“Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown”
Discourse Delivered at the Royal Society (30 November 1825), published in Six Discourses delivered before the Royal Society, at their Anniversary Meetings, on the Award of the Royal and Copley Medals, preceded by an Address to the Society on the Progress and Prospects of Science (1827); also in The Edinburgh Review Or Critical Journal (October 1827)
Context: Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown; and in philosophy, the sentiment of the Macedonian hero can never apply, — there are always new worlds to conquer.
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Humphry Davy 6
Cornish chemist 1778–1829Related quotes
14 February 2019 interview with ABC excerpt in tweet https://twitter.com/abc/status/1096026425768005632 promoting their coverage https://abcnews.go.com/US/chicago-pd-locate-persons-interest-alleged-racist-attack/story?id=61075518
also quoted by Global News https://globalnews.ca/news/4960466/jussie-smollett-first-interview-since-alleged-attack/ and CNN https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/16/entertainment/jussie-smollett-attack/index.html and New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/arts/television/jussie-smollett-interview.html and Entertainment Weekly https://ew.com/tv/2019/02/14/jussie-smollett-attack-interview-good-morning-america/ and The Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/jussie-smollett-in-first-tv-interview-youd-believe-me-if-i-said-attackers-were-black and Desert https://www.deseret.com/2019/3/27/20669388/jussie-smollett-says-i-am-a-man-of-faith-after-charges-were-dropped and RealClearPolitics https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/02/14/jussie_smollett_pissed_at_critics_if_i_blamed_a_muslim_or_a_mexican_doubters_would_support_me.html and Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.com/jussie-smollett-addresses-assault-doubters-good-morning-america-2019-2 and NBC https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/probe-alleged-jussie-smollett-attack-shifts-whether-actor-staged-incident-n972516 and PageSix https://pagesix.com/2019/02/16/nigerian-brothers-confirmed-to-be-in-surveillance-video-of-jussie-smollet-attack/, all of whom mutually left out the following sentence...
“We keep, in science, getting a more and more sophisticated view of our essential ignorance.”
Source: "A Scientist Ponders Faith," Saturday Review, 3 (January 1959), as cited in: F.A. Hayek, Ronald Hamowy. The Constitution of Liberty: The Definitive Edition. 2013, p. 77.
Context: Is science really gaining in its assault on the totality of the unsolved? As science learns one answer, it is characteristically true that it also learns several new questions. It is as though science were working in a great forest of ignorance, making an ever larger circular clearing within which, not to insist on the pun, things are clear... But as that circle becomes larger and larger, the circumference of contact with ignorance also gets longer and longer. Science learns more and more. But there is an ultimate sense in which it does not gain; for the volume of the appreciated but not understood keeps getting larger. We keep, in science, getting a more and more sophisticated view of our essential ignorance.
Bk I, Ch I
The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)
"Susan Sontag: The Rolling Stone Interview" with Jonathan Cott (1978; published 4 October 1979)
Context: One of my oldest crusades is against the distinction between thought and feeling... which is really the basis of all anti-intellectual views: the heart and the head, thinking and feeling, fantasy and judgment. We have more or less the same bodies, but very different kinds of thoughts. I believe that we think much more with the instruments provided by our culture than we do with our bodies, and hence the much greater diversity of thought in the world. Thinking is a form of feeling; feeling is a form of thinking.
Dissenting, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnett, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).
Judicial opinions
Summations, Chapter 45
Context: God deemeth us upon our Nature-Substance, which is ever kept one in Him, whole and safe without end: and this doom is of His rightfulness. And man judgeth upon our changeable Sense-soul, which seemeth now one, now other, — according as it taketh of the parts, — and showeth outward. And this wisdom is mingled. For sometimes it is good and easy, and sometimes it is hard and grievous. And in as much as it is good and easy it belongeth to the rightfulness; and in as much as it is hard and grievous our good Lord Jesus reformeth it by mercy and grace through the virtue of His blessed Passion, and so bringeth it to the rightfulness.
And though these two be thus accorded and oned, yet both shall be known in Heaven without end. The first doom, which is of God’s rightfulness, is of His high endless life; and this is that fair sweet doom that was shewed in all the fair Revelation, in which I saw Him assign to us no manner of blame. But though this was sweet and delectable, yet in the beholding only of this, I could not be fully eased: and that was because of the doom of Holy Church, which I had afore understood and which was continually in my sight. And therefore by this doom methought I understood that sinners are worthy sometime of blame and wrath; but these two could I not see in God; and therefore my desire was more than I can or may tell. For the higher doom was shewed by God Himself in that same time, and therefore me behoved needs to take it; and the lower doom was learned me afore in Holy Church, and therefore I might in no way leave the lower doom. Then was this my desire: that I might see in God in what manner that which the doom of Holy Church teacheth is true in His sight, and how it belongeth to me verily to know it; whereby the two dooms might both be saved, so as it were worshipful to God and right way to me.
And to all this I had none other answer but a marvellous example of a lord and of a servant, as I shall tell after: — and that full mistily shewed. And yet I stand desiring, and will unto my end, that I might by grace know these two dooms as it belongeth to me. For all heavenly, and all earthly things that belong to Heaven, are comprehended in these two dooms. And the more understanding, by the gracious leading of the Holy Ghost, that we have of these two dooms, the more we shall see and know our failings. And ever the more that we see them, the more, of nature, by grace, we shall long to be fulfilled of endless joy and bliss. For we are made thereto, and our Nature-Substance is now blissful in God, and hath been since it was made, and shall be without end.
The Yoga of Eating: Transcending Diets and Dogma to Nourish the Natural Self (2003)
The Yoga of Eating: Transcending Diets and Dogma to Nourish the Natural Self (2003)
USA/From Where We Stand: Readings in Contemporary American Problems (1970), Introduction, p. 3.