"One very reprehensible mode of theory-making consists, after
honest deductions from a few facts have been made, in torturing other facts to
suit the end proposed, in omitting some, and in making use of any authority
that may lend assistance to the object desired; while all those which militate
against it are carefully put on one side or doubted." (Henry De la Beche, "Sections
and Views, Illustrative of Geological Phaenomena", 1830)
"Facts [...] are not truths; they are not conclusions; they are
not even premises, but in the nature and parts of premises. The truth depends
on, and is only arrived at, by a legitimate deduction from all the facts which
are truly material." (Samuel T Coleridge, "The Table Talk and Omniana of Samuel
Taylor Coleridge", 1831)
"The deduction of effect from cause is often blocked by some insuperable extrinsic obstacle: the true causes may be quite unknown." (Carl von Clausewitz, "On War", 1832)
"Physical astronomy is the science which compares and identifies the laws of motion observed on earth with the motions that take place in the heavens; and which traces, by an uninterrupted chain of deduction from the great principle that governs the universe, the revolutions and rotations of the planets, and the oscillations of the fluids at their surfaces; and which estimates the changes the system has hitherto undergone, or may hereafter experience - changes which require millions of years for their accomplishment." (Mary Somerville, "The Connection of the Physical Sciences", 1834)
"Every stage of science has its train of practical
applications and systematic inferences, arising both from the demands of
convenience and curiosity, and from the pleasure which, as we have already
said, ingenious and active-minded men feel in exercising the process of deduction."
"These sciences, Geometry, Theoretical Arithmetic and Algebra, have no principles besides definitions and axioms, and no process of proof but deduction; this process, however, assuming a most remarkable character; and exhibiting a combination of simplicity and complexity, of rigour and generality, quite unparalleled in other subjects." (William Whewell, "The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences", 1840)
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