Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Volume 2

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Archibald Constable & Company, 1821 - Psychology

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Page 261 - Whereas the main Business of Natural Philosophy is to argue from Phenomena without feigning Hypotheses, and to deduce Causes from Effects, till we come to the very first Cause, which certainly is not mechanical; and not only to unfold the Mechanism of the World, but chiefly to resolve these and such like Questions.
Page 93 - I shall only appeal to the thirty-seventh proposition of the first book, .' in which it is proved that triangles on the same base, and between the same parallels, are equal...
Page 205 - As in mathematics, so in natural philosophy, the investigation of difficult things by the method of analysis, ought ever to precede the method of composition. This analysis consists in making experiments and observations, and in drawing general conclusions from them by induction, and admitting of no objections against the conclusions, but such as are taken from experiments, or other certain truths.
Page 257 - ... placed so many valves without design ; and no design seemed more probable than that, since the blood could not well, because of the interposing valves, be sent by the veins to the limbs, it should be sent through the arteries and return through the veins, whose valves did not oppose its course that way.
Page 166 - There are men whose powers operate only at leisure and in retirement, and whose intellectual vigour deserts them in conversation ; whom merriment confuses, and objection disconcerts : whose bashfulness restrains their exertion, and suffers them not to speak till the time of speaking is past ; or whose attention to their own character makes them unwilling to utter at hazard what has not been considered, and cannot be recalled.
Page 128 - ... him. This was his anxious care to go out or in at a door or passage, by a certain number of steps from a certain point, or at least so...
Page 62 - I demonstrated the proposition of the abstract idea of a triangle. [And here it must be acknowledged that a man may consider a figure merely as triangular, without attending to the particular qualities of the angles, or relations of the sides. So far he may abstract; but this will never prove that he can frame an abstract, general, inconsistent idea of a triangle.
Page 128 - I have, upon innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly stop, and then seem to count his steps with a deep earnestness ; and when he had neglected or gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, I have seen him go back again, put himself in a proper posture to begin the ceremony, and, having gone through it, break from his abstraction, walk briskly on, and join his companion'.
Page 128 - ... by a certain number of steps from a certain point, or at least so as that either his right or his left foot (I am not certain which) should constantly make the first actual movement when he came close to the door or passage. Thus I conjecture : for I have, upon innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly stop, and then seem to count his steps with a deep earnestness; and when he had neglected or gone wrong in this sort of magical movement...
Page 205 - By this way of analysis we may proceed from compounds to ingredients; and from motions to the forces producing them; and in general, from effects to their causes; and from particular causes to more general ones, till the argument end in the most general.

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