History of scientific ideas

THE Chapters now offered to the Reader were formerly published as a portion of _The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, founded upon their History_: but the nature and subject...

_Sect._ 1. _Thoughts and Things_ -- 2. _Necessary and Experiential Truths_ 25 3. _Deduction and Induction_ 27 4. _Theories and Facts_ 29 5. _Ideas and Sensations_ 30 6. _Reflexi...

_Art._ 1. How is Geometry hypothetical? 2. What was Stewart's view? {x} 3. 'Legitimate filiations' of Definitions. 4. Is a Definition a complete explanation? 5. Are some Axioms...

_Art._ 1. Object of the Chapter. 2. Statics and Dynamics. 3. Equilibrium. 4. Measure of Statical Forces. 5. The Center of Gravity. 6. Oblique Forces. 7. Force acts at any point...

_Sect._ V. _Scales of Heat._ _Art._ 11. Thermometers. 12. Their progress. 13. Fixed Points. 14. Concordance of Thermometers. 15. Natural Measure. 16. Law of Cooling. {xvi} 17. T...

_Art._ 1. Different Polar Phenomena from one Cause. 2. Connexion of Magnetic and Electric Polarity. 3. Ampère's Theory. 4. Faraday's views. 5. Connexion of Electrical and Chemic...

[We have just spoken of _Theories_ and _Facts_, of _Ideas_ and _Facts_, and of _Inductive_ Sciences, which imply the opposition of _Induction_ and _Deduction_. The explanation o...

Quæ adhuc inventa sunt in Scientiis, ea hujusmodi sunt ut Notionibus Vulgaribus fere subjaceant: ut vero ad interiora et remotiora Naturæ penetretur, necesse est ut tam NOTIONES...

IN order that we may do something towards determining the nature and conditions of human knowledge, (which I have already stated as the purpose of this work,) I shall have to re...

1. IT has already been stated that we gather knowledge from the external world, when we are able to apply, to the facts which we observe, some ideal conception, which gives unit...

1. EVERY advance in human knowledge consists, as we have seen, in adapting new ideal conceptions to ascertained facts, and thus in superinducing the Form upon the Matter, the ac...

1. I HERE employ the term Experience in a more definite and limited sense than that which it possesses in common usage; for I restrict it to matters belonging to the domain of s...

1. TO the question just stated, I reply, that the necessity and universality of the truths which form a part of our knowledge, are derived from the _Fundamental Ideas_ which tho...

1. BY the course of speculation contained in the last three Chapters, we are again led to the conclusion which we have already stated, that our knowledge contains an ideal eleme...

WE proceed, in the ensuing Books, to the closer examination of a considerable number of those Fundamental Ideas on which the sciences, hitherto most successfully cultivated, are...

The way in which we are led to regard human knowledge is like the way in which Copernicus was led to regard the heavens. When the explanation of the celestial motions could not...

[The principal question discussed in the last Book was this (see chaps. V. and VI.): How are _necessary_ and _universal_ truths possible? And the answer then given was: that the...

1. ALL external objects and events which we can contemplate are viewed as having relations of Space, Time, and Number; and are subject to the general conditions which these Idea...

1. BY speaking of space as an Idea, I intend to imply, as has already been stated, that the apprehension of objects as existing in space, and of the relations of position, &c.,...

1. SOME of the Ideas which we shall have to examine involve conceptions of certain relations of objects, as the idea of Cause and of Likeness; and may appear to be suggested by...

1. THE relations of space have been apprehended with peculiar distinctness and clearness from the very first unfolding of man's speculative powers. This was a consequence of the...

[Note 3\2: In order to render the present chapter more intelligible, it may be proper to state briefly the arguments which gave occasion to the review. After noticing Stewart's...

1. ACCORDING to the views above explained, certain of the impressions of our senses convey to us the perception of objects as existing in space; inasmuch as by the constitution...

1. RESPECTING the Idea of Time, we may make several of the same remarks which we made concerning the idea of space, in order to show that it is not borrowed from experience, but...

1. THE Idea of Time, like the Idea of Space, offers to our notice some characters which do not belong to our fundamental ideas generally, but which are deserving of remark. Thes...

1. THE foundations of our speculative knowledge of the relations and properties of Number, as well as of Space, are contained in the mode in which we represent to ourselves the...

1. OUR perception of the passage of time involves a series of acts of memory. This is easily seen and assented to, when large intervals of time and a complex train of occurrence...

