Is mind a force? It is held by some that the will acts as the match to gunpowder, by setting loose a store of energy, the matter of the brain being i… - William Kingdon Clifford
" "Is mind a force? It is held by some that the will acts as the match to gunpowder, by setting loose a store of energy, the matter of the brain being in unstable equilibrium. But you cannot have in nature an absolutely unstable equilibrium [i.e., an equilibrium capable of being upset by an infinitesimal force], because the universe is not at rest [and every motion in the universe produces a finite change, however small, in the resultant force at every point of space]. Therefore if mind is force, operating in the way suggested, it must be able to create a determinate quantity of energy. This is a supposition which, if true, would destroy its own evidence; for it would destroy the uniformity of nature, on which all of inference ultimately rests.
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About William Kingdon Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford (May 4, 1845 – March 3, 1879) was an English mathematician and philosopher.
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W. K. Clifford
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William Clifford
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Additional quotes by William Kingdon Clifford
Our lives are guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes. Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought, are common property, fashioned and perfected from age to age; an heirloom which every succeeding generation inherits as a precious deposit and a sacred trust to be handled on to the next one, not unchanged but enlarged and purified, with some clear marks of its proper handiwork. Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.
In regard, then, to the sacred tradition of humanity, we learn that it consists, not in propositions or statements which are to be accepted and believed on the authority of the tradition, but in questions rightly asked, in conceptions which enable us to ask further questions, and in methods of answering questions. The value of all these things depends on their being tested day by day. The very sacredness of the precious deposit imposes upon us the duty and the responsibility of testing it, of purifying and enlarging it to the utmost of our power. He who makes use of its results to stifle his own doubts, or to hamper the inquiry of others, is guilty of a sacrilege which centuries shall never be able to blot out. When the labours and questionings of honest and brave men shall have built up the fabric of known truth to a glory which we in this generation can neither hope for nor imagine, in that pure and holy temple he shall have no part nor lot, but his name and his works shall be cast out into the darkness of oblivion for ever.
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General Results.—Force is a quality of position, definite in magnitude and direction at any point; not constant.
Energy is the name of two different quantities.
1. Energy of motion, half the rate at which a body carries momentum.
2. Energy of position, defined by the statement of the law that the work done in getting from one position to another is the same by whatever path the change of position is made.
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