United States or Barbados ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This blended arrogance and asperity in a young man was offensive to the whole university, yet natural to one who had overturned one of the favorite axioms of the greatest master of thought the world had seen for nearly two thousand years; and the scorn and opposition with which his discovery was received increased his rancor, so that he, in his turn, did not render justice to the learned men arrayed against him, who were not necessarily dull or obstinate because they would not at once give up the opinions in which they were educated, and which the learned world still accepted.
Where, then, are the theories of Carlyle, the axioms of "Sartor Resartus," the inability of humanity to conceive "a naked Duke of Windlestraw addressing a naked House of Lords?" Cautioning my adherent, however, as to the proprieties suitable for such occasions thenceforward, I left him watching the river with renewed vigilance, and awaiting the next merman who should report himself.
Therefore these axioms have no reasons, and can neither be deduced nor proved. Every question as to their reasons is quite meaningless. As examples of a “contingent” truth we may take “It rains to-day,” or “The earth revolves round the sun.” For neither one nor the other of these is necessarily so. It is so as a matter of fact, but under other circumstances it might have been otherwise.
This knowledge of ether is not guesswork or fancy, and, while it is as impossible of proof as the axioms of geometry, it is worthy the same credence and honor. We are working on physical axioms exactly as we work on geometrical axioms. Modern science represents each and every prakritic atom as a globe like the earth, floating in space and surrounded by an atmosphere of ether.
It is on such inductive truths, resting on the evidence of sense, that the Science of Number is based; and it is, therefore, like the other deductive sciences, an inductive science. It is also, like them, hypothetical. The sums of equals are equal; the differences of equals are equal. These axioms, and so-called definitions are themselves exactly, and not merely hypothetically, true.
All his theories and conceits his splendid scheme of evolution and the rest end in a mean but obstinate creature with conscious intelligence and an absolute contempt and disregard for Nature. This poor Frankenstein of a cherub watches the worm he has produced defy him and refuse absolutely to obey his most fundamental postulates or accept his axioms.
Its eloquence, its patriotism, its crowded illustrations, drawn from vast resources of knowledge, its epigrammatic axioms, its occasional pleasantries, are all characteristic of the writer. Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, the venerable senior member of the society, proposed the vote of thanks to Mr. Motley with words of warm commendation. Mr. William Cullen Bryant rose and said:
From this, which is not a general but a singular proposition, combined with other propositions of a similar kind, some of which when generalized are called definitions, and others axioms, we prove that a certain conclusion is true, not of all circles, but of the particular circle ABC; or at least would be so, if the facts precisely accorded with our assumptions.
'Is't not the king? 'Ay, every inch a King. When I do stare, see how the subject quakes. But the voice within overpowers him, and the axioms that are the vintage of science, the inductions which are the result of that experiment, are forced from his lips. 'To say ay and no to everything that I that I said! To say ay and no too, was no GOOD DIVINITY. They told me that I was everything.
The theory of Buddhism, which now has more followers than any other faith, is founded on four axioms, which are called “the four excellent truths.” The first and fundamental one is: “Pain is inseparable from existence.” This is the principle of all pessimism, ancient and modern.
Word Of The Day