"Natural philosophy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... AEthiopian monsters; of serpents whose eyes were jewels of magical virtue; of pygmies; of golden water; of the speaking tree; of a woman half white and half black, etc.; he incorporates in his narrative the fables of Ctesias, Agatharchidas, and other writers. His blunders in geography and natural philosophy may be added, as far as they arise from the desire of describing wonders, etc. See also his pompous description of the wonders of Babylon, which were not then in existence.—Prideaux, Connection, Part 1. Book viii. For his inconsistencies, see Eusebius and Brucker. It ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... of the science to which they belong, but contribute powerfully to fix it in the memory. If you can spare the time from your severer studies, and if your tutor does not disapprove, I should strongly advise you to attend in succession the lectures on natural philosophy,—on chemistry,—on mineralogy,—and on geology. Some acquaintance with these sciences, is in itself so interesting and useful, and is now so general, that you ought not, I think, to miss your present opportunity of acquiring it: so favourable an opportunity ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... lesson in Geography, and a bit of natural Philosophy to be done first, and then followed their Bible talk; for ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... students—he says: "There is a piece of foppery which is to be cautiously guarded against, the foppery of universality, of knowing all sciences and excelling in all arts—chymistry, mathematics, algebra, dancing, history, reasoning, riding, fencing, Low Dutch, High Dutch, and natural philosophy. In short, the modern precept of education very often is, 'Take the Admirable Crichton for your model, I would have you ignorant of nothing.' Now," says he, "my advice, on the contrary, is to have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order that you may avoid ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY FOR 1859; or, Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art, exhibiting the most important Discoveries and Improvements in Mechanics, Useful Arts, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Astronomy, Meteorology, Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology, Geography, Antiquities, &c., together with a list of recent Scientific Publications; a classified list of Patents; Obituaries of eminent Scientific Men; an Index of Important Papers in Scientific Journals, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... master the practical principles of natural philosophy, and yet how many intelligent persons remain ignorant of the most commonplace truths in this branch of learning! With a little attention to the natural and mechanical sciences, a new world of beauty and truth ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... deliver lectures on a great variety of scientific subjects,—on political economy, theology, and natural philosophy. His thought and method of treatment were of the very highest types of intellectual ability. Of course James did not profess to do this of himself; he was in fact, wholly unconscious of doing anything. When entranced, the controlling ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... For the attitude of Leibnetz, Hutchinson, and the others named toward the Newtonian theory, see Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, chap. ix. For John Wesley, see his Compendium of Natural Philosophy, being a Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation, London, 1784. See also Leslie Stephen, Eighteenth Century, vol. ii, p. 413. For Owen, see his Works, vol. xix, p. 310. For Cotton Mather's view, see The Christian Philosopher, London, 1721, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Natural Philosophy. If two red rays from two luminous points be admitted into a dark chamber so as to fall on a white surface, and differ in their length by 0.0000258 of an inch, their intensity is doubled. So also if the difference in length be any whole-number multiple of that fraction. A multiple by ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... much diverted the other morning with another volume on birds, by Edwards, who has published four or five. The poor man, who is grown very old and devout, begs God to take from him the love of natural philosophy; and having observed some heterodox proceedings among bantam cocks, he proposes that all schools of girls and boys should be promiscuous, lest, if separated, they should learn wayward passions. But what struck me most were his ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... farmer was a poor pirate but a born soldier. He was described by one who knew him as being morose, sour, unsociable, and ill-tempered, and that he "knew as little of the sea or of ships as he did of the Arts of Natural Philosophy." But it is recorded to his credit that he was not cruel. He started life in a merchant ship bound for India, and was accidentally left behind in Madagascar. Taken care of by friendly natives, he fought so well on the side of his benefactors in ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... clergyman, whose family came to England following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was graduated from Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1710, succeeding Keill as lecturer in Experimental Philosophy. He was especially learned in natural philosophy, mathematics, geometry, and optics, having lectured before the King on various occasions. He was very popular in the Grand Lodge, and his power as an orator made his manner of conferring a degree impressive—which may explain his having been accused of inventing the degrees. He was ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... here to apologize for many of the subsequent conjectures on some articles of natural philosophy, as not being supported by accurate investigation or conclusive experiments. Extravagant theories however in those parts of philosophy, where our knowledge is yet imperfect, are not without their use; as they encourage the execution of laborious experiments, or the investigation of ingenious ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... it was his natural proclivities that gave rise to his system of philosophy. He attributes a real existence to the material as well as to the immaterial world, but permits it a different mode of existence. He makes history a necessity. This natural philosophy conveys to us no knowledge of God, and the little it does reveal appears opposed to religion. What God performs takes place because it must be. Schelling created two opposite and parallel philosophic sciences, the transcendental philosophy and the philosophy ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... nevertheless they have not much imagination [29]. And a picture, if painted on copper with enamel colours may be yet more permanent. We, by our arts may be called the grandsons of God. If poetry deals with moral philosophy, painting deals with natural philosophy. Poetry describes the action of the mind, painting considers what the mind may effect by the motions [of the body]. If poetry can terrify people by hideous fictions, painting can do as much by depicting the same things ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... destiny I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys. Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate; I desire, therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which led to my predilection for that science. When I was thirteen years of age we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... of Cambridge, may, as a living body, appropriate and vitalise this new organ, the outward shell of which we expect soon to rise before us. The course of study at this University has always included Natural Philosophy, as well as Pure Mathematics. To diffuse a sound knowledge of Physics, and to imbue the minds of our students with correct dynamical principles, have been long regarded as among our highest functions, and very few of us can now place ourselves in the mental condition ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; morals grave; logic ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... friends that, after all, there was more good to be got from George Cooke's plain sermons than from much of the more laboured oratory of the University pulpit. He was frequently Examiner in the schools, and occupied the chair of the Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy, from 1810 to 1853. ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... shadings to indicate lines or boundaries, it was varnished and became a veritable globe, fit for an early student of geography, and far from crude. It now stands before me as perfect as when made fifty years since. In mathematics I soon, out of school, passed to the study of algebra, geometry, natural philosophy, etc. My common school and home advantages were excellent, and while my father lived, even when at work in the field, problems were being stated and solved, and interesting matters were discussed and considered. The country boy has an inestimable ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... of the founding of Dartmouth, we find that, in Yale College, the Faculty consisted of Dr. Daggett, who was President, and Professor of Divinity; Rev. Nehemiah Strong, Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and two or ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... of chemistry and geology should meet a hearty welcome. This was made the more certain by the special qualification of the teachers of these sciences. Professor Dewey was distinguished by his lectures and experiments in natural philosophy and chemistry. Professor Eaton early gave lectures in mineralogy, geology, and botany. He was a pioneer in these departments of science, and an enthusiast whose spirit easily kindled a like spirit in others. ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... 1436, considered Nature, like Thomas Aquinas, from a mystical and scholastic point of view, as made up of living beings in a graduated scale from the lowest to the highest; and he lauded her in terms which even Pope Clement VII. thought exaggerated. Piety in him went hand in hand with a natural philosophy like Bacon's, and his interest in Nature was rather a ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... art can be called the grandsons of God. If poetry deals with moral philosophy, painting deals with natural philosophy; if poetry describes the action of the contemplative mind, painting represents the effect in motion of the action of the mind; if poetry terrifies people with the pictures of Hell, painting does the same by depicting the same ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... they are being undermined by bad men. 'He should.' You agree with me, Cleinias, that the heresy consists in supposing earth, air, fire, and water to be the first of all things. These the heretics call nature, conceiving them to be prior to the soul. 'I agree.' You would further agree that natural philosophy is the source of this impiety—the study appears to be pursued in a wrong way. 'In what way do you mean?' The error consists in transposing first and second causes. They do not see that the soul is before the body, and before all other things, and the author and ruler of them all. And if ...
— Laws • Plato
... Augustus natural philosophy made little progress, and Virgil strongly desired its advancement. Human anatomy, as a study, had not been introduced, and physiology was almost unknown. In medicine, the standard of practice was the writings of Hippocrates, ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... one of the greatest of the great, this is pre-eminently the case. One reader looks for simply dramatic interest, another for natural philosophy, and a third for morals, and each is more than satisfied with the treatment of his own ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... circumstances; that in Canada, contrary to what we see every where else, the country is rich, the capital poor; the hills fruitful, the vallies barren. You see what excellent dispositions I have to be an useful member of society: I had always a strong biass to the study of natural philosophy. ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores.[52] Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... might of the immortal gods." Strabo also speaks of their teaching in moral science.[1050] As has been seen, it is easy to exaggerate all this. Their astronomy was probably of a humble kind and mingled with astrology; their natural philosophy a mass of cosmogonic myths and speculations; their theology was rather mythology; their moral philosophy a series of maxims such as are found in all barbaric communities. Their medical lore, to judge from what Pliny says, was largely magical. Some ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... curiosity had induced him to explore, He neglected not that which by most is esteemed impious, and by many chimerical. I speak of those arts which relate to the world of Spirits. His deep researches into causes and effects, his unwearied application to the study of natural philosophy, his profound and unlimited knowledge of the properties and virtues of every gem which enriches the deep, of every herb which the earth produces, at length procured him the distinction which He had sought ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... each science." And, finally, he asserts that the gradations thus established a priori among the sciences, and the parts of each science, "is in essential conformity with the order which has spontaneously taken place among the branches of natural philosophy;" or, in other