Page:Herschel - A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1831).djvu/32

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
18
DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY
CHAP. II.
Of Abstract Science as a Preparation for the Study of Physics.—A Profound Acquaintance with it not Indispensable for a Clear Understanding of Physical Laws.—How a Conviction of their Truth May Be Obtained without it. Instances.—Further Division of the Subject.

(13.) Science is the knowledge of many, orderly and methodically digested and arranged, so as to become attainable by one. The knowledge of reasons and their conclusions constitutes abstract, that of causes and their effects, and of the laws of nature, natural science.

(14.) Abstract science is independent of a system of nature,—of a creation,—of every thing, in short, except memory, thought, and reason. Its objects are, first, those primary existences and relations which we cannot even conceive not to be, such as space, time, number, order, &c.; and, secondly, those artificial forms, or symbols, which thought has the power of creating for itself at pleasure, and substituting as representatives, by the aid of memory, for combinations of those primary objects and of its own conceptions,—either to facilitate the act of reasoning respecting them, or as convenient deposits of its own conclusions, or for their communication to others. Such are, first, language, oral or written; its conventional forms, which constitute grammar, and the rules for its use in argument,