On the philosophy of discovery : chapters historical and critical / by William Whewell. Including the completion of the 3d ed. of the Philosophy of the inductive sciences.
- William Whewell
- Date:
- 1860
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the philosophy of discovery : chapters historical and critical / by William Whewell. Including the completion of the 3d ed. of the Philosophy of the inductive sciences. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
534/572 page 514
![of Capillary Tubes.—But Gravitation contradicts immediately the Law of Inertia, for in virtue of it (Gravitation) matter tends out of itself to the other (matter).—In the Conception of Weight, there are, as has been shown, involved the two elements—Self-existence, and Continuity, which takes away self-existence. These elements of the Conception, however, experience a fate, as particular forces, corresponding to Attractive and Repulsive Force, and are thereby apprehended in nearer determination, as Centripetal and Centri- fugal Force, which (Forces) like weight, act upon Bodies, independ- ent of each other, and are supposed to come in contact accidentally in a third thing, Body. By this means, what there is of profound in the thought of universal weight is again reduced to nothing; and Conception and Season cannot make their way into the doc- trine of absolute motion, so long as the so highly-prized discoveries of Forces are dominant there. In the conclusion which contains the Idea of Weight, namely, [contains this Idea] as the Conception which, in the case of motion, enters into external Reality through the particularity of the Bodies, and at the same time into this [Reality] and into their Ideality and self-regarding Reflexion, (Reflexion-in-sich), the rational identity and inseparability of the elements is involved, which at other times are represented as inde- pendent. Motion itself, as such, has only its meaning and existence in a system of several bodies, and those, such as stand in relation to each other according to different determinations. § 270. As to what concerns bodies in which the conception of gravity (weight) is realized free by itself, we say that they have for the determinations of their different nature the elements (momente) of their conception. One [conception of this kind] is the universal center of the abstract reference [of a body] to itself. Opposite to this [conception] stands the immediate, extrinsic, centerless In- dividuality, appearing as Corporeity similarly independent. Those [Bodies] however which are particular, which stand in the determi- nation of extrinsic, and at the same time of intrinsic relation, are centers for themselves, and [also] have a reference to the first as to their essential unity. The Planetary Bodies, as the immediately concrete, are in their existence the most complete. Men are accustomed to take the Sun as the most excellent, inasmuch as the under- standing prefers the abstract to the concrete, and in like manner the fixed stars are esteemed higher than the Bodies](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20999203_0534.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
