"Close observers of nature, however diverse their points of view, will agree that everything of a phenomenal nature must suggest either an original duality capable of being merged in unity, or an original unity capable of becoming a duality. Separating what is united and uniting what is separate is the life of nature. This is the eternal systole and diastole, the eternal synkrisis and diakrisis, the breathing in and out of the world in which we move and have our being." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "On Theory of Color", 1810)
"Only through blind Instinct, in which the only possible guidance of the Imperative is awanting, does the Power in Intuition remain undetermined; where it is schematised as absolute it becomes infinite; and where it is presented in a determinate form, as a principle, it becomes at least manifold. By the above-mentioned act of Intelligising, the Power liberates itself from Instinct, to direct itself towards Unity." (Johann G Fichte, "Outline of the Doctrine of Knowledge", 1810)
"Since it cannot be overlooked by the Doctrine of Knowledge that Actual Knowledge does by no means present itself as a Unity, such as is assumed above but as a multiplicity, there is consequently a second task imposed upon it, - that of setting forth the ground of this apparent Multiplicity. It is of course understood that this ground is not to be derived from any outward source, but must be shown to be contained in the essential Nature of Knowledge itself as such; - and that therefore this problem, although apparently two-fold, is yet but one and the same, - namely, to set forth the essential Nature of Knowledge." (Johann G Fichte, "Outline of the Doctrine of Knowledge", 1810)
"Mathematical analysis […] in the study of all phenomena, interprets them by the same language, as if to attest the unity and simplicity of the plan of the universe, and to make still more evident that unchangeable order which presides over all natural causes. […] There cannot be a language more universal and more simple, more free from errors and obscurities, … more worthy to express the invariable relations of all natural things." (Baron Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier,"Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur", 1822)
"Caught up in the limitless maze, the fragmentation and complication of modern natural science, and yearning for the recapture of simplicity, we must forever ask ourselves: Supposing he had known nature in its present state of complexity, a basic unity withal, how would Plato have coped with it?" (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", 1822)
"Its [mathematical analysis] chief attribute is clearness; it has no means for expressing confused ideas. It compares the most diverse phenomena and discovers the secret analogies which unite them. If matter escapes us, as that of air and light because of its extreme tenuity, if bodies are placed far from us in the immensity of space, if man wishes to know the aspect of the heavens at successive periods separated by many centuries, if gravity and heat act in the interior of the solid earth at depths which will forever be inaccessible, mathematical analysis is still able to trace the laws of these phenomena. It renders them present and measurable, and appears to be the faculty of the human mind destined to supplement the brevity of life and the imperfection of the senses, and what is even more remarkable, it follows the same course in the study of all phenomena; it explains them in the same language, as if in witness to the unity and simplicity of the plan of the universe, and to make more manifest the unchangeable order which presides over all natural causes." (Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier, "Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur", 1822)
"There cannot be a language more universal and more simple, more free from errors and obscurities [...] more worthy to express the invariable relations of all natural things [than mathematics]. [It interprets] all phenomena by the same language, as if to attest the unity and simplicity of the plan of the universe, and to make still more evident that unchangeable order which presides over all natural causes." (Joseph Fourier, "The Analytical Theory of Heat", 1822)
"The more one reflects, the more one acknowledges that necessity governs the world. At each new progress of science ,that which seemed contingent is recognized as being necessary. Multiple relations are established between the branches that we had thought to be separate; we observe laws where we had thought there were only accidental events. We approach more and more the unity of being […]" (Sophie Germain, "Considerations sur l’etat des sciences et lettres, aux differentes epoques de leur culture", 1833)
"Unless my Algebra deceive me, Unity itself divided by Zero will give Infinity." (Thomas Carlyle, "Sartor Resartus", 1836)
"When the whole and the parts are seen at once, as mutually producing and explaining each other, as unity in multeity, there results shapeliness." (Samuel T Coleridge, "Letters", 1836)
"The system becomes more coherent as it is further extended. The elements which we require for explaining a new class of facts are already contained in our system. Different members of the theory run together, and we have thus a constant convergence to unity. In false theories, the contrary is the case." (William Whewell, "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences", 1840)
"Nature creates unity even in the parts of a whole." (Eugène Delacroix, 1857)
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