words—corresponds with ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... loved to quote from Racine, Corneille, Boileau, Moliere, Montaigne, and Fenelon. Likewise he had gleaned much history from Segur, and much of the old classics from French translations of them; but for mathematics, natural philosophy, or contemporary literature he cared nothing whatever. However, he knew how to be silent in conversation, as well as when to make general remarks on authors whom he had never read—such as Goethe, Schiller, and Byron. Moreover, despite ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... Nothing could equal the surprise of his majesty and the courtiers, when the dear little creature arrived with the elephant's proboscis hanging out of its divine little bill. However, after the first astonishment was over, his majesty, who to be sure was wisdom itself, and who understood natural philosophy that it was a charm to hear him discourse of those matters, and who was actually making a collection of dried beasts and birds in twelve thousand volumes of the best fool's-cap paper, immediately perceived what had happened, and taking out of the side-pocket ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... instructor, to a great extent. The boy was early furnished with tools by his father, and with them found amusement and instruction. He early manifested a taste for mathematics and mechanics, studied botany, chemistry, mineralogy, natural philosophy, and at fourteen ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... as a relapse to the level of primitive animism? If so, we should be deceived by appearances. Religions do not fall back into infancy as they grow old. The pagans of the fourth century no longer naively considered their gods as capricious genii, as the disordered powers of a confused natural philosophy; they conceived them as cosmic energies whose providential action was regulated in a harmonious system. Faith was no longer instinctive and impulsive, for erudition and reflection had reconstructed the entire theology. In a certain ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... most approved principles of elocution, writing, arithmetic, euclid, algebra, mensuration, trigonometry, book-keeping, geography, grammar, spelling and dictation, composition, logic and debate, French, Latin, shorthand, history, music, and general lectures on astronomy, natural philosophy, geology, and other subjects." The simpler principles of these branches of learning were to be "rendered intelligible, and a firm foundation laid for the acquirement of future knowledge." Unfortunately a suspicion of theft on Butler's part cut short the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... veiled. If the monks to whom the superintendence of the establishment was confided had understood the organisation of his mind, if they had engaged more able mathematical professors, or if we had had any incitement to the study of chemistry, natural philosophy, astronomy, etc., I am convinced that Bonaparte would have pursued these sciences with all the genius and spirit of investigation which he displayed in a career, more brilliant it is true, but less useful to mankind. Unfortunately, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... had of him. M. Perdriau, then a country pastor, now professor of Belles Lettres, whose mild and agreeable society will ever make me regret the loss of it, although he has since thought proper to detach himself from me; M. Jalabert, at that time professor of natural philosophy, since become counsellor and syndic, to whom I read my discourse upon Inequality (but not the dedication), with which he seemed to be delighted; the Professor Lullin, with whom I maintained a correspondence until his death, and who gave me a commission to purchase books for the library; ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... three times through the whole of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus. I had studied the most celebrated orations of Cicero, and translated a great deal of Homer. Terence, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Juvenal, I had read over and over again." He also studied geography, natural history, and natural philosophy, and obtained a considerable acquaintance with general knowledge. At sixteen he was articled to a clerk in Chancery; worked hard; was admitted to the bar; and his industry and perseverance ensured success. He became Solicitor- General under the Fox administration in 1806, and steadily worked his ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... contained no loop-hole to evade the act, and substitute 'him' for 'person;' so they let Miss Garrett in as a student. Like all the students, she had to attend lectures on chemistry botany, materia medica, zoology, natural philosophy, and clinical surgery. In the collateral subjects they let her sit with the male students; but in anatomy and surgery she had to attend the same lectures privately, and pay for lectures all to herself. This cost her enormous fees. However, it is only fair to say that, if she had been ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Mathematics and Music, Alcorn A. & M. College, Westside, Miss., two years; Professor of Natural Sciences, five years, and Vice-President two years in the State N. & I. College, Tallahassee, Fla. He at present occupies the chair of Natural Philosophy and General, Analytical and Industrial Chemistry in ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... will serve to illustrate what we mean by relative action, when applied to natural philosophy or ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... metaphysics in the utmost contempt, and he scarcely attended at all to mathematics and natural philosophy, unless to turn them into ridicule. The studies which he chiefly followed were history and poetry, in which he made great progress; but to other branches of science he had given so very little application, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... lectures chiefly in vogue, on divinity, geometry, and history, were not the most to his liking—history in particular seemed ever to him a terrible record of misery and crime—but in his own chambers he could study poetry, natural philosophy, and metaphysics. The outcome of these studies, advanced speculative thought, was not, however, to be tolerated within the University precincts, and, unfortunately for Shelley, his favourite subjects of conversation were tabooed, had it not been for one light-hearted and amusing ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... process of hoodwinking an acute but too sensitive man; of working on the latent germ of superstition, which exists beneath his outward scepticism; harassing his mind by the terrors of magic,—the magic of chemistry and natural philosophy and natural cunning; till, racked by doubts and agonising fears, and plunging from one depth of dark uncertainty