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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.

William Whewell

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William Whewell
Age: 71 †
Born: 1794
Born: May 24
Died: 1866
Died: March 6
Economist
Geologist
Historian
Mathematician
Philosopher
Physicist
Polymath
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University Teacher
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Reverend William Whewell
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More quotes by William Whewell

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The main object of the work was to present such a survey of the advances already made in physical knowledge, and of the mode in which they have been made, as might serve as a real and firm basis for our speculations concerning the progress of human knowledge, and the processes by which sciences are formed.
William Whewell
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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
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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
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Conscience is the reason employed about questions of right and wrong.
William Whewell
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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.
William Whewell
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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
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...the question undoubtedly is, or soon will be, not whether or no we shall employ notation in chemistry, but whether we shall use a bad and incongruous, or a consistent and regular notation.
William Whewell
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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 ease, but by the establishment of general laws.
William Whewell
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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.
William Whewell
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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
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Every failure is a step to success.
William Whewell
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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
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Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error.
William Whewell
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The earlier truths are not expelled but absorbed, not contradicted but extended and the history of each science, which may thus appear like a succession of revolutions, is, in reality, a series of developements.
William Whewell
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In art, truth is a means to an end in science, it is the only end.
William Whewell
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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
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Those who have obtained the farthest insight into Nature have been, in all ages, firm believers in God.
William Whewell
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Man is the interpreter of nature, science the right interpretation.
William Whewell
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The catastrophist constructs theories, the uniformitarian demolishes them.
William Whewell
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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