Hume, with Helps to the study of Berkeley;

Thomas Henry Huxley

Sujets

• Hume
• Berkeley

Informations

• Publié par: les_archives_du_savoir
• Nombre de lectures: 9
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

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THEUNIVERSITY
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LOSANGELESCOLLECTED ESSAYS
By T. H. HUXLEY
VOLUME VIHUME
HELPS TO THE STUDY OFWITH
BERKELEY
ESSAYS
BY
H.THOMAS HUXLEY
YORKNEW
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1896Authorized Edition.PREFACE
life and workIn two the of Descartes,essays upon
which will be found in the first volume of this col-
I have some reasons for convictionlection, given my
that if has a claim to the titlehe, one, ofany
father of modern this I mean that
philosophy. By
his scheme of his of
general things, conceptions
scientific method and of the conditions and limits
of are far more and charac-certainty, essentially
modern than those of of histeristically any
immediate and successors. Indeed,predecessors
the in some branches of science had notadepts
the of hismastered ideas so late asfully import
of thisthe beginning century.
of this remarkableThe conditions inposition
of are to be asthe world found, usual,thought
in in circum-motherwit,primarily, secondarily,
Trained the best educators ofthe seven-stance. by
theteenth endowedcentury, Jesuits; naturally
with a dialectic and which evengrasp subtlety,
could and with ahardly improve ; passionthey
whichfor at the even couldtruth, theygetting
1464870PREFACEVI
Descartes in addition,possessed,hardly impair,
a rare of the art ofmastery literary expression.
had no otherIf the "Discours de la M^thode"
worth for the sake ofit would bemerits, study
and of itsthe luminous simplicity sincerity style.
A mathematician of the first rank,very
knew all that was to be known ofDescartes
mechanical and science in his he wasday ;optical
a skilled and zealous anatomist he waspractical ;
im-one of the first to therecognise prodigious
of hisof theportance discovery contemporary
and he more into
;Harvey penetrated deeply
of the nervous thanthe physiology system any
in that for a or more,science,specialist century,
his time. To this andafter encyclopaedic yet
first-hand with the nature of
acquaintance things,
he added an with the nature of
men is a much more valuable of(which chapter
to than isphilosophers commonlyexperience
in the ofimagined), gathered opening campaigns
in wide andthe Years' amidstWar, travels,Thirty
French in which Pascalthat brilliant wassociety
"
Even a Traite* deshis toPassions,"worthy peer.
worth must be based observationbe anything, upon
and in this facilities forand,; subject,experiment
of the most varied and ex-laboratory practice
weretensive character offered the Paris ofby
theMazarin and the in whichDuchesses; Paris,
friend andDescartes' Father Mersenne,great ally,
atheists the thousand inreckoned ; and, which,by