Whewell Quotes

Nobody since Newton has been able to use geometrical methods to the same extent for the like purposes; and as we read the Principia we feel as when we are in an ancient armoury where the weapons are of gigantic size; and as we look at them we marvel what manner of man he was who could use as a weapon what we can scarcely lift as a burden. ~ William Whewell

Only recently, the word scientist had been coined, by the polymath William Whewell. Many scholars had objected to this blunt new term, as it sounded so sinisterly similar to that awful word atheist; why not simply continue to call themselves natural philosophers? Was that designation not more godly, more pure? But divisions were being drawn now between the realm of nature and the realm of philosophy. Ministers who doubled as botanists or geologists were becoming increasingly rare, as far too many challenges to biblical truths were stirred up through investigation of the natural world. It used to be that God was revealed in the wonders of nature; now God was being challenged by those same wonders. Scholars were now required to choose one side or the other. As ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

The catastrophist constructs theories, the uniformitarian demolishes them. ~ William Whewell

And so no force however great can stretch a cord however fine into a horizontal line that shall be absolutely straight. ~ William Whewell

It is a test of true theories not only to account for but to predict phenomena. ~ William Whewell

But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this - we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws." - Whewell: "Bridgewater Treatise". ~ Charles Darwin

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. ~ William Whewell

A man really and practically looking onwards to an immortal life, on whatever grounds, exhibits to us the human soul in an enobled attitude. ~ William Whewell

Prudence supposes the value of the end to be assumed, and refers only to the adaptation of the means. It is the relation of right means for given ends. ~ William Whewell

Hence no force, however great, can stretch a cord, however fine, into a horizontal line which is accurately straight: there will always be a bending downwards. ~ William Whewell

The person who did most to give to analysis the generality and symmetry which are now its pride, was also the person who made mechanics analytical; I mean Euler. ~ William Whewell

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; ... because if the rule prevails, it includes all cases; and will determine them all, if we can only calculate its real consequences. Hence it will predict the results of new combinations, as well as explain the appearances which have occurred in old ones. And that it does this with certainty and correctness, is one mode in which the hypothesis is to be verified as right and useful. ~ William Whewell

In art, truth is a means to an end; in science, it is the only end. ~ William Whewell

Every man has obligations which belong to his station. Duties extend beyond obligations, and direct the affections, desires, and intentions, as well as the actions. ~ William Whewell

Gold and iron at the present day, as in ancient times, are the rulers of the world; and the great events in the world of mineral art are not the discovery of new substances, but of new and rich localities of old ones. ~ William Whewell

There is nothing distinctively scientific about the hypothetico-deductive process. It is not even distinctively intellectual. It is merely a scientific context for a much more general stratagem that underlies almost all regulative processes or processes of continuous control, namely feedback, the control of performance by the consequences of the act performed. In the hypothetico-deductive scheme the inferences we draw from a hypothesis are, in a sense, its logical output. If they are true, the hypothesis need not be altered, but correction is obligatory if they are false. The continuous feedback from inference to hypothesis is implicit in Whewell's account of scientific method; he would not have dissented from the view that scientific behaviour can be classified as appropriately under cybernetics as under logic. ~ Peter Medawar

The present generation finds itself the heir of a vast patrimony of science; and it must needs concern us to know the steps by which these possessions were acquired, and the documents by which they are secured to us and our heirs for ever. ~ William Whewell

Those who have obtained the farthest insight into Nature have been, in all ages, firm believers in God. ~ William Whewell

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

In order that the facts obtained by observation and experiment may be capable of being used in furtherance of our exact and solid knowledge, they must be apprehended and analysed according to some Conceptions which, applied for this purpose, give distinct and definite results, such as can be steadily taken hold of and reasoned from. ~ William Whewell

We need very much a name to describe a cultivator of science in general. I should incline to call him a scientist. [The first use of the word.] ~ William Whewell

Conscience is the reason employed about questions of right and wrong. ~ William Whewell

Other approaches to studying language, and there are many, go by names like poetics, philology, and rhetoric, but as long as we have had the word in English, linguistics has been associated with the methods, goals, and results of science.1 When William Whewell (who is also responsible for the coinage, scientist) first proposed the term, it was in his History of the Inductive Sciences (1837.1:cxiv; he was borrowing it from the Germans, who, Teutonically
enough, later came to prefer Sprachwissenschaft). ~ Randy Allen Harris

Astronomy is ... the only progressive Science which the ancient world produced. ~ William Whewell

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

The hypotheses 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

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