Histories

"We put out of account the foreign Associations, such as the Brazilian and Venezuelan experiments. With these may be classed those of the Icarians and some others, which though within the United States, are, or were, really colonies of foreigners. We see six of this sort..."

"We will lay aside the antique religious Associations, such as the Dunkers, Moravians, Zoarites, &c. We count at least seven of these, which do not properly belong to the modern socialistic movement, or even to American life. Having their origin in the old world, and most of them in the last century, and remaining without change, they exist only on the outskirts of general society."

"The plan and theory of this history are our own, and widely different from any that Macdonald would have been willing to indorse. With these qualifications, we still acknowledge a large debt of gratitude to him and to the Providence that gave us his collections."

"I here return my thanks to the fearless, confiding, and disinterested friends, who so freely shared with me what little they possessed, to assist in the completion of this work. I name them not, but rejoice in their assistance."

"It remains for a future historian to continue the labor which I have thus superficially commenced; for the day has not yet arrived when it can be said that Communism or Association has ceased to exist; and it is possible yet, in the progress of things, that man will endeavor to cure his social diseases by some such means; and a future history may contain the results of more important experiments than have ever yet been attempted."

"Of necessity the work is imperfect, because of the difficulty in obtaining information on such subjects; but the attempt, whatever may be its result, should not be put off, since there is reason to believe that if not now collected, many particulars of the various movements would be forever lost."

"It may help to waken dreamers, to guide lost wanderers, to convince skeptics, to re-assure the hopeful; it may serve the uses of Statesmen and Philosophers, and interest the general reader; but it is most desirable that it should increase the charity of all those who may please to examine it, when they see that it was for Humanity, in nearly all instances, that these things were done."

"Mr. Owen said he wanted honesty of purpose, and he got dishonesty. He wanted temperance, and instead, he was continually troubled with the intemperate. He wanted industry, and he found idleness. He wanted cleanliness, and found dirt. He wanted carefulness, and found waste. He wanted to find desire for knowledge, but he found apathy. He wanted the principles of the formation of character understood, and he found them misunderstood. He wanted these good qualities combined in one and all the individuals of the Community, but he could not find them ; neither could he find those who were self-sacrificing and enduring enough, to prepare and educate their children to possess these qualities. Thus it was proved that his principles were either entirely erroneous, or much in advance of the age in which he promulgated them. He seems to have forgotten, that if one and all the thousand persons assembled there, had possessed the qualities which he wished them to possess, there would have been no necessity for his vain exertions to form a Community ; because of necessity there would of necessity be brotherly love, charity, industry, and plenty. We want no more than these, and if we can not find it, we can not form Communities ; and if we can not find parents who are ready and willing to educate their children, to give them these qualities for a Community life, then what hope is there of Communism in the future?"

"At one time, sanguine in anticipating brilliant results from Communism, I imagined mankind better than they are, and that they would speedily practise those principles which I considered so true. But the experience of years is now upon me; I have mingled with 'the world,' seen stern reality, and now am anxious to do as much as in me lies, to make known to the many thousands who look for a 'better state' than this on earth as well as in heaven, the amount (as it were at a glance) of the labors which have been and are now being performed in this country to realize that 'better state'."

"We have reason to believe that he [A. J. McDonald] spent most of his time from his arrival in this country in 1842 till his death in 1854, in pilgrimages to every Community, and even to every grave of a Community, that he could hear of, far and near. He had done his work when he died. His collection is nearly exhaustive in the extent of its survey. Very few Associations of any note are overlooked. And he evidently considered it ready for the press ; for most of his memoirs are endorsed with the word "Complete," and with some methodical directions to the printer. He had even provided the illustrations promised in his circular."

"I have reason to believe from long experience among social reformers, that such a work is needed, and will be both useful and interesting. It will serve as a guide to all future experiments, showing what has already been done; like a light-house, pointing to the rocks on which so many have been wrecked, or to the haven in which the few have found rest. It will give facts and statistics to be depended upon, gathered from the most authentic sources, and forming a collection of interesting narratives. It will show the errors of enthusiasts, and the triumphs of the cool-thinking; the disappointments of the sanguine, and the dear-bought experience of many social adventurers. It will give mankind an idea of the labor of body and mind that has been expended to realize a better state of society; to substitute a social and cooperative state for a competitive one; a system of harmony, for one of discord."

