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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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William Whewell
Age: 71 †
Born: 1794
Born: May 24
Died: 1866
Died: March 6
Economist
Geologist
Historian
Mathematician
Philosopher
Physicist
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Reverend William Whewell
Relation
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Supposes
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Assumed
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Prudence

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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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Geometry in every proposition speaks a language which experience never dares to utter and indeed of which she but halfway comprehends the meaning.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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There is a mask of theory over the whole face of nature.
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Astronomy is ... the only progressive Science which the ancient world produced.
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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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Conscience is the reason employed about questions of right and wrong.
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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.
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In art, truth is a means to an end in science, it is the only end.
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A man really and practically looking onwards to an immortal life, on whatever grounds, exhibits to us the human soul in an enobled attitude.
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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.
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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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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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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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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
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