into another, he is driven at length to still his scruples in the bosom of the Infallible Church. The incidents are contrived with considerable address, displaying ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... nothing else but sense and memory, and is absolute; the latter is called science, and is conditional. The register of the first is called history, natural or civil; that of the second is contained in books of philosophy, in corresponding groups—natural philosophy, and civil philosophy, or politics. Natural philosophy breaks up into a number of groups, including mental ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... exercised in reading geographical and historical books aloud, a very high key being adopted, and a most disagreeable tone, both with the Chinese and Japanese pronunciation. Arithmetic and the elements of some of the branches of natural philosophy are also taught. The children recited a verse of poetry which I understood contained the whole of the simple syllabary. It ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.... Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... and extraordinary manner. The longer I meditated upon these the more intense grew the interest which had been excited within me. The limited nature of my education in general, and more especially my ignorance on subjects connected with natural philosophy, so far from rendering me diffident of my own ability to comprehend what I had read, or inducing me to mistrust the many vague notions which had arisen in consequence, merely served as a farther stimulus to imagination; and I was vain enough, or perhaps ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... looked very bright and intelligent, and I was delighted with the system, of instruction which had evidently been pursued with them. We heard them first in the reading and recitation of poetry; after that in arithmetic and algebra, then in natural philosophy, and last, and most satisfactorily, in the Bible. It was perfectly evident from the nature of the questions and answers, that it was not a crammed examination, and that the readiness of reply proceeded not from a mere commitment of words, but from a system of intellectual training, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... It is even probable that Mr. Wyllys believed himself endowed with a good stock of observation and experience in human nature; but, in spite of all these advantages, we cannot help thinking that, although well-versed in natural philosophy, this excellent gentleman proved himself quite ignorant of boy and girl nature. Even his daughter, Miss Agnes, feared her father had been unwise and imprudent on an occasion which ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... stirring in every vein. And what is that root? Is not that the soul of his soul?—A thought too bold?—A dream too wild? Yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of more earthly natures,—when he has learned to worship the soul, and to see that the natural philosophy that now is, is only the first gropings of its gigantic hand,—he shall look forward to an ever-expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator.[13] He shall see that nature is the opposite of the ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... believed in witchcraft, and swore to their belief in spectre dogs and wizards, as to show that, in the Midland counties at least, such traditions are anything but extinct. If so much of the bad has been spared by steam, by natural philosophy, and by the Church, let us hope that some of the good may still linger along with it, and that an English Grimm may yet arise who may carry out what Mr. Chambers has so well begun in Scotland, and discover in the mouth ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... lessons that could be given only in class rooms, but recitations, examinations and mental exercises generally were relegated to regions beyond the threshold. Botany, geology, natural history and what was then called natural philosophy were taught among the rocks, in the woods and in the fields ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... greatest of all merits; compared to which, the vulgar prejudices in favour of titles, dignities, honours, and the like, held a very low rank indeed. Nor perhaps would the beauties of the body be so much affected to be held cheap, were they, in their nature, to be bought and delivered. But for me, whose natural philosophy all resided in the favourite center of sense, and who was ruled by its powerful instinct in taking pleasure by its right handle, I could scarce have made a ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... matter, body, substance, brute matter, stuff, element, principle, parenchyma [Biol.], material, substratum, hyle^, corpus, pabulum; frame. object, article, thing, something; still life; stocks and stones; materials &c 635. [Science of matter] physics; somatology^, somatics; natural philosophy, experimental philosophy; physicism^; physical science, philosophie positive [Fr.], materialism; materialist; physicist; somatism^, somatist^. Adj. material, bodily; corporeal, corporal; physical; somatic, somatoscopic^; sensible, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... alleging a new law of nature, or a new experiment in natural philosophy; because, when these are related, it is expected that, under the same circumstances, the same effect will follow universally; and in proportion as this expectation is justly entertained, the want of a corresponding experience ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... exterior and send it to mad depths in search of isolation, other radiations, known or unknown, must be required, radiations capable of penetrating a screen against which ordinary radiations are powerless. Who knows what vistas the natural philosophy of the maggot might open out to us? For lack of apparatus, I ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... with Professor Henslow, a man of remarkable acquirements in botany, entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. During his last year at Cambridge Darwin read with care and interest Humboldt's "Personal Narrative," and Sir John Herschel's "Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy." These books influenced him profoundly, arousing in him a burning desire to make even the most humble contribution to the structure of natural science. At Henslow's suggestion he began the study ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... Schornborn. He is well known in Germany, as having attempted to translate Pindar into German. Besides this, and besides being known to be a man of genius, he is known to be a great proficient in most of the branches of natural philosophy. I have spent many very pleasant hours ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... well known that the vast labours of Lamarck were divided between botany and