William Whewell, D. D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge: An Account of His Writings with Selections from His Literary and Scientific Correspondence, Volume 1

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Macmillan and Company, 1876 - 416 pages
 

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Page 133 - When he counts his little wealth, he finds he has in his hands coins which bear the image and superscription of ancient and modern intellectual dynasties, and that in virtue of this possession acquisitions are in his power, solid knowledge within his reach, which none could ever have attained to if it were not that the gold of truth once dug out of the mine circulates more and more widely among mankind.
Page 50 - It was contrary to analogy to suppose that Nature had been at any former epoch parsimonious of time and prodigal of violence — to imagine that one district was not at rest while another was convulsed — that the disturbing forces were not kept under subjection, so as never to carry simultaneous havoc and desolation over the whole earth, or even over one great region.
Page 23 - DOCTRINE of LIMITS, with its Applications: namely, Conic Sections ; the first Three Sections of Newton ; and the Differential Calculus.
Page 133 - ... and an element modifying, by its qualities and changes, the growth and complexion of the faculties which it feeds. In this way the influence of preceding discoveries upon subsequent ones, of the past upon the present, is most penetrating and universal, although most subtle and difficult to trace. The most familiar words and phrases are connected by imperceptible ties with the reasonings and discoveries of former men and distant times. Their knowledge is an inseparable part of ours ; the present...
Page 190 - More Worlds than One. The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian.
Page 189 - Other Worlds than Ours ; The Plurality of Worlds Studied under the Light of Recent Scientific Researches.
Page 21 - On the Free Motion of Points, and on Universal Gravitation. Including the principal Propositions of Books I. and III. of the Principia. The first part of a Treatise on Dynamics.
Page 365 - ... helm A seeming mermaid steers ; the silken tackle Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, That yarely frame the office. From the barge A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast Her people out upon her, and Antony, Enthron'd i...
Page 320 - I refer is this ; that when a prevalent theory is found to be untenable, and consequently, is succeeded by a different, or even by an opposite one, the change is not made suddenly, or completed at once, at least in the minds of the most tenacious adherents of the earlier doctrine ; but is effected by a transformation, or series of transformations, of the earlier hypothesis, by means of which it is gradually brought nearer and nearer to the second...
Page 252 - Of these two subjects, Geometry consists of a series of positive and definite Propositions, deduced one from another, in succession, by rigorous reasoning, and all resting upon certain Definitions and Sajf-evident Axioms. The Philosophy of Geometry is quite a different subject ; it includes such Inquiries as these : — Whence is the Cogency of Geometrical proof?

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