Past Quotes
Quote
for January
"From this fountain it is that those laws
, which we call the laws of Nature, have flowed, in which there appear many traces indeed of the most wise contrivance, but not the least shadow of necessity.
These therefore we must not seek from uncertain conjectures, but learn them from observations and experiments. He who
is presumptuous enough to think that he can find the true principles of physics and the laws
of natural things by the force alone of his own mind, and the internal light of his reason
, must either suppose that the world exists by necessity, and by the same
follows the laws proposed; or if the order of Nature was
established by the will of God, that himself, a miserable reptile
, can tell what was fittest to be done. All sound and true philosophy
is founded on the appearances of things; and if these phenomena inevitably draw us,
against our wills, to such principles as most clearly manifest to us the most excellent
counsel and supreme being of the All-wise and Almighty Being, they are not therefore to be laid aside
because some men may perhaps dislike them."
-Roger Cotes, student of Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
Quote
for February
"The twentieth century has produced a world of conflicting visions, intense emotions
, and unpredictable events, and the opportunities for grasping
the substance of life have faded as the pace of activity
has increased. Electronic media shuffle us through a myriad
of experiences which would have baffled earlier generations
and seem to produce in us a strange isolation from the reality of human
history. Our heroes fade into mere personality, are consumed and
forgotten, and we avidly seek more avenues to express our
humanity. Reflection is the most difficult of all our activities
because we are no longer able to establish relative priorities from the
multitude of sensations that engulf us. Times such as these seem to
illuminate the classic expressions of eternal truths and great
wisdom comes to stand out in a crowd of ordinary maxims."
-Vine Deloria, Jr, from the introduction to Black Elk Speaks
Quote
for March
"He sent me samples of the Oyster shells, exactly agreeing
with the account he gives of them. They seem to have been the shells of real and living
oysters, and to have suffered no greater change than they must needs do
from the nature of the earth and sand they were lodged in, and from the water
commixt therewith. And the lying of them in such a bed, is a strong argument to
prove, that this place was some time the bottom of the sea, which is a thing
hard to be believed."
-Jon Ray [1628-1705], from Three Physico-Theological Discourses
Quote
for April
"But the old diluvialists were induced by their system
to confound all the groups of strata together instead of discriminating,-
to refer all appearances to one cause and to one brief period, not to a variety
of causes acting throughout a long succession of epochs. They saw
the phenomena only as they desired to see them, sometimes misrepresenting
facts, and at other times deducing false conclusions from correct data."
-Quirini, Lister, and Hooke on Diluvial Theory.
Quote
for May
"Let me first remark, in reply, that I come before you this evening, not as a philologist, but
simply as a student of geological fact, who, believing his Bible, believes
also, that though theologians have at various times striven hard to pledge
it to false science, geographical, astronomical, and geological, it has been pledged by its Divine Author
to no falsehood whatever."
-Hugh Miller from Testimony of the Rocks.
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