"Most statistical arguments depend upon a few figures picked out at random." (William S Jevons, [letter to Richard Hutton] 1863)
"They [diagrams] are designed not so much to allow of reference to particular numbers, which can be better had from printed tables of figures, as to exhibit to the eye the general results of large masses of figures which it is hopeless to attack in any other way than by graphical representation." (William S Jevons, [letter to Richard Hutton] 1863)
"Logic should no longer be considered an elegant and learned accomplishment; it should take its place as an indispensable study for every well-informed person." (William S Jevons, "Elementary Lessons on Logic", 1870)
"A correct theory is the first step towards improvement, by showing what we need and what we might accomplish." (William S Jevons, "The Theory of Political Economy", 1871)
"As a science progresses, its power of foresight rapidly increases, until the mathematician in his library acquires the power of anticipating nature, and predicting what will happen in circumstances which the eye of man has never examined." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"By induction we gain no certain knowledge; but by observation, and the inverse use of deductive reasoning, we estimate the probability that an event which has occurred was preceded by conditions of specified character, or that such conditions will be followed by the event. [...] I have no objection to use the words cause and causation, provided they are never allowed to lead us to imagine that our knowledge of nature can attain to certainty. [...] We can never recur too often to the truth that our knowledge of the laws and future events of the external world are only probable." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Deduction is certain and infallible, in the sense that each step in deductive reasoning will lead us to some result, as certain as the law itself. But it does not follow that deduction will lead the reasoner to every result of a law or combination of laws." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Every strange phenomenon may be a secret spring which, if rightly touched, will open the door to new chambers in the palace of nature." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Every strange phenomenon may be a secret spring which, if rightly touched, will open the door to new chambers in the palace of nature." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Experience gives us the materials of knowledge: induction digests those materials, and yields us general knowledge." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"I am convinced that it is impossible to expound the methods of induction in a sound manner, without resting them on the theory of probability. Perfect knowledge alone can give certainty, and in nature perfect knowledge would be infinite knowledge, which is clearly beyond our capacities. We have, therefore, to content ourselves with partial knowledge, - knowledge mingled with ignorance, producing doubt." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"In abstract mathematical theorems the approximation to absolute truth is perfect, because we can treat of infinitesimals. In physical science, on the contrary, we treat of the least quantities which are perceptible." (William S Jevons, „The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"It is the prerogative of Intellect to discover what is uniform and unchanging in the phenomena around us." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"It must be the ground of all reasoning and inference that what is true of one thing will be true of its equivalent, and that under carefully ascertained conditions Nature repeats herself." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"It [probability] is the very guide of life, and hardly can we take a step or make a decision of any kind without correctly or incorrectly making an estimation of probabilities." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"It would be an error to suppose that the great discoverer seizes at once upon the truth, or has any unerring method of divining it. In all probability the errors of the great mind exceed in number those of the less vigorous one. Fertility of imagination and abundance of guesses at truth are among the first requisites of discovery; but the erroneous guesses must be many times as numerous as those that prove well founded. The weakest analogies, the most whimsical notions, the most apparently absurd theories, may pass through the teeming brain, and no record remain of more than the hundredth part. […] The truest theories involve suppositions which are inconceivable, and no limit can really be placed to the freedom of hypotheses." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Just as, in the map of a half-explored country, we see detached bits of rivers, isolated mountains, and undefined plains, not connected into any complete plan, so a new branch of knowledge consists of groups of facts, each group standing apart, so as not to allow us to reason from one to another." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Nature is a spectacle continually exhibited to our senses, in which phenomena are mingled in combinations of endless variety and novelty." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Numerical facts, like other facts, are but the raw materials of knowledge, upon which our reasoning faculties must be exerted in order to draw forth the principles of nature. [...] Numerical precision is the soul of science [...]" (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"I am convinced that it is impossible to expound the methods of induction in a sound manner, without resting them on the theory of probability. Perfect knowledge alone can give certainty, and in nature perfect knowledge would be infinite knowledge, which is clearly beyond our capacities. We have, therefore, to content ourselves with partial knowledge, - knowledge mingled with ignorance, producing doubt." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"In abstract mathematical theorems the approximation to absolute truth is perfect, because we can treat of infinitesimals. In physical science, on the contrary, we treat of the least quantities which are perceptible." (William S Jevons, „The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"It is the prerogative of Intellect to discover what is uniform and unchanging in the phenomena around us." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"It must be the ground of all reasoning and inference that what is true of one thing will be true of its equivalent, and that under carefully ascertained conditions Nature repeats herself." