"Another mode of reasoning... was the doctrine of contrarieties, in which it was assumed, that adjectives or substantives which are in common language, or in some abstract mode of conception, opposed to each other, must point to some fundamental antithesis in nature, which it is important to study. Thus Aristotle says, that the Pythagoreans, from the contrasts which number suggests, collected ten principles,—Limited and Unlimited, Odd and Even, One and Many, Right and Left, Male and Female, Rest and Motion, Straight and Curved, Light and Darkness, Good and Evil, Square and Oblong. ...Aristotle himself deduced the doctrine of Four Elements, and other dogmas, by oppositions of the same kind."
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History of the Inductive Sciences
History of the Inductive Sciences from the Earliest Times to the Present (1837) is one of William Whewell's two best-known works. It is his attempt to map and systematize the development of the sciences through time. Second and third editions were published in 1847 and in 1859. The last edition was published in two volumes, and the first two editions were published in three volumes.
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