“ A body cannot change its state in respect of rest or motion without a sufficient cause. ”
Thomas Henry Huxley, The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century (1887). copy citation
| Author | Thomas Henry Huxley |
|---|---|
| Source | The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century |
| Topic | change respect |
| Date | 1887 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15253/15253-h/15253-h.htm |
Context
“Aristotle attributes all irregularities and apparent dysteleologies in nature to the disobedience, or sluggish yielding, of matter to the shaping and guiding influence of those reasons and causes which were hypostatised in his ideal 'Forms.' In modern science, the conception of the inertia, or resistance to change, of matter is complex. In part, it contains a corollary from the law of causation: A body cannot change its state in respect of rest or motion without a sufficient cause. But, in part, it contains generalisations from experience. One of these is that there is no such sufficient cause resident in any body, and that therefore it will rest, or continue in motion, so long as no external cause of change acts upon it.”
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