Quotations

William Whewell


View the biography of William Whewell


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.
Quoted in J R Newman (ed.) The World of Mathematics, 1956.
Hence no force, however great, can stretch a cord, however fine, into a horizontal line is accurately straight: there will always be a bending downwards.
The hypotheses which we accept ought to explain phenomena which we have observed. But they ought to do more than this: our hypotheses ought to foretell phenomena which have not yet been observed.
Philosophy of the Inductive Science, Vol 2