“ IMAGES are not arguments, rarely even lead to proof, but the mind craves them, and, of late more than ever, the keenest experimenters find twenty images better than one, especially if contradictory; since the human mind has already learned to deal in contradictions. ”
Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1906). copy citation
| Author | Henry Adams |
|---|---|
| Source | The Education of Henry Adams |
| Topic | contradiction argument |
| Date | 1906 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2044/2044-h/2044-h.htm |
Context
“but past history is only a value of relation to the future, and this value is wholly one of convenience, which can be tested only by experiment. Any law of movement must include, to make it a convenience, some mechanical formula of acceleration.
CHAPTER XXXIV A LAW OF ACCELERATION (1904)
IMAGES are not arguments, rarely even lead to proof, but the mind craves them, and, of late more than ever, the keenest experimenters find twenty images better than one, especially if contradictory; since the human mind has already learned to deal in contradictions.
The image needed here is that of a new centre, or preponderating mass, artificially introduced on earth in the midst of a system of attractive forces that previously made their own equilibrium, and constantly induced to accelerate its motion till it shall establish a new equilibrium.”
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