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"It [probability] is the very guide of life, and hardly can we take a step or make a decision of any kind without correctly or incorrectly making an estimation of probabilities." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"It would be an error to suppose that the great discoverer seizes at once upon the truth, or has any unerring method of divining it. In all probability the errors of the great mind exceed in number those of the less vigorous one. Fertility of imagination and abundance of guesses at truth are among the first requisites of discovery; but the erroneous guesses must be many times as numerous as those that prove well founded. The weakest analogies, the most whimsical notions, the most apparently absurd theories, may pass through the teeming brain, and no record remain of more than the hundredth part. […] The truest theories involve suppositions which are inconceivable, and no limit can really be placed to the freedom of hypotheses." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Just as, in the map of a half-explored country, we see detached bits of rivers, isolated mountains, and undefined plains, not connected into any complete plan, so a new branch of knowledge consists of groups of facts, each group standing apart, so as not to allow us to reason from one to another." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Nature is a spectacle continually exhibited to our senses, in which phenomena are mingled in combinations of endless variety and novelty." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Numerical facts, like other facts, are but the raw materials of knowledge, upon which our reasoning faculties must be exerted in order to draw forth the principles of nature. [...] Numerical precision is the soul of science [...]" (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Our ultimate object in induction must be to obtain the complete relation between the conditions and the effect, but this relation will generally be so complex that we can only attack it in detail." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Perfect readiness to reject a theory inconsistent with fact is a primary requisite of the philosophic mind. But it, would be a mistake to suppose that this candour has anything akin to fickleness; on the contrary, readiness to reject a false theory may be combined with a peculiar pertinacity and courage in maintaining an hypothesis as long as its falsity is not actually apparent." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science", 1874)
"Quantities which are called errors in one case, may really be most important and interesting phenomena in another investigation. When we speak of eliminating error we really mean disentangling the complicated phenomena of nature." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science", 1874)
"Science arises from the discovery of Identity amid Diversity." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Simplicity is naturally agreeable to a mind of limited powers, but to an infinite mind all things are simple." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Summing up, then, it would seem as if the mind of the great discoverer must combine contradictory attributes. He must be fertile in theories and hypotheses, and yet full of facts and precise results of experience. He must entertain the feeblest analogies, and the merest guesses at truth, and yet he must hold them as worthless till they are verified in experiment. When there are any grounds of probability he must hold tenaciously to an old opinion, and yet he must be prepared at any moment to relinquish it when a clearly contradictory fact is encountered." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"The man of one idea has but a single chance of truth." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"The truth or untruth of a natural law, when carefully investigated, resolves itself into a high or low degree of probability, and this is the case whether or not we are capable of producing precise numerical data." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"The whole value of science consists in the power which it confers upon us of applying to one object the knowledge acquired from like objects; and it is only so far, therefore, as we can discover and register resemblances that we can turn our observations to account." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Perfect readiness to reject a theory inconsistent with fact is a primary requisite of the philosophic mind. But it, would be a mistake to suppose that this candour has anything akin to fickleness; on the contrary, readiness to reject a false theory may be combined with a peculiar pertinacity and courage in maintaining an hypothesis as long as its falsity is not actually apparent." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science", 1874)
"Quantities which are called errors in one case, may really be most important and interesting phenomena in another investigation. When we speak of eliminating error we really mean disentangling the complicated phenomena of nature." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science", 1874)
"Science arises from the discovery of Identity amid Diversity." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Simplicity is naturally agreeable to a mind of limited powers, but to an infinite mind all things are simple." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"Summing up, then, it would seem as if the mind of the great discoverer must combine contradictory attributes. He must be fertile in theories and hypotheses, and yet full of facts and precise results of experience. He must entertain the feeblest analogies, and the merest guesses at truth, and yet he must hold them as worthless till they are verified in experiment. When there are any grounds of probability he must hold tenaciously to an old opinion, and yet he must be prepared at any moment to relinquish it when a clearly contradictory fact is encountered." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"The man of one idea has but a single chance of truth." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"The truth or untruth of a natural law, when carefully investigated, resolves itself into a high or low degree of probability, and this is the case whether or not we are capable of producing precise numerical data." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
"The whole value of science consists in the power which it confers upon us of applying to one object the knowledge acquired from like objects; and it is only so far, therefore, as we can discover and register resemblances that we can turn our observations to account." (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method", 1874)
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