed.
William Whewell
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With his ideas unfolded by education, sharpened by controversy, rectified by metaphysics, he [Man] may understand the natural world, but he cannot invent it.
William Whewell
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The truth of tentative hypotheses must be tested by their application to facts. The discoverer must be ready, carefully to try his hypotheses in this manner, and to reject them if they will not bear the test, in spite of indolence and vanity.
William Whewell
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Ideas are not transformed, but informed Sensations; for without ideas, sensations have no form.
William Whewell
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The common operations of chemistry give rise in almost every instance to products which bear no resemblance to the materials employed. Nothing can be so false as to expect that the qualities of the elements shall be still discoverable in an unaltered form in the compound.
William Whewell
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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
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If many of the guesses of philosophers of bygone times now appear fanciful and absurd, because time and observation have refuted them, others, which were at the time equally gratuitous, have been confirmed in a manner which makes them appear marvellously sagacious.
William Whewell
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Attractions take place between bodies, Affinities between the particles of a body. The former may be compared to the alliances of states, the latter to the ties of family.
William Whewell
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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
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The object of science is knowledge; the objects of art are works. In art, truth is the means to an end; in science, it is the only end. Hence the practical arts are not to be classed among the sciences
William Whewell
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Hypotheses may be useful, though involving much that is superfluous, and even erroneous: for they may supply the true bond of connection of the facts; and the superfluity and error may afterwards be pared away.
William Whewell
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There is a mask of theory over the whole face of nature...
William Whewell
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The process of scientific discovery is cautious and rigorous, not by abstaining from hypothesis, but by rigorously comparing hypotheses with facts, and by resolutely rejecting all which the comparison does not confirm.
William Whewell
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The framing of hypotheses is, for the inquirer after truth, not the end, but the beginning of his work.
William Whewell
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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
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The Ideas on which the Pure Sciences depend, are those of Space and Number; but Number is a modification of the conception of Repetition, which belongs to the Idea of Time.
William Whewell
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Facts are the materials of science, but all Facts involve Ideas. Since, in observing Facts, we cannot exclude Ideas, we must, for the purposes of science, take care that the Ideas are clear and rigorously applied.
William Whewell
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Quote of the day
At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language.
Lafcadio Hearn
William Whewell
Creative Commons
Born:
May 24, 1794
Died:
March 6, 1866
(aged 71)
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