physical science in the eighteenth century, and between zoology and natural philosophy in the nineteenth; it is, however, less generally known that Lamarck was long a partisan of the immutability of species. It was not till 1801, when he was already old, that he freed himself from the ideas ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... institution, and was attended by a considerable number of students, to whom it did not, indeed, furnish what is called "the higher education," but it was a considerable advance upon any school that James had hitherto attended. English grammar, natural philosophy, arithmetic, and algebra—these were the principal studies to which James devoted himself, and they opened to him new fields of thought. Probably it was at this humble seminary that he first acquired the thirst for learning that ever ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... sepulchres of those which are shown in Greece; recollect, for you have been initiated, what lessons are taught in the mysteries; then will you perceive how extensive this doctrine is. But they who were not acquainted with natural philosophy (for it did not begin to be in vogue till many years later) had no higher belief than what natural reason could give them; they were not acquainted with the principles and causes of things; they were often induced by certain visions, and those generally in the ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the alchemist was not acting on a vague; haphazard surmise; he was pursuing a policy dictated by his conception of the order of nature; he was following the method which he conceived to be that used by nature herself. The transmutation of metals was part and parcel of a system of natural philosophy. If this transmutation were impossible, the alchemical scheme of things would be destroyed, the believer in the transmutation would be left without a sense of order in the material universe. And, moreover, the alchemist's ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... of this town and county: but I found myself altogether unequal to the task. I have neither health, strength, nor opportunity to make proper collections of the mineral, vegetable, and animal productions. I am not much conversant with these branches of natural philosophy. I have no books to direct my inquiries. I can find no person capable of giving me the least information or assistance; and I am strangely puzzled by the barbarous names they give to many different species, the descriptions ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... still occupies, and for a time Rumford lived there and gave the enterprise his undivided attention. He appointed the brilliant young Humphry Davy to the professorship of chemistry, and the even more wonderful Thomas Young to that of natural philosophy. He saw the workshops and kitchens and model-rooms in running order—the entire enterprise fully launched. Then other affairs, particularly an attachment for a French lady, the widow of the famous ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... professor of natural philosophy now at Naples, of the name of Amici, from Modena, who has invented a microscope of immense power. The circulation of the blood in the thigh of a frog (the coldest animal in nature), when viewed thro' this microscope, ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... were a grown-up lad, and I were teaching you natural philosophy, I should have here a fine opportunity for explaining what is called the theory of the lever. But I think the theory of the lever would frighten you; so we must get out of the ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... gravely tell me that I have spent my time idly in a vain and fruitless inquiry after what I can never become sure of, the answer is that at this rate he would put down all natural philosophy, as far as it concerns itself in searching into the nature of such things. In such noble and sublime studies as these, 'tis a glory to arrive at probability, and the search itself rewards the pains. But there are many degrees of probable, some nearer to the truth ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... to seek another's blood. He addressed to his daughter a few lines of graceful compliment, and, in striking contrast with Hamilton's injunction to his children, Burr's last request with regard to Theodosia is, that she shall acquire a "critical knowledge of Latin, English, and all branches of natural philosophy." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... and spiritual nature of the soul, and the future resurrection of the body, and concludes with an anatomical description of it, which shows him to have been well skilled in medicine, and in that branch of natural philosophy, for that age. The two homilies on the words, Let us make man, are falsely ascribed to him. When {554} desired by one Caesarius to prescribe him rules of a perfect virtue, he did this by his Life of Moses, the pattern of virtue. He closes ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... and on Natural Philosophy. They are classics. All conversant with their contents agree that the experimental work was marvelous. Priestley's discovery of oxygen was epoch-making, but does not represent all that he did. Twice he just escaped the discovery of nitrogen. ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... Society, but is thus stated by M. Thiebault in his "Recollections of Frederick the Great and the Court of Berlin." It is necessary to premise that M. Gleditsch, to whom the circumstance happened, was a botanist of eminence, holding the professorship of natural philosophy at Berlin, and respected as a man of an habitually serious, ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... that the moral philosophy transmitted to us by antiquity laboured under the same inconvenience that has been found in their natural philosophy, of being entirely hypothetical, and depending more upon invention than experience: every one consulted his fancy in erecting schemes of virtue and happiness, without regarding human nature, upon which every ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... believed with that philosopher that "all our knowledge we owe to Nature; that in the beginning we can only instruct ourselves through her lessons; and that the whole art of reasoning consists in continuing as she has compelled us to commence." Keeping natural philosophy apart from the doctrines of revelation, I never assailed the last; but I contended that by the first no accurate reasoner could arrive at the existence of the soul as a third principle of being equally distinct ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Invalides' mess-rooms. A distracted 'peruke-maker with two fiery torches' is for burning 'the saltpetres of the arsenal;' had not a woman run screaming—had not a patriot, with some tincture of natural philosophy, instantly struck the wind out of