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Four Dialogues Between an Oxford Tutor and a Disciple of the Common-Sense Philosophy, Relative to the Proximate Causes of Material Phenomena
Four Dialogues Between an Oxford Tutor and a Disciple of the CommonSense Philosophy Relative to the Proximate Causes of Material Phenomena Author:Richard Phillips General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1824 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: TWO DIALOGUES BETWEEN AN OXFORD TUTOR, AND A Disciple of the Common-Sense Philosophy. DIALOGUE I. Laws of Motion, and Phenomena of Aggregations of Matter ; or Principles of Astronomical Physics. Oxonian. I Am told you are a disciple of the New Theory of Physics. I am a disciple of Newton, and convinced by his mathematical demonstrations. I want no science beyond mathematical demonstration. What is contrary to it, I cannot listen to; and what, in other words, is the same, must be useless. Common Sense. Mathematics constitute the science of number and quantity, abstractedly considered. Abstract numbers and quantities, as such, are susceptible of every variety of demonstration by mathematical science. But the moment we connect qualities with quantity, and material relations with numbers, mathematics demonstrate nothing in regard to those qualities or material relations, the introduction of which (s arbitrary, and subject to errors, over which ab stract mathematics have no controul. Hence, when mathematics are applied to other considerations than quantity or number, they do not demonstrate any thing in regard to those foreign considerations. Oxonian. Of course, it depends on the certainty of the data. Common Sense. But are the data certain? Therein lies the sophism. Data are assumed ; the science of certainty is combined, and it is then concluded that the data are proved by symbols with which the data have no necessary connexion. The very phrase, " mathematical principles of natural philosophy," is a solecism. The principles are not mathematical. Mathematics treat . only of numbers and quan...« less