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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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William Whewell
Age: 71 †
Born: 1794
Born: May 24
Died: 1866
Died: March 6
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Reverend William Whewell
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More quotes by William Whewell
Those who have obtained the farthest insight into Nature have been, in all ages, firm believers in God.
William Whewell
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
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
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
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
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
There is a mask of theory over the whole face of nature.
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
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
Man is the interpreter of nature, science the right interpretation.
William Whewell
Astronomy is ... the only progressive Science which the ancient world produced.
William Whewell
In art, truth is a means to an end in science, it is the only end.
William Whewell
It is a test of true theories not only to account for but to predict phenomena.
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
Conscience is the reason employed about questions of right and wrong.
William Whewell
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
Every failure is a step to success.
William Whewell
...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
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