him, (butt of musket on pit of stomach,) overturned barrels, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... as long. The book is, in fact, rather a theologico-natural-philosophical treatise than a work of natural science. The scientific part is, however, the foundation on which Haeckel builds up his natural philosophy, and which he uses as the starting point of his criticism of theology. Hence it is worth our while ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... Magistrand (fourth-class) Debating Society would meet that evening. The meetings of this society, although under the control of the magistrands, were open, upon equal terms in most other respects, to the members of the inferior classes. They were held in the Natural Philosophy class-room, at seven o'clock in the evening; and to the first meeting of the session Alec went with no ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... latitude was simply to ascend in a balloon, and wait there till the rotation of the earth conveyed the locality which happened to be his destination directly beneath him, whereupon he was to let out the gas and drop down! Ptolemy knew quite enough natural philosophy to be aware that such a proposal for locomotion would be an utter absurdity; he knew that there was no such relative shift between the air and the earth as this motion would imply. It appeared to him to be necessary that the air should lag behind, if the earth had been animated by a ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy'. Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... is given by Burke himself in letters to his former friend Richard Shackleton, son of his old schoolmaster. What he did was done with a zest that at times became a feverish impatience: "First I was greatly taken with natural philosophy, which, while I should have given my mind to logic, employed me incessantly. This I call my FUROR MATHEMATICUS." Following in succession come his FUROR LOGICUS, FUROR HISTORICUS, and FUROR PEOTICUS, each of which absorbed him for the time being. It would be wrong, however, to think ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... frequent use at Oxford, is traditionally supposed to be found in the payments made for lectures at the end of each term. Thus, at Oxford, a student paid threepence a term (one shilling a year) to his regent for lectures in Logic, and fourpence a term for lectures in Natural Philosophy. The system was not a satisfactory one, and alike in Paris, in Oxford, and in Cambridge, it succumbed to the growth of College teaching. The Head of a Parisian College, from the first, superintended the studies of (p. 147) the scholars, and, although ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... called men—the philosophy of blood. But to keep up the dignity it not only required a great deal of experience, but a large amount of tin in the pocket, which for the minus thereof was it necessary to have a deal of brass in the face. This principle, then, which is strictly in accordance with natural philosophy, being very well developed in this worthily aged country, makes the truly great very great of modesty; while the man of pewter greatness—that is, great because Our Sovereign Lady said he might take upon himself the name of Sir Simpleton Somebody! always boiling over with ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Sedleian professor of natural philosophy in Oxford in 1660. Later he practised in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... old for the improvement and government of society, as designed to give authority to laws, and maintain social order.[155] Others have regarded them as intended to be allegorical interpretations of physical phenomena—the poetic embodiment of the natural philosophy of the primitive races of men;[156] whilst others have looked upon them as historical legends, having a substratum of fact, and, when stripped of the supernatural and miraculous drapery which accompanies fable, as containing the history of primitive times.[157] Some of the latter class have ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Philadelphia. Here my life begins to be more marked and distinct. I was at first sent, i.e., walked daily to the school of Jacob Pierce, a worthy Quaker, who made us call him Jacob, and who carefully taught us all the ordinary branches, and gave us excellent lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry with experiments, and encouraged us to form mineralogical collections, but who objected to our reading history, "because there were so many battles in it." In which system of education all that is good and bad, or ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise, poets witty, the mathematics subtle, natural philosophy deep, moral grave, logic and rhetoric able to contend: Abeunt studia in mores. Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought {19} out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... QUACKENBOS has long been favorably known as a teacher and also a writer of educational books. This elementary work on Natural Philosophy strikes us as being one of his most useful and happy efforts."—N. Y. Courier ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... Natural Philosophy quickens this Taste of the Creation, and renders it not only pleasing to the Imagination, but to the Understanding. It does not rest in the Murmur of Brooks, and the Melody of Birds, in the Shade ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to me that the examples of mathematics and natural philosophy, which, as we have seen, were brought into their present condition by a sudden revolution, are sufficiently remarkable to fix our attention on the essential circumstances of the change which has proved so advantageous to them, ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... desired the governor to call up Descartes and Gassendi, with whom I prevailed to explain their systems to Aristotle. This great philosopher freely acknowledged his own mistakes in natural philosophy, because he proceeded in many things upon conjecture, as all men must do; and he found that Gassendi, who had made the doctrine of Epicurus as palatable as he could, and the vortices of Descartes, were equally to be exploded. He predicted the same fate to attraction, whereof the present ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... addition to natural philosophy, we will dive into grammar, history, verse, ethics, ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... disappointed desires than from positive evil, it is of the utmost consequence to attain just notions of the laws and order of the universe, that we may not vex ourselves with fruitless wishes, or give way to groundless and unreasonable discontent. The laws of natural philosophy, indeed, are tolerably understood and attended to; and though we may suffer inconveniences, we are seldom disappointed in consequence of them. No man expects to