Science and Reason

Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.

He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars; General good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer: For art and science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars.

Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.

Say first, of God above or man below, What can we reason but from what we know?

Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. The wise, for cure, on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.

And wisely tell what hour o’ th’ day The clock doth strike, by algebra.

For he by geometric scale, Could take the size of pots of ale.

He’d run in debt by disputation, And pay with ratiocination.

He could distinguish and divide A hair ’twixt south and southwest side, On either which he would dispute, Confute, change hands, and still confute.

God so commanded, and left that command Sole daughter of his voice; the rest, we live Law to ourselves, our reason is our law.

And new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out; The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man’s wit Can well direct him where to look for it. And freely men confess that this world’s spent, When in the planets, and the firmament They seek so many new; then see that this Is crumbled out again to his atomies. ’Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; All just supply, and all relation: Prince, subject, Father, Son, are things forgot.

Reason, in itself confounded, Saw division grow together.

Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun, That will not be deep-search’d with saucy looks; Small have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others’ books. These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

Reason is God's crowning gift to man.

Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord.

If particulars are to have meaning, there must be universals.

Science is nothing but perception.

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity.

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.

But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.

The law is reason, free from passion.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.