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

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
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Reverend William Whewell
Employed
Questions
Conscience
Wrong
Reason
Right

More quotes by William Whewell

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Those who have obtained the farthest insight into Nature have been, in all ages, firm believers in God.
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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.
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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.
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The catastrophist constructs theories, the uniformitarian demolishes them.
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It is a test of true theories not only to account for but to predict phenomena.
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Geometry in every proposition speaks a language which experience never dares to utter and indeed of which she but halfway comprehends the meaning.
William Whewell
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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
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Man is the interpreter of nature, science the right interpretation.
William Whewell
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In art, truth is a means to an end in science, it is the only end.
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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.
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Every failure is a step to success.
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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.]
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There is a mask of theory over the whole face of nature.
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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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.
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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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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
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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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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.
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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