preserve orange-trees in the open air ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... sun's heat.] Redi and Tiraboschi (Mr. Matthias's ed. v. ii. p. 36.) have considered this an anticipation of a profound discovery of Galileo's in natural philosophy, but it is in reality taken from a passage in Cicero "de Senectute," where, speaking of the grape, he says, " quae, et succo terrae et calore solis augescens, primo est ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... Faith came from time to time as she got a chance, to begin some things with him and learn how to begin others by herself. The morning glided by very fast on such smooth wheels of action, and dinner came with the first Natural Philosophy lesson yet unfinished. It was finished afterwards however, and then Mr. Linden prepared himself to go forth on some expedition, of which he only said that it was a ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... about the foundations. The other, born at Clermont, in Auvergne, under the shadow of the Puy de Dome, though taken to Paris at eight years old, retains for ever the impress of his birthplace; pursuing natural philosophy with the same zeal as Bacon, he returns to his own mountains to put himself under their tutelage, and by their help first discovers the great relations of the earth and the air: struck at last with mortal ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... see great reason to doubt whether this is a well-founded expectation. We see that during the last two hundred and fifty years the human mind has been in the highest degree active; that it has made great advances in every branch of natural philosophy; that it has produced innumerable inventions, tending to promote the convenience of life; that medicine, surgery, chemistry, engineering, have been very greatly improved; that government, police and law, have been improved, though not to so great ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... confusion which had occurred on board of the ship during the afternoon, that they were in a mutinous frame of mind, he was not willing to encourage their insubordination. He was much disturbed by the difficult problem thus thrust upon him. Dr. Carboy, the professor of natural philosophy and chemistry, who had spent several years in Germany, had volunteered to take charge of the runaways, and he seemed to be the only person who was available for this duty. He was no sailor, and only a fair disciplinarian, and Mr. Lowington had not entire confidence in his ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... 'reading man,' and graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1563. The next year he shifted his quarters to Merton, where he gave public lectures on Greek. In 1566 he became a Master of Arts, took to the study of natural philosophy, and three years later was Junior Proctor. He remained in residence until 1576, thus spending seventeen years in the University. In the last-mentioned year he obtained leave of absence to travel on the Continent, and for four years he ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... in any other country, and that they are wonderfully perfect for a first essay, yet every human essay must have defects. It will remain, therefore, to those now coming on the stage of public affairs, to perfect what has been so well begun by those going off it. Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Natural History, Anatomy, Chemistry, Botany, will become amusements for your hours of relaxation, and auxiliaries to your principal studies. Precious and delightful ones they will be. As soon as such a foundation is laid in them, as you may build on as you please, hereafter, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... during which he contracted a more intimate acquaintance with the classics, applied himself to the reading of history, improved his taste for painting and music, in which he made some progress; and, above all things, cultivated the study of natural philosophy. It was generally after a course of close attention to some of these arts and sciences, that his disposition broke out into those irregularities and wild sallies of a luxuriant imagination, for which he became so remarkable; and he was perhaps the only young man in Oxford ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... of the age. In the year 1685 his fame, though splendid, was only dawning; but his genius was in the meridian. His great work, that work which effected a revolution in the most important provinces of natural philosophy, had been completed, but was not yet published, and was just about to be submitted to the consideration ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... perceptions, and emotions, which were never yet brought together in the case of the individual before us. We are accustomed to regard these surprising performances of animals as manifestations of what we call instinct, and the mysticism of natural philosophy has ever shown a predilection for this theme; but if we regard instinct as the outcome of the memory or reproductive power of organised substance, and if we ascribe a memory to the race as we already ascribe it to the individual, then ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... the Faculty of Arts. [19] The Statutes of Paris, in 1254, giving the books to be read for the A.B. and the A.M. degrees (R. 113), show how fully Aristotle had been adopted there as the basis for instruction in Logic, Ethics, and Natural Philosophy by that time. The books required for these two degrees at Leipzig, in 1410 (R. 114), show a much better-balanced course of instruction, though the time requirements given for each subject show how largely Aristotle ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... of which I have for so many years been at the head. Other physicians make the science to consist of various unintelligible branches; but I will shorten the road for you, and dispense with the drudgery of studying natural philosophy, pharmacy, botany, and anatomy. Remember, my friend, that bleeding and drinking warm water are the two grand principles—the true secret of curing all the distempers incident to humanity. Yes, this marvelous secret which I reveal to you, and which Nature, beyond the reach ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... arithmetic were generally known. The use of the load-stone not being as yet discovered, navigation was conducted in the day-time by the sun, and in the night, by the observation of certain stars. Geography was cultivated during the present period by Strabo and Mela. In natural philosophy little progress was made; but a strong desire of its improvement was entertained, particularly by Virgil. Human anatomy being not yet introduced, physiology was imperfect. Chemistry, as a science, was utterly ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... knowledge, showed that the phenomena of nature which belonged