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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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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
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Generalities
Persons
Analytical
Person
Symmetry
Giving
Mechanics
Mean
Mechanic
Made
Analysis
Pride
Euler
Also
Generality

More quotes by William Whewell

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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.]
William Whewell
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Conscience is the reason employed about questions of right and wrong.
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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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 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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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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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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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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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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...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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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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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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Man is the interpreter of nature, science the right interpretation.
William Whewell
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Astronomy is ... the only progressive Science which the ancient world produced.
William Whewell
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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
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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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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To discover the laws of operative power in material productions, whether formed by man or brought into being by Nature herself, is the work of a science, and is indeed what we more especially term Science.
William Whewell
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Every failure is a step to success.
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