An explanation of a mechanical philosophy, mathematical and atheistical |
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aspect of knowledge Barbara Burton bodies are organic changeless Common Sense complemental completely unified knowledge comprehended considered constitutes correspondence definition of Science demonstration dence department or phase Descartes diagrammatically direction directrix district school boy edge Elective Polarity elements eral essen everywhere existence Explanation external fancy fixity force formula free poles fundamental principles generatrix geometrical guess hasty survey hence human Ideation impersonal authority internal medium J. J. VAN NOSTRAND knowl Law of Thought life-like logic Mary Everest Boole ment Mind in nature name and thing natural right Nature's Negation operations opposite order of phenomena organic aspect organic unity osophy path pendence phenomena in nature places predicate primary ideas principle of Independence principle of subjection Psychical put asunder realize Rectangular Co-ordinate represent says sematical or sign-like Sematical Unity single character social body standard student substance of knowledge theology theory thing-the thinking and reasoning tion tremely unit
Popular passages
Page 8 - Newton's first law of motion: <•• « > " Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except in so far as it is compelled to change that state by force impressed upon it.
Page 13 - Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of the creation so far as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy.
Page 13 - Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man ; space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a statue, a picture.
Page 6 - There are fundamental truths that lie at the bottom, the basis upon which a great many others rest, and in which they have their consistency. These are teeming truths, rich in store, with which they furnish the mind, and, like the lights of heaven, are not only beautiful and entertaining in themselves, but give light and evidence to other things, that without them could not be seen or known.
Page 4 - Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule. IV. Towards the effecting of works, all that man can do is to put together or put asunder natural bodies. The rest is done by nature working within.
Page 13 - All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature. We have theories of races and of functions, but scarcely yet a remote approach to an idea of creation. We are now so far from the road to truth, that religious teachers dispute and hate each other, and speculative men are esteemed unsound and frivolous. But to a sound judgment, the most abstract truth is the most practical. Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena.
Page 10 - These reasons are of universal application ; to descend to particulars would be nothing more than to show how all parts of philosophy are learned by the application of mathematics ; in other words, that the sciences cannot be known by logical and sophistical arguments, as is ordinarily the case, but by mathematical demonstrations descending into the truths and operations of other sciences, and regulating them, for without mathematics they cannot be understood or set forth, taught, or learned.
Page 12 - Knowledge then seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy, of any of our ideas. In this alone it consists. Where this perception is, there is knowledge ; and where it is not, there, though we may fancy, guess, or believe, yet we always come short of knowledge.
Page 8 - Every body continues in its state of rest, or uniform motion in a straight line, except in so far as it may be compelled by force to change that state.
Page 8 - MY opinion of Astronomy has always been, that it is not the best medium through which to prove the agency of an intelligent Creator; but that, this being proved, it shows, beyond all other sciences, the magnificence of his operations.