Quote#Kindness
But what is this but to say that facts by themselves, however well…
Quote byRobert Chambers · 1802–1871
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Testimony: its Posture in the Scientific World (1859), p. 10.
English (original)
But what is this but to say that facts by themselves, however well attested, are wholly useless in such circumstances to the cultivators of physical science, while any kind of vague hypothesis can be brought forward in opposition to them? What is it but to put conjecture or prejudice above fact, and indeed utterly to repudiate the Baconian method?
— Robert Chambers
More from Robert Chambers
The evidence of the existence of other astral systems besides our own is much more decided than might be expected when we consider that the nearest of them must needs be placed at a mighty interval beyond our own.
We have seen that the law which causes rotation in the single solar masses, is exactly the same which produces the familiar phenomenon of a small whirlpool or dimple in the surface of a stream.
the space occupied by even the comparatively small number visible to the naked eye, must be vast beyond all powers of conception.
If we suppose that similar intervals exist between all the stars
It was first surmised by the ancient philosopher, Democritus, that the faintly white zone which spans the sky under the name of the Milky Way, might be only a dense collection of stars too remote to be distinguished. This conjecture has …
Seeing in our astral system many thousands of worlds in all stages of formation