Abstract

Excerpt from Outlines of a System of Mechanical Philosophy: Being a Research Into Laws of Force These outlines of a System of Mechanical Philosophy are the result of a research made by the author, for his own instruction. In the research he attempted to separate supposition from fact, - the questionable from those things necessarily taken for truth by the laws of the mind. The inquiry took the form of snythetical reasoning, proceeding step by step, deducing the unknown from what appeared self-evident, taking nothing as truth on authority, however great the name which had given currency to the theory; thus shutting out all sources of error except such as resulted from the weakness of the individual mind. Arriving by this process at conclusions, the very opposite of those taught in the schools of science, these conclusions were tested by an appeal to the phenomena of nature. Both, the reasoning without the phenomena, and the phenomena without the reasoning, pointed to the same general truths. Thus are presented opinions which appear to be supported both by reason and by observation, and presented in the order of their development. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.