William Whewell

“ Art is progressive. Instinct is mute; it acts, but gives no rules for acting: Art can speak; she can lay down rules. But though Art is thus separate from Instinct, she is not essentially combined with Insight. She can see what to do, but she needs not to see why it is done. She may lay down Rules, but it is not her business to give Reasons. When man makes that his employment, he enters upon the domain of Science. Art takes the phenomena and laws of nature as she finds them: that they are multiplied, complex, capricious, incoherent, disturbs her not. ”

“ Though Priestley made some important steps in chemistry, he could not bring his mind to admit the doctrine of a general Principle of Oxidation. How many ingenious men in the last century rejected the Newtonian Attraction as an impossible chimera! How many more, equally intelligent, have, in the same manner, in our own time, rejected, I do not now mean as false, but as inconceivable, the doctrine of Luminiferous Undulations! To err in this way is the lot, not only of men in general, but of men of great endowments, and very sincere love of truth. ”

“ When Art has brought forth her product, her task is finished; Science is constantly led by one step of her path to another: each proposition which she obtains impels her to go onwards to other propositions more general, more profound, more simple. Art puts elements together, without caring to know what they are, or why they coalesce. Science analyses the compound, and at every such step strives not only to perform, but to understand the analysis. Art advances in proportion as she becomes able to bring forth products more multiplied, more complex, more various ”

“ Are we to ascribe to the operation of a fluid or fluids, and if so, in what manner, the facts of heat, magnetism, electricity, galvanism? What are the forces by which the elements of chemical compounds are held together? What are the forces, of a higher order, as we cannot help believing, by which the course of vital action in organized bodies is kept up? In these and other cases, we have extensive departments of science; but we are as yet unable to trace the effects to their causes; and our science, so far as it is positive and certain, consists entirely of the laws of phenomena. ”

“ We are willing to own our obligation to those discoverers, but we hardly feel it: for in what other manner (we ask in our thoughts) could we represent the facts to ourselves?
Thus we see why it is that this step of which we now speak, the Invention of a new Conception in every inductive inference, is so generally overlooked that it has hardly been noticed by preceding philosophers. When once performed by the discoverer, it takes a fixed and permanent place in the understanding of every one. It is a thought which, once breathed forth, permeates all men’s minds. ”

“ Are not all these arts still practised with a degree of skill which we can hardly or not at all surpass, by nations which have, properly speaking, no science? Till lately, at least, if even now the case be different, the operations by which man’s comforts, luxuries, and instruments were produced, were either mere practical processes, which the artist practises, but which the scientist cannot account for; or, as in astronomy and optics, they depended upon a small portion only of the theoretical sciences, and did not tend to illustrate, or lead to, any larger truths. ”

“ No genuine advance could ever be obtained in Mechanics by applying to the subject the Ideas of Space and Time merely:—no advance in Chemistry, by the use of mere Mechanical Conceptions:—no discovery in Physiology, by referring facts to mere Chemical and Mechanical Principles. Mechanics must involve the Conception of Force;—Chemistry, the Conception of Elementary Composition;—Physiology, the Conception of Vital Powers. Each science must advance by means of its appropriate Conceptions. Each has its own field, which extends as far as its principles can be applied. ”

“ Theories firmly established are facts. Is it not a fact that the rusting of iron arises from the metal combining with the oxygen of the atmosphere? Is it not a fact that a combination of oxygen and hydrogen produces water? That our terms should express such facts, is precisely what we are here inculcating.
Our examination of the history of science has led us to a view very different from that which represents it as consisting in the succession of hostile opinions. It is, on the contrary, a progress, in which each step is recognized and employed in the succeeding one. ”

“ But the tendency of all such controversy is to diffuse truth and to dispel errour. Truth is consistent, and can bear the tug of war; Errour is incoherent, and falls to pieces in the struggle. True Conceptions can endure the sun, and become clearer as a fuller light is obtained; confused and inconsistent notions vanish like visionary spectres at the break of a brighter day. And thus all the controversies concerning such Conceptions as science involves, have ever ended in the establishment of the side on which the truth was found. ”

“ We make discovery after discovery in the various regions of science; each, it may be, satisfactory, and in itself complete, but none final. Something always remains undone. The last question answered, the answer suggests still another question. The strain of music from the lyre of Science flows on, rich and sweet, full and harmonious, but never reaches a close: no cadence is heard with which the intellectual ear can feel satisfied. ”

“ What kinds of cause are we to admit in science? This is an important, and by no means an easy question. In order to answer it, we must consider in what manner our progress in the knowledge of causes has hitherto been made. By far the most conspicuous instance of success in such researches, is the discovery of the causes of the motions of the heavenly bodies. In this case, after the formal laws of the motions,—their conditions as to space and time,—had become known, men were enabled to go a step further; to reduce them to the familiar and general cause of motion—mechanical force ”

“ We cannot observe any phenomena without applying to them such Ideas as Space and Number, Cause and Resemblance, and usually, several others; but we may avoid applying these Ideas in a wavering or obscure manner, and confounding Ideas with one another. We cannot read any of the inscriptions which nature presents to us, without interpreting them by means of some language which we ourselves are accustomed to speak; but we may make it our business to acquaint ourselves perfectly with the language which we thus employ, and to interpret it according to the rigorous rules of grammar and analogy. ”

“ Physical discoverers have differed from barren speculators, not by having no metaphysics in their heads, but by having good metaphysics in their heads while their adversaries had bad; and by binding their metaphysics to their physics, instead of keeping the two asunder. I trust that the History of Scientific Ideas is of some value, even as a record of a number of remarkable controversies; but I conceive that it also contains an indisputable proof that there viii is, in progressive science, a metaphysical as well as a physical element;—ideas as well as facts;—thoughts as well as things. ”