Augustus De Morgan

“ But when the psychological speculator comes in, he often undertakes to draw inferences from the physical conclusions, by joining on his tremendous apparatus of a priori knowledge. He deduces that he can do without a God: he can deduce all things without any such necessity. With Occam [81] and Newton he will have no more causes than are necessary to explain phenomena to him: and if by pure head-work combined with results of physical observation he can construct his universe, he must be a very unphilosophical man who would encumber himself with a useless Creator! ”

“ The Protestants, in tearing away from the Church of Rome, took with them a fair quantity of the results of the Roman forge, which they could not bring themselves to give up. They had more in them of Martin than of Jack. But they would have no premises, except from the New Testament; though some eked out with a few general Councils. The consequence is that they have been obliged to find such a logic as would bring the conclusions they require out of the canonical books. And a queer logic it is; nothing but the Roman forge can be compared with the Protestant loom. ”

“ But though some extremes of the old sorts still remain, there is now, in the middle, such a fusion of the two pursuits that a plain man is wofully puzzled. The theologian writes a philosophy which seems to tell us that the New Testament is a system of psychology; and the philosopher writes a Christianity which is utterly unintelligible as to the question whether the Resurrection be a fact or a transcendental allegory. ”

“ Could the clergyman have dared to answer, he would have said, "No, my Lord! but 'sure and certain hope' is as like assurance as a minikin man is like a dwarf." Sad to say, a theologian must be illogical: I feel sure that if you took the clearest headed writer on logic that ever lived, and made a bishop of him, he would be shamed by his own books in a twelvemonth.
Milner's sophism is glaring: but why should Dr. Milner be wiser than St. Augustine, one of his teachers? I am tempted to let out the true derivation of the word Catholic, as exclusively applied to the Church of Rome. ”

“ Now theology is but one pole; philosophy is the other. No one can make out the combinations of our day unless he read the writings both of the priest and the philosopher: and if any one should hold the first word offensive, I tell him that I mean both words to be significant. ”

“ Extreme theology has been aiming at a high Church in England, which is to show a new front to all heresy: and extreme philosophy is contriving a physical organization which is to think, and to show that mind is a consequence of matter, or thought a recreation of brain. The physical speculators begin with a possible hypothesis, in which they aim at explanation: and so the bold aspirations of the author of the Vestiges find standing-ground in the variation of species by "natural selection." Some relics—so supposed—of extremely ancient men are brought to help the general cause. ”

“ What between the theologian who assents to the Athanasian denunciation in what seems the sense of no denunciation, and the philosopher who parades a Christianity which looks like no revelation, there is a maze which threatens to have the only possible clue in the theory that everything is something else, and nothing is anything at all. ”

“ The Greek and Roman sects on one side, the Protestant sects on the other, must all have churches: the Greek and Roman sects pour the New Testament into their churches; the Protestant sects pour their churches into the New Testament. The Greek and Roman insist upon the New Testament being no more than part and parcel of their churches: the Protestant insist upon their churches being as much part and parcel of the New Testament. All dwell vehemently upon the doctrine that there must be milk somewhere ”

“ I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. ”

“ We are not yet come to the existence of a school of philosophers who explicitly deny a Creator: but we are on the way, though common sense may interpose. There are always straws which show the direction of the wind. I have before me the printed letter of a medical man—to whose professional ability I have good testimony—who finds the vital principle in highly rarefied oxygen. ”

“ The picking, the patching, the piecing, which goes to the Protestant termini ad quem, [73] would be as remarkable to the general eye, as the Roman manufacture of termini a quo, [74] if it were not that the world at large seizes the character of an asserted fact better than that of a mode of inference. A grand step towards the deification of a lady, made by alleged revelation 1800 years after her death, is of glaring evidence: two or three additional shiffle-shuffles towards defence of saying the Athanasian curse in church and unsaying it out of church, are hardly noticed. ”

“ A conclusion has premises, facts or doctrines from proof or authority, and mode of inference. There may be invention or falsehood of premise, with good logic; and there may be tenable premise, followed by bad logic; and there may be both false premise and bad logic. The Roman system has such a powerful manufactory of premises, that bad logic is little wanted; there is comparatively little of it. The doctrine-forge of the Roman Church is one glorious compound of everything that could make Heraclitus [71] sob and Democritus [72] snigger. ”

“ The better heads above mentioned know that their theory, if true, does not bear upon morals. The formation of solar systems from a nebular hypothesis, followed by organizations gradually emerging from some curious play of particles, nay, the very evolution of mind and thought from such an apparatus, are all as consistent with a Personal creative power to whom homage and obedience are due, and who has declared himself, as with a blind Nature of Things. A pure materialist, as to all things visible, may be even a bigotted Christian: this is not frequent, but it is possible. ”

“ The doctrine is true: and can be verified by any one who can and will go to the dairy for himself. Him will the several traders declare to have no milk at all. They will bring their own wares, and challenge a trial: they want nothing but to name the judges. To vary the metaphor, those who have looked at Christianity in open day, know that all who see it through painted windows shut out much of the light of heaven and color the rest; it matters nothing that the stains are shaped into what are meant for saints and angels. ”

“ If all the mind we know be from nerve-tissue, how does it appear that mind in other planets may not be another thing? Nay, when we come to possibilities, does not his own system give a queer one? If highly rarefied oxygen be vital power, more highly rarefied oxygen may be more vital and more powerful. ”