1. _Discursive Reasoning._--WE have thus seen that our notions of space, time, and their modifications, necessarily involve a certain activity of the mind; and that the conditio...

1. _The Idea of a Limit._--THE general truths concerning relations of space which depend upon the axioms and definitions contained in Euclid's _Elements_, and which involve only...

1. _Pure Mechanism._--THE doctrine of Motion, of which we have here to speak, is that in which motion is considered quite independently of its cause, force; for all consideratio...

1. ALL objects in the world which can be made the subjects of our contemplation are subordinate to the conditions of Space, Time, and Number; and on this account, the doctrines...

IT is only because we subject trains of phenomena, that is, all change whatever, to the law of causality--to the relation of cause and effect--that experience or empirical knowl...

IN the History of the Sciences, that class of which we here speak occupies a conspicuous and important place; coming into notice immediately after those parts of Astronomy which...

1. WE see in the world around us a constant succession of causes and effects connected with each other. The laws of this connexion we learn in a great measure from experience, b...

1. TOWARDS the end of the seventeenth century there existed in the minds of many of the most vigorous and active speculators of the European literary world, a strong tendency to...

1. _Causes are abstract Conceptions._--WE have now to express, as well as we can, the fundamental character of that Idea of Cause of which we have just proved the existence. Thi...

1. _Force._--WHEN the faculties of observation and thought are developed in man, the idea of causation is applied to those changes which we see and feel in the state of rest and...

1. _Object of the Chapter._--IN the present and the succeeding chapters we have to show how the general axioms of Causation enable us to construct the science of Mechanics. We h...

1. IN the History of Mechanics, I have traced the steps by which the three Laws of Motion and the other principles of mechanics were discovered, established, and extended to the...

thus the laws which involve inertia depend upon the idea of mutual causation. The rule, that the velocity is as the force, depends upon the principle of causation, that the effe...

1. IT was formerly stated[38\3] that experience cannot establish any universal or necessary truths. The number of trials which we can make of any proposition is necessarily limi...

THE doctrine of universal gravitation is a feature of so much importance in the history of science that we shall not pass it by without a few remarks on the nature and evidence...

1. WE have seen how the progress of knowledge upon the subject of motion and force has produced, in the course of the world's history, a great change in the minds of acute and s...

1. _Of Primary and Secondary Qualities._--IN the same way in which the mechanical sciences depend upon the Idea of Cause, and have their principles regulated by the development...

1. WE cannot doubt that we perceive all secondary qualities by means of immediate impressions made, through the proper medium of sensation, upon our organs. Hence all the senses...

1. IN what precedes, we have shown by various considerations that we necessarily and universally assume the perception of secondary qualities to take place by means of a medium...

THE ultimate object of our investigation in each of the Secondary Mechanical Sciences, is the nature of the processes by which the special impressions of sound, light, and heat,...

En donnant à ces côtés le nom de _poles_, j'appelerai _polarisation_ la modification qui donne à la lumière des propriétés relatives à ces poles. J'ai tardé jusqu'à présent à ad...

1. IN some of the mechanical sciences, as Magnetism and Optics, the phenomena are found to depend upon position (the position of the magnet, or of the ray of light,) in a peculi...

1. IT has appeared in the preceding chapter that in cases in which the phenomena suggest to us the idea of Polarity, we are also led to assume some material machinery as the mod...

_Art._ 1. Fundamental Ideas of Chemistry. 2. Elements. 3. Do Compounds resemble their Elements? 4. The Three Principles. 5. A Modern Errour. 6. Are Compounds determined by the F...

_Art._ 1. Integrant Molecules. 2. Difficulties of the Theory. 3. Merit of the Theory. 4. Wollaston's Hypothesis. 5. Maxim for such Hypotheses. 6. Dalton's Hypothesis. 7. Ampère'...

_Art._ 1. Object of the Chapter. 2. Unity of the Individual. 3. Condition of Unity. 4. Kinds. 5. Not made by Definitions. 6. Condition of the Use of Terms. 7. Terms may have dif...

_Art._ 1. Biology involves the Idea of Life. 2. This Idea to be historically traced. 3. The Idea at first expressed by means of other Ideas. 4. Mystical, Mechanical, Chemical, a...

_Art._ 1. Description of Palætiology. 2. Its Members. 3. Other Members. 4. Connexion of the whole subject. 5. We shall take Material Sciences only; 6. But these are connected wi...

