Quote#Solitude
'Natural History' ought to form a part of intellectual education, in…
Quote byWilliam Whewell · 1794–1866
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: XLII.
English (original)
'Natural History' ought to form a part of intellectual education, in order to correct certain prejudices which arise from cultivating the intellect by means of mathematics alone and in order to lead the student to see that the division of things into kinds, and the attribution and use of names, are processes susceptible of great precision.
— William Whewell
More from William Whewell
Facts are the materials of science, but all Facts involve Ideas. Since, in observing Facts, we cannot exclude Ideas, we must, for the purposes of science, take care that the Ideas are clear and rigorously applied.
The solution is, that we do not see the image on the retina at all, we only see by means of it.
Coexistent polarities are fundamentally identical.
We perceive by 'means' of a medium and 'by means' of impressions on the nerves: but we do not (by our senses,) perceive either the medium or the impressions on the nerves.
The Sight cannot decompose a compound colour into simple colours, or distinguish a compound from a simple colour
When a series of progressive numbers is given as the result of observation, it may generally be reduced to law by combinations of arithmetical and geometrical progressions. A true formula for a progressive series of numbers cannot commonly …