"Even the second edition of the 'History of the Inductive Sciences,' which was published in 1846, contains no allusion either to the general view of the 'Correlation of Forces' published in England in 1842, or to the publication in 1843 of the first of the series of experiments by which the mechanical equivalent of heat was correctly ascertained. Such a failure on the part of a contemporary, of great acquirements and remarkable intellectual powers, to read the signs of the times, is a lesson and a warning worthy of being deeply pondered by anyone who attempts to prognosticate the course of scientific progress."

"Whewell... claimed to be inferring his philosophy of science from his study of the history and practice of science. His large-scale History of the Inductive Sciences was a survey of science from ancient to modern times. He insisted upon completing this work before writing his Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, founded upon their history."

"[W]e must consider the history of the speculations concerning motion in general, terrestrial as well as celestial."

"The effect of these researches has been, a persuasion, that we need not despair of seeing, even in our own time, a renovation of sound philosophy, directed by the light which the History of Science sheds. Such a reform, when its Epoch shall arrive, will not be the work of any single writer, but the result of the intellectual tendencies of the age."

"To balance... disadvantages, and to enable us to judge of the characters who must figure in our history, we may recollect that we have before us, not the record only of their actions, but the actions themselves, for the acts of a philosopher are his writings. We do not receive his exploits on tradition, but by sight; we do not read of him, we read him."

"Having... lived with some of the great intellects of the past and the present, I had found myself capable of rejoicing in their beauties, of admiring their endowments, and, I trusted, also, of understanding their discoveries and views, their hopes and aims. I did not, therefore, turn aside from the responsibility which the character of the Historian of Science imposed upon me."

"I trusted... that my study of the philosophers of former times had enabled me to appreciate the discoveries of the present, and that I should be able to speak of persons now alive, with the same impartiality and in the same spirit as if they were already numbered with the great men of the past. Seeking encouragement in these reflections, and in the labour and thought which I was conscious of having bestowed upon my task, I have conducted my history from the earliest ages of the speculative world up to our own days."

"If there be branches of knowledge which regard Morals, or Politics, or the Fine Arts, and which may properly be called Inductive (an opinion which I by no means gainsay); still it must be allowed, I think, that the processes of collecting general truths from assemblages of special facts, and of ascending from propositions of a limited to those of a larger generality, which the term Induction peculiarly implies, have hitherto been far more clearly exhibited in the physical sciences which form the subject of the present work, than in those hyper physical sciences to which I have not extended my history."

"All who venture upon such tasks [as this work] must gather trust and encouragement from reflections like those by which their great forerunner prepared himself for his endeavours;—by recollecting that they are aiming to advance the best interests and privileges of man; and that they may expect all the best and wisest of men to join them in their aspirations and to aid them in their labours. "Concerning ourselves we speak not; but as touching the matter which we have in hand, this we ask;—that men deem it not to be the setting up of an Opinion, but the performing of a Work; and that they receive this as a certainty; that we are not laying the foundations of any sect or doctrine, but of the profit and dignity of mankind:—Furthermore, that being well disposed to what shall advantage themselves, and putting off factions and prejudices, they take common counsel with us, to the end that being by these our aids and appliances freed and defended from wanderings and impediments, they may lend their hands also to the labours which remain to be performed:—And yet, further, that they be of good hope; neither feign and imagine to themselves this our Reform as something of infinite dimension and beyond the grasp of mortal man, when, in truth, it is of infinite errour, the end and true limit; and is by no means unmindful of the condition of mortality and humanity, not confiding that such a thing can be carried to its perfect close in the space of one single age, but assigning it as a task to a succession of generations.""

"The attempt to throw the histories of all the Sciences into Inductive Epochs, each Epoch having its Prelude and its Sequel, and thus to combine the persons and the events which fill these histories into intelligible groups, was so far as I know, new."