A PHILOSOPHER was asked:--How much does smoke weigh? He answered: Subtract from the weight of the fuel the weight of the ashes, and thou hast the weight of the smoke. Thus he as...

1. WE have now to bring into view, if possible, the Ideas and General Principles which are involved in Chemistry,--the science of the composition of bodies. For in this as in ot...

1. THE earlier chemists did not commonly involve themselves in the confusion into which the mechanical philosophers ran, of comparing chemical to mechanical forces. Their attent...

1. _Axiom of the Indestructibility of Substance._--WE now come to an Idea of which the history is very different from those of which we have lately been speaking. Instead of bei...

1. _A Body is Equal to the Sum of its Elements._--FROM the earliest periods of chemistry the balance has been familiarly used to determine the proportions of the ingredients and...

1. _The Atomic Theory considered on Chemical Grounds._--WE have already seen that the combinations which result from chemical affinity are definite, a certain quantity of one in...

{59} 10. _Use of the Molecular Hypothesis._--In this form, representing matter as a collection of molecules or centers of force, the Atomic Theory has been abundantly employed i...

CRYSTALLIZATION exhibits to us the effects of the natural arrangement of the ultimate particles of various compound bodies; but we are scarcely yet sufficiently acquainted with...

1. WE have seen in the History of the Sciences, that the principle which I have there termed[1\7] the Principle of Developed and Metamorphosed Symmetry, has been extensively app...

1. MINERALS and other bodies of definite chemical composition often exhibit that marked regularity of form and structure which we designate by terming them _Crystals_; and in su...

1. WHEN a crystal, as, for instance, a crystal of Galena, (sulphuret of lead,) is readily divisible into smaller cubes, and these into smaller ones, and so on without limit, it...

WHERE a certain apparent difference between things (although perhaps in itself of little moment) answers to we know not what number of other differences, pervading not only thei...

1. _Object of the Chapter._--NOT only the Classificatory Sciences, but the application of names to things in the rudest and most unscientific manner, depends upon our apprehendi...

1. _Idea of Likeness in Natural History._--THE various branches of Natural History, in so far as they are classificatory sciences merely, and do not depend upon physiological vi...

1. THE philosophy of the Sciences of Classification has had great light thrown upon it by discussions concerning the methods which are used in Botany: for that science is one of...

1. IN the Second Chapter of this Book it was shown that although the Classificatory Sciences proceed ostensibly upon the Idea of Resemblance as their main foundation, they neces...

LA vie est donc un TOURBILLON plus ou moins rapide, plus ou moins compliqué, dont la direction est constante, et qui entraine toujours des molecules de mêmes sorts, mais où les...

1. IN the History of the Sciences, after treating of the Sciences of Classification, we proceeded to what are there termed the Organical Sciences, including in this term Physiol...

IN order to abbreviate as much as can conveniently be done the historical view which I have now to take, I shall altogether pass over the physiological speculations of the ancie...

1. _Definitions of Life._--WE have seen in the preceding chapter that all attempts to obtain a distinct conception of the nature of Life in general have ended in failure, and pr...

1. IT is to be observed that at present I do not speak of the progress of our knowledge with regard to the detail of the processes which take place in the human body, but of the...

1. WE formerly noticed the distinctions of _organic_ and _animal_ functions, organic and animal forces, as one of the most marked distinctions to which physiologists have been l...

1. BY an examination of those notions which enter into all our reasonings and judgments on living things, it appeared that we conceive animal life as a vortex or cycle of moving...

IT is therefore, not so much what these forms of the earth actually are, as what they are continually becoming, that we have to observe; nor is it possible thus to observe them...

1. I HAVE already stated in the _History of the Sciences_[1\10], that the class of Sciences which I designate as _Palætiological_ are those in which the object is to ascend from...

1. _Divisions of such Sciences._--IN each of the Sciences of this class we consider some particular order of phenomena now existing:--from our knowledge of the causes of change...

1. _Doctrine of Catastrophes._--I HAVE already shown, in the History of Geology, that the attempts to frame a theory of the earth have brought into view two completely opposite...

1. _Importance of Tradition._--SINCE the Palætiological Sciences have it for their business to study the train of past events produced by natural causes down to the present time...

1. AT the end of the last chapter but one, we were led to this result,--that we cannot, in any of the Palætiological Sciences, ascend to a beginning which is of the same nature...