William Whewell Men Quotations

Man is the interpreter of nature, science the right interpretation.

Every man has obligations which belong to his station. Duties extend beyond obligations, and direct the affections, desires, and intentions, as well as the actions.

According to the technical language of old writers, a thing and its qualities are described as subject and attributes; and thus a man's faculties and acts are attributes of which he is the subject. The mind is the subject in which ideas inhere. Moreover, the man's faculties and acts are employed upon external objects; and from objects all his sensations arise. Hence the part of a man's knowledge which belongs to his own mind, is subjective: that which flows in upon him from the world external to him, is objective.

A man really and practically looking onwards to an immortal life, on whatever grounds, exhibits to us the human soul in an enobled attitude.

Nobody since Newton has been able to use geometrical methods to the same extent for the like purposes; and as we read the Principia we feel as when we are in an ancient armoury where the weapons are of gigantic size; and as we look at them we marvel what manner of man he was who could use as a weapon what we can scarcely lift as a burden.

To discover the laws of operative power in material productions, whether formed by man or brought into being by Nature herself, is the work of a science, and is indeed what we more especially term Science.