"The Epochs here marked out, are the cardinal points of scientific history."

"The main object of the work was to present such a survey of the advances already made in physical knowledge, and of the mode in which they have been made, as might serve as a real and firm basis for our speculations concerning the progress of human knowledge, and the processes by which sciences are formed. And an attempt to frame such speculations on this basis was made in the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, which was published shortly after this History. To that work I must refer, for a further explanation of any views respecting the nature and progress of science which may here appear defective or obscure."

"The completeness of historical view... consists, not in accumulating all the details of the cultivation of each science, but in marking clearly the larger features of its formation."

"The present generation finds itself the heir of a vast patrimony of science; and it must needs concern us to know the steps by which these possessions were acquired, and the documents by which they are secured to us and our heirs for ever."

"Our species, from the time of its creation, has been travelling onwards in pursuit of truth; and now that we have reached a lofty and commanding position, with the broad light of day around us, it must be grateful to look back on the line of our past progress;—to review the journey."

"The eminence on which we stand may enable us to see the land of promise, as well as the wilderness through which we have passed."

"The examination of the steps by which our ancestors acquired our intellectual estate, may make us acquainted with our expectations as well as our possessions;—may not only remind us of what we have, but may teach us how to improve and increase our store."

"It is not possible, without entering into... philosophy, to explain adequately how science which is Inductive differs from that which is not so; or why some portions of knowledge may properly be selected from the general mass and termed Science. It will be sufficient at present to say, that the sciences of which we have here to treat, are those which are commonly known as the Physical Sciences; and that by Induction is to be understood that process of collecting general truths from the examination of particular facts, by which such sciences have been formed."

"To the formation of science, two things are requisite;—Facts and Ideas; observation of Things without, and an inward effort of Thought; or, in other words, Sense and Reason. Neither of these elements, by itself, can constitute substantial general knowledge."

"The impressions of sense, unconnected by some rational and speculative principle, can only end in a practical acquaintance with individual objects; the operations of the rational faculties, on the other hand, if allowed to go on without a constant reference to external things, can lead only to empty abstraction and barren ingenuity."

"Real speculative knowledge demands the combination of the two ingredients;—right reason, and facts to reason upon."

"True knowledge is the interpretation of nature; and thus it requires both the interpreting mind, and nature for its subject; both the document, and the ingenuity to read it aright."

"Invention, acuteness, and connexion of thought, are necessary on the one hand, for the progress of philosophical knowledge; and on the other hand, the precise and steady application of these faculties to facts well known and clearly conceived. It is easy to point out instances in which science has failed to advance, in consequence of the absence of one or other of these requisites; indeed, by far the greater part of the course of the world, the history of most times and most countries, exhibits a condition thus stationary with respect to knowledge."

"We have no lack of proof that mere activity of thought is... inefficient in producing real knowledge. Almost the whole of the career of the Greek schools of philosophy; of the schoolmen of Europe in the middle ages; of the Arabian and Indian philosophers; shows us that we may have extreme ingenuity and subtlety, invention and connexion, demonstration and method; and yet that out of these germs, no physical science may be developed. We may obtain, by such means, logic and metaphysics, and even geometry and algebra; but out of such materials we shall never form mechanics and optics, chemistry and physiology. How impossible the formation of these sciences is without a constant and careful reference to observation and experiment;—how rapid and prosperous their progress may be when they draw from such sources the materials on which the mind of the philosopher employs itself;—the history of those branches of knowledge for the last three hundred years abundantly teaches us."

"Whenever any material step in general knowledge has been made,—whenever any philosophical discovery arrests our attention;—some man or men came before us, who have possessed, in an eminent degree, a clearness of the ideas which belong to the subject in question, and who have applied such ideas in a vigorous and distinct manner to ascertained facts and exact observations. We shall never proceed through any considerable range of our narrative, without having occasion to remind the reader of this reflection."

