"There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance without
a contriver; order without choice; arrangement, without any thing capable of
arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose, without that which could
intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, without the end ever having been
contemplated, or the means accommodated to it. Arrangement, disposition of
parts, subserviency of means to an end, relation of instruments to an use,
imply the presence of intelligence and mind." (William Paley, "Natural Theology
or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity", 1802)
"Metaphysical inquiry attempts to trace things to the very first stage in which they can, even to the most penetrating intelligences, be the subjects of a thought, a doubt, or a proposition; that profoundest abstraction, where they stand on the first step of distinction from nonentity, and where that one question might be put concerning them, the answer to which would leave no further question possible. And having thus abstracted and penetrated to the state of pure entity, the speculation would come back, tracing it into all its modes and relations; till at last metaphysical truth, approaching nearer and nearer to the sphere of our immediate knowledge, terminates on the confines of distinct sciences and obvious realities. Now, it would seem evident that this inquiry into primary truth must surpass, in point of dignity, all other speculations. If any man could carry his discoveries as far, and make his proofs as strong, in the metaphysical world, as Newton did in the physical, he would be an incomparably greater man than even Newton." (John Foster, "Essays", cca. 1805)
"We ought then to consider the present state of the universe as the effect of its previous state and as the cause of that which is to follow. An intelligence that, at a given instant, could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings that make it up, if moreover it were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, would encompass in the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the lightest atoms. For such an intelligence nothing would be uncertain, and the future, like the past, would be open to its eyes." (Pierre-Simon de Laplace, "Essai philosophique sur les probabilités", 1814)
"No occupation is more worthy of an intelligent and enlightened mind, than the study of Nature and natural objects; and whether we labour to investigate the structure and function of the human system, whether we direct our attention to the classification and habits of the animal kingdom, or prosecute our researches in the more pleasing and varied field of vegetable life, we shall constantly find some new object to attract our attention, some fresh beauties to excite our imagination, and some previously undiscovered source of gratification and delight." (Sir Joseph Paxton, "A Practical Treatise on the Cultivation of the Dahlia", 1838)
"To be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false, - this is the mark and character of intelligence." (Ralph W Emerson, "Essays", 1841)
"We study the complex in the simple; and only from the intuition of the lower can we safely proceed to the intellection of the higher degrees. The only danger lies in the leaping from low to high, with the neglect of the intervening gradations." (Samuel T Coleridge, "Physiology of Life", 1848)
No comments:
Post a Comment