Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic (1926)
Context: Things... are some of them continuous... which are properly and peculiarly called 'magnitudes'; others are discontinuous, in a side-by-side arrangement, and, as it were, in heaps, which are called 'multitudes,' a flock, for instance, a people, a heap, a chorus, and the like.
Wisdom, then, must be considered to be the knowledge of these two forms. Since, however, all multitude and magnitude are by their own nature of necessity infinite—for multitude starts from a definite root and never ceases increasing; and magnitude, when division beginning with a limited whole is carried on, cannot bring the dividing process to an end... and since sciences are always sciences of limited things, and never of infinites, it is accordingly evident that a science dealing with magnitude... or with multitude... could never be formulated.... A science, however, would arise to deal with something separated from each of them, with quantity, set off from multitude, and size, set off from magnitude.<!--pp.183-184
Aliens Cause Global Warming (2003)
The Master-Word In Medicine (1903)
Context: Every one of you will have to face the ordeal of every student in this generation who sooner or later tries to mix the waters of science with the oil of faith. You can have a good deal of both if you only keep them separate. The worry comes from the attempt at mixture.
Source: The Principles of Agriculture, 1844, Section I: The fundamental principles, p. 3.
“God has given a great deal to man, but man would like something from man.”
Dios le ha dado mucho al hombre; pero el hombre quisiera algo del hombre.
Voces (1943)
Source: The Mind and the Brain, 1907, p. 27
"On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics" (Jan. 3, 1856)
Context: Another evil, and one of the worst which arises from the separation of theoretical and practical knowledge, is the fact that a large number of persons, possessed of an inventive turn of mind and of considerable skill in the manual operations of practical mechanics, are destitute of that knowledge of scientific principles which is requisite to prevent their being misled by their own ingenuity. Such men too often spend their money, waste their lives, and it may be lose their reason in the vain pursuits of visionary inventions, of which a moderate amount of theoretical knowledge would be sufficient to demonstrate the fallacy; and for want of such knowledge, many a man who might have been a useful and happy member of society, becomes a being than whom it would be hard to find anything more miserable.
The number of those unhappy persons — to judge from the patent-lists, and from some of the mechanical journals — must be much greater than is generally believed.<!--p. 176
Source: Essays in the Philosophy of Language, 1967, p. 127
“Our separation from each other is an optical illusion.”
