William Whewell: Quotes about the truth

William Whewell was English philosopher & historian of science. Explore interesting quotes on truth.
William Whewell: 24 quotes0 likes

“In art, truth is a means to an end; in science, it is the only end.”

William Whewell

Aphorism 25.
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840)

“Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error. Not only so; but scarcely any attempt is entirely a failure; scarcely any theory, the result of steady thought, is altogether false; no tempting form of Error is without some latent charm derived from Truth.”

William Whewell

Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England, Lecture 7. (1852).

“We unfold out of the Idea of Space the propositions of geometry, which are plainly truths of the most rigorous necessity and universality. But if the idea of space were merely collected from observation of the external world, it could never enable or entitle us to assert such propositions: it could never authorize us to say that not merely some lines, but all lines, not only have, but must have, those properties which geometry teaches. Geometry in every proposition speaks a language which experience never dares to utter; and indeed of which she but half comprehends the meaning.”

William Whewell

Part 1, Book 1, ch. 7, art. 1.
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840)