William Whewell
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William Whewell
William Whewell (May 24, 1794 – March 6, 1866) was an English polymath, scientist, Anglican priest, philosopher, theologian and historian of science.
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- And so no force however great can stretch a cord however fine into an horizontal line which is accurately straight.
- Elementary Treatise on Mechanics, The Equilibrium of Forces on a Point (1819)
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Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840)
- 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.
- Book I, ch. 2, sect. 7
- Man is the interpreter of nature, science the right interpretation.
- Aphorism 17
- In art, truth is a means to an end; in science, it is the only end.
- Aphorism 25
- The catastrophist constructs theories, the uniformitarian demolishes them.
- Aphorism 36
- It is a test of true theories not only to account for but to predict phenomena.
- Aphorism 39
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Attributed
- Every failure is a step to success.
- Fundamental ideas are not a consequence of experience, but a result of the particular constitution and activity of the mind, which is independent of all experience in its origin, though constantly combined with experience in its exercise.
- Our assent to the hypothesis implies that it is held to be true of all particular instances. That these cases belong to past or to future times, that they have or have not already occurred, makes no difference in the applicability of the rule to them. Because the rule prevails, it includes all cases.
- The system becomes more coherent as it is further extended. The elements which we require for explaining a new class of facts are already contained in our system. In false theories, the contrary is the case.
- We cannot observe external things without some degree of Thought; nor can we reflect upon our Thoughts, without being influenced in the course of our reflection by the Things which we have observed.
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