“ There are things much more difficult to destroy: it is much more difficult to destroy the truths and real facts supported by such men. And again, it is much more difficult to prevent men of no authority from setting up false pretensions; and it is much more difficult to destroy assertions of fancy speculation. Many an error of thought and learning has fallen before a gradual growth of thoughtful and learned opposition. But such things as the quadrature of the circle, etc., are never put down. ”

“ Sects, whether religious or political, give themselves names which, in meaning, are claimed also by their opponents; loyal, liberal, conservative (of good) , etc. have been severally appropriated by parties. Whig and Tory are unobjectionable names: the first—which occurs in English ballad as well as in Scotland—is sour milk; [45] the second is a robber. In theology, the Greek Church is Orthodox, the Roman is Catholic, the modern Puritan is Evangelical, etc.
The word Christian (Vol. I, p. 248 [46] ) is an instance. When words begin, they carry their meanings. ”

“ Every universal proposition is personal to every instance of the subject. If this be not conceded, then I retort, in their own sense and manner, "Whosoever would serve God, before all things he must not pronounce God's decision upon his neighbor. Which decision, except every one leave to God himself, without doubt he is a bigoted noodle." ”

“ If anything ever had a fair trial, it was astrology. The idea itself is natural enough. A human being, set down on this earth, without any tradition, would probably suspect that the heavenly bodies had something to do with the guidance of affairs. I think that any one who tries will ascertain that the planets do not prophesy: but if he should find to the contrary, he will of course go on asking. A great many persons class together belief in astrology and belief in apparitions: the two things differ in precisely the way in which a science of observation differs from a science of experiment. ”

“ New Discovery. The causes of the circulation of the blood; and the true nature of the planetary system. London, 1848, 8vo. Light is the sustainer of motion both in the earth and in the blood. The natural standard, the pulse of a person in health, four beats to one respiration, gives the natural second, which is the measure of the earth's progress in its daily revolution. The Greek fable of the Titans is an elaborate exposition of the atomic theory: but any attempt to convince learned classics would only meet their derision; so much does long-fostered prejudice stand in the way of truth. ”

“ There were Pseudochrists and Antichrists; and a Concordance would find the real forerunners of all the paradoxers. But they are not so clever as the old false prophets: there are none of whom we should be inclined to say that, if it were possible, they would deceive the very educated. Not an Egyptian among them all can make uproar enough to collect four thousand men that are murderers—of common sense—to lead out into the wilderness. Nothing, says the motto of this work, is so difficult to destroy as the errors and false facts propagated by illustrious men whose words have authority. ”

“ The trisector of an angle, if he demand attention from any mathematician, is bound to produce, from his construction, an expression for the sine or cosine of the third part of any angle, in terms of the sine or cosine of the angle itself, obtained by help of no higher than the square root. The mathematician knows that such a thing cannot be ”

“ If Religion and Philosophy be the two poles of a battery, whose is the battery Religion and Philosophy have been made the poles of? Is the change in the relation of the wires any presumption of a removal of the managers? ”

“ It is so nearly true, unless the angle be very obtuse, that common drawing, applied to the construction, will not detect the error. There are many formulae of this kind: and I have several times found a speculator who has discovered the corresponding construction, has seen the approximate success of his drawing—often as great as absolute truth could give in graphical practice,—and has then set about his demonstration, in which he always succeeds to his own content. ”

“ I have added punctuation: the handwriting and spelling are those of an educated person; the word irreptitious is indubitable. The whole is a natural curiosity.
The quadrature and exact area of the circle demonstrated. By Wm. Peters. 8vo. n. d. (circa 1848) . [29] Suggestions as to the necessity for a revolution in philosophy; and prospectus for the establishment of a new quarterly, to be called the Physical Philosopher and Heterodox Review. ”

“ PAPIST. The term papist should be stripped of all except its etymological meaning, and applied to those who give the higher and final authority to the declaration ex cathedrâ [55] of the Pope. See Dr. Wiseman's [56] article, Catholic Church, in the Penny Cyclopædia.
What is one to do about these names? First, it is clear that offence should, when possible, be avoided: secondly, no one must be required to give a name which favors any assumption made by those to whom it is given, and not granted by those who give it. ”

“ Material pneuma is destined to high functions; and man is to read by gas-light.
THE SUN AN ELECTRIC SPACE. The solar system truly solved; demonstrating by the perfect harmony of the planets, founded on the four universal laws, the Sun to be an electric space; and a source of every natural production displayed throughout the solar system. By James Hopkins. [82] London, 1849, 8vo. ”

“ The speculators are, as a class, very apt to imagine that the mathematicians are in fraudulent confederacy against them: I ought rather to say that each one of them consents to the mode in which the rest are treated, and fancies conspiracy against himself. The mania of conspiracy is a very curious subject. ”

“ A person to whom the double circular motion is familiar in the lathe naturally looks upon one circle moving upon another as in simple motion, if the second circle be fixed to the revolving radius, so that one and the same point of the moving circle travels upon the fixed circle. ”

“ Sometimes they have the knowledge and quibble out of the use of it. In many cases a person makes an honest beginning and presents what he is sure is a solution. By conference with others he at last feels uneasy, fears the light, and puts self-love in the way of it. ”