OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. BY WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND BEING THE FIRST PART OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INDUCTIVE SCIENCES. THE THIRD EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. ΛΑΜΠΑΔΙΑ ΕΧΟΝΤΕΣ ΔΙΑΔΩΣΟΥΣΙΝ ΑΛΛΗΛΟΙΣ. VOLUME I. LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. 1858. PREFACE TO THIS EDITION. HE Chapters now offered to the Reader were THE formerly published as a portion of The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, founded upon their History: but the nature and subject of these Chapters are more exactly described by the present title, The History of Scientific Ideas. For this part of the work is mainly historical, and was, in fact, collected from the body of scientific literature, at the same time that the History of the Inductive Sciences was so collected. The present work contains the history of Science so far as it depends on Ideas; the former work contains the same history so far as it is derived from Observation. The leading features in that were Theories inferred from Facts; the leading features of this are Discussions of Theories tending to make them consistent with the conditions of human thought. The Ideas of which the History is here given are mainly the following: Space, Time, Number, Motion, Cause, Force, Matter, Medium, Intensity, Scale, Polarity, Element, Affinity, Substance, Atom, Symmetry, Likeness, Natural Classes, Species, Life, Function, Vital Forces, Final |