"Such sciences as we have here to do with, are, commonly, not formed by a single act;—they are not completed by the discovery of one great principle. On the contrary, they consist in a long-continued advance; a series of changes; a repeated progress from one principle to another, different and often apparently contradictory. Now it is important to remember that this contradiction is apparent only."

"The principles which constituted the triumph of the preceding stages of the science, may appear to be subverted and ejected by the later discoveries, but in fact they are, (so far as they were true,) taken up into the subsequent doctrines and included in them. They continue to be an essential part of the science."

"The earlier truths are not expelled but absorbed, not contradicted but extended; and the history of each science, which may thus appear like a succession of revolutions, is, in reality, a series of developements."

"In the intellectual, as in the material world,— Omnia mutantur nil interit... Nee manet ut fuerat nee formas servat easdem, Sed tamen ipsa eadem est. All changes, nought is lost; the forms are changed, And that which has been, is not what it was, Yet that which has been, is. Nothing which was done was useless or unessential, though it ceases to be conspicuous and primary."

"The final form of each science contains the substance of each of its preceding modifications; and all that was at any antecedent period discovered and established, ministers to the ultimate developement of its proper branch of knowledge. Such previous doctrines may require to be made precise and definite, to have their superfluous and arbitrary portions expunged, to be expressed in new language, to be taken up into the body of science by various processes;—but they do not on such accounts cease to be true doctrines, or [cease] to form a portion of the essential constituents of our knowledge."

"We shall frequently have to notice the manner in which great discoveries... stamp their impress upon the terms of a science; and like great political revolutions, are recorded by the change of the current coin which has accompanied them."

"The great changes which... take place in the history of science, the revolutions of the intellectual world... are steps of generalization;—transitions from particular truths to others of a wider extent, in which the former are included. This progress of knowledge, from individual facts to universal laws,—from particular propositions to general ones,—and from these to others still more general...—is so far familiar to men's minds, that... its nature will be understood sufficiently to prepare the reader to recognise the exemplifications of such a process, which he will find at every step of our advance."

"It is the progress of knowledge only which we have to attend to. ...Our narrative will therefore consist mainly of successive steps of generalization."

"Primary movements, when the Inductive process, by which science is formed, has been exercised in a more energetic and powerful manner, may be distinguished as the Inductive Epochs of scientific history; and they deserve our more express and pointed notice. They are, for the most part, marked by the great discoveries and the great philosophical names which all civilized nations have agreed in admiring. But... we find that these epochs have not occurred suddenly and without preparation. They have been preceded by a period, which we may call their Prelude, during which the ideas and facts on which they turned were called into action;—were gradually evolved into clearness and connexion, permanency and certainty; till at last the discovery which marks the Epoch, seized and fixed for ever the truth which had till then been obscurely and doubtfully discerned."

"There may generally be observed another period, which we may call the Sequel of the Epoch, during which the discovery has acquired a more perfect certainty and a more complete developement among the leaders of the advance; has been diffused to the wider throng of the secondary cultivators of such knowledge, and traced into its distant consequences. This is a work, always of time and labour, often of difficulty and conflict."

"To distribute the History of science into such Epochs, with their Preludes and Sequels... must needs make the series and connexion of its occurrences more distinct and intelligible. Such periods form resting-places, where we pause till the dust of the confused march is laid, and the prospect of the path is clear."

"We might form a Chart, or Table, of the progress of each science, by setting down the particular facts which have thus been combined, so as to form general truths, and by marking the further union of these general truths into others more comprehensive. The Table of the progress of any science would thus resemble the Map of a River, in which the waters from separate sources unite and make rivulets... and thus go on forming by their junction trunks of a higher and higher order. ...the last and most advanced generalization would have in such a scheme its proper place and the evidence of its validity. ...no merely arbitrary division of the events could satisfy such conditions."

"Though I have constructed... charts to direct the course of the present history, I shall not insert them in the work, reserving them for the illustration of the philosophy of the subject; for to this they more properly belong, being a part of the Logic of Induction."

"In order to understand the conditions of the progress of knowledge, we must attend, in some measure, to the failures as well as the successes by which such attempts have been attended."