to them were susceptible of explanation, and thereby came within the reach of what was called "philosophy" in those days; so much of this kind of knowledge as was not included under astronomy came to be spoken of as "natural philosophy"—a term which Bacon had employed in a much wider sense. Time went on, and yet other branches of science developed themselves. Chemistry took a definite shape; and since all these sciences, such as astronomy, natural philosophy, and chemistry, were susceptible either of mathematical treatment ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... devices, instead of being, as was originally conjectured, the result of black-magic, were, in reality, the effect of hydraulic, pneumatic, and mechanical contrivances. Even the most marvellous feats of the Egyptian sorcerers have been latterly explained by the revelations of natural philosophy, and a multitude of these explanations may be found by the reader in the learned work "Des Sciences Occultes," &c. written by M. Eusebe Salverte, and published in Paris as recently as 1843. In that remarkable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... "Conversations on Natural Philosophy," in one volume, by a lady, is nearly as simple and clear as the "Scientific Dialogues;" it will serve usefully as a successor to them. It is a great assistance to the memory to read a different work on the same subject while the first is still fresh in your mind. ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... also among them a philosopher well skilled in physic and natural philosophy, who asked the Lord Jesus, Whether he ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... Slough, he continued his studies in mathematics, chemistry, and natural philosophy, and in various publications exhibited that faculty of observation and analyzation, that intelligence and scrupulousness in collecting facts, and that boldness in deducing new inferences from them, which were characteristic of his illustrious father. The subjects he took ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... a very unobtrusive Oxford man named John Boulnois wrote in a very unreadable review called the Natural Philosophy Quarterly a series of articles on alleged weak points in Darwinian evolution, it fluttered no corner of the English papers; though Boulnois's theory (which was that of a comparatively stationary universe ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... captain's slumbers were by no means sound; he was agitated by the consciousness that he had hitherto been unable to account for his strange experiences by any reasonable theory. Though far from being advanced in the knowledge of natural philosophy, he had been instructed, to a certain degree, in its elementary principles; and, by an effort of memory, he managed to recall some general laws which he had almost forgotten. He could understand that an altered inclination of the ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... said to be well skilled in the natural philosophy and physic of his time, left a manuscript inscribed Aaron Danielis. He therein treats De re Herbaria, de Arboribus, Fructibus, &c. He flourished about the year 1379.—N. B. I have copied this article from Dr. Pulteney's ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... less political speculations, there came into existence in this period, by no mere chance, a school of thought which never succeeded in fully developing in China, concerned with natural science and comparable with the Greek natural philosophy. We have already several times pointed to parallels between Chinese and Indian thoughts. Such similarities may be the result of mere coincidence. But recent findings in Central Asia indicate that direct connections between India, ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... chemist was already making his success as a gold-miner, with a lawyer and a physician for his partners, and Mr. Kane's inexperienced position was by no means a novel one. A slight knowledge of Latin as a written language, an American schoolboy's acquaintance with chemistry and natural philosophy, were deemed sufficient by his partner, a regular physician, for practical cooperation in the vending of drugs and putting up of prescriptions. He knew the difference between acids and alkalies and the peculiar results which attended their incautious ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... July Johnnie had French lessons and German, and lessons in natural philosophy, beside studying English literature after a plan of Miss Inches' own, which combined history and geography and geology, with readings from various books, and accounted for the existence of all the great geniuses ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... principle, parenchyma[Biol], material, substratum, hyle[obs3], corpus, pabulum; frame. object, article, thing, something; still life; stocks and stones; materials &c. 635. [Science of matter] physics; somatology[obs3], somatics; natural philosophy, experimental philosophy; physicism[obs3]; physical science, philosophie positive[Fr], materialism; materialist; physicist; somatism[obs3], somatist[obs3]. Adj. material, bodily; corporeal, corporal; physical; somatic, somatoscopic[obs3]; sensible, tangible, ponderable, palpable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... having obtained a bursary, to St Andrews, where he continued till his seven- teenth year. He was at first designed for the ministry of the Scottish Church. He distinguished himself at college for his mathematical knowledge, and became a favourite of Dr Wilkie, Professor of Natural Philosophy, on whose death he wrote an elegy. He early discovered a passion for poetry, and collected materials for a tragedy on the subject of Sir William Wallace, which he never finished. He once thought of studying medicine, but had neither patience nor funds for the needful preliminary ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... arrive to those heights that you possess from a happy, abundant, and native genius which are as inborn to you as they were to Shakespeare, and, for aught I know, to Homer; in either of whom we find all arts and sciences, all moral and natural philosophy, without knowing that they ever ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... of the eminent professor of natural philosophy) having invited a gentleman to dinner on a particular day, he had accepted, with the reservation, "If I am spared."—"Weel, weel," said Mrs. Robison, "if ye're ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... writing in 1889, connected the Catholic revival with the abandonment of atomism in natural philosophy and of Baconian metaphysics. These were, he thought, the counterpart of individualism in politics and Calvinism in religion. The adherents of mid-Victorian science and philosophy were bewildered by the phenomenon ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge |
