The Works of John Playfair ...: With a Memoir of the Author ...

Front Cover
A. Constable & Company, 1822 - 8 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 79 - The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time ; and while we listened with, earnestness and admiration to the philosopher who was now unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible how much farther reason may sometimes go than imagination can venture to follow.
Page 522 - An account of experiments for determining the length of the pendulum vibrating seconds in the latitude of London.
Page 301 - ... the base, as the square of the radius to the square of the cosine of half the angle included between the two sides of the triangle.
Page 309 - ... that the mean longitude of the first satellite, minus three times that of the second, plus twice that of the third, is always equal to two right angles.
Page 111 - Great caution in his reasonings, and a coolness of head that even approached to indifference, were characteristic of Dr Black. On attending to their conversation, and the way in which they treated any question of science or philosophy, one would...
Page 125 - The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour — The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Page 325 - In one of these, where the dictates of Aristotle are still listened to as infallible decrees, and where the infancy of science is mistaken for its maturity, the mathematical sciences have never flourished ; and the scholar has no means of advancing beyond the mere elements of geometry.
Page 469 - ... of the whole quantity of matter in the earth. But the attraction of a quantity of matter at the earth's centre would be more powerful on a body at the bottom of a mine than on one at the top, in the inverse ratio of the squares of the distances of the bodies from the earth's centre : that is in the present case in the ratio of four to one. Hence the attraction on a body at the bottom of the mine would be, on the whole, less than the attraction on a body on the top in the ratio of one to two.
Page 53 - It is unreasonable, indeed, to suppose that such marks should any where exist. The Author of nature has not given laws to the universe, which, like the institutions of men, carry in themselves the elements of their own destruction ; he has not permitted in his works any symptom of infancy or of old age, or any sign by which we may estimate either their future or their past duration.
Page 54 - Author of nature has not given laws to the universe, which, like the institutions of men, carry in themselves the elements of their own destruction. He has not permitted in His works any symptom of infancy or of old age, or any sign by which we may estimate either their future or their past duration. He may put an end, as he no doubt gave a beginning, to the present system at some determinate period of time ; but we may rest assured that this great catastrophe will not be brought about by the laws...

Bibliographic information