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The only laws of matter are those that our minds must fabricate and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter.

James Clerk Maxwell

The chief philosophical value of physics is that it gives the mind something distinct to lay hold of, which, if you don’t, Nature at once tells you you are wrong.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Chief Distinct Give Hold Lay Mind Nature Philosopher Something Tell Wrong
Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is as yet unable to express. Let them make the effort to express these ideas in appropriate words without the aid of symbols, and if they succeed they will not only lay us laymen under a lasting obligation.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Express Flatter Human Idea Language Mathematician Mere Possess Themselves Unable Yet
I have also a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which, till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Also Contrary Convince Greta Gun Hold Paper Theory
But I should be very sorry if an interpretation founded on a most conjectural scientific hypothesis were to get fastened to the text in Genesis…
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Change Conjectural Expanse Fastened Found Hypothesis Interception Mist Rate Scientific Sorry Text
But I think that the results which each man arrives at in his attempts to harmonize his science with his Christianity ought not to be regarded as having any significance except to the man himself, and to him only for a time, and should not receive the stamp of a society.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Attempt Christianity Harmonize Receive Result Science Stamp Think
Gases are distinguished from other forms of matter, not only by their power of indefinite expansion so as to fill any vessel, however large, and by the great effect heat has in dilating them, but by the uniformity and simplicity of the laws which regulate these changes.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Distinguish Effect Expansion Form Gasses Great Indentifite Large Matter Other Power Vessel
But that we may find illustrations of the highest doctrines of science in games and gymnastics, in travelling by land and by water, in storms of the air and of the sea, and wherever there is matter in motion.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Appear Doctrine Emotion Gymnastic Highest Matter Science
The experimental investigation by which Ampere established the law of the mechanical action between electric currents is one of the most brilliant achievements in science. The whole, theory and experiment, seems as if it had leaped, full grown and full armed, from the brain of the ‘Newton of Electricity’.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Achievement Ampere Between Brilliant Current Electric Experiment Investigation Law Mechanical Most
The student who uses home made apparatus, which is always going wrong, often learns more than one who has the use of carefully adjusted instruments, to which he is apt to trust and which he dares not take to pieces.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Always Apparatus Going Home Made Student Use Wrong
But though the professed aim of all scientific work is to unravel the secrets of nature, it has another effect, not less valuable, on the mind of the worker. It leaves him in possession of methods which nothing but scientific work could have led him to invent.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Anothermeffect Less Mind Nature Professed Scientific Secret Through Unravel Valuable Work Worker
The University of Cambridge, in accordance with that law of its evolution, by which, while maintaining the strictest continuity between the successive phases of its history, it adapts itself with more or less promptness to the requirements of the times, has lately instituted a course of Experimental Physics.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Accordance Continuity Country Evolution Law Maintain People Person Phase Strictest Successive University
One of the chief peculiarities of this treatise is the doctrine that the true electric current, on which the electromagnetic phenomena depend, is not the same thing as the current of conduction, but that the time-variation of the electric displacement must [also] be taken into account.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Chief Current Depend Doctrine Electric Electromagnetic One Peculiarities Phenomena Same Thing Treatise True
The true Logic for this world is the Calculus of Probabilities, which takes account of the magnitude of the probability.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Account Calculus Logic Magnitude Probability Take True World
Faraday is, and must always remain, the father of that enlarged science of electromagnetism.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Always Electromagnetism Enlarge Faraday Father Must Remain Science
In the heavens we discover [stars] by their light, and by their light alone … the sole evidence of the existence of these distant worlds … that each of them is built up of molecules of the same kinds we find on earth.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Alone Built Discover Distant Each Evidence Existence Heaven Light Sole Star Word
Every existence above a certain rank has its singular points; the higher the rank the more of them. At these points, influences whose physical magnitude is too small to be taken account of by a finite being may produce results of the greatest importance.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Above Certain Every Existence Influence Magnitude More Physical Point Rank Singular Them These

The only laws of matter are those that our minds must fabricate and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter.

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The only laws of matter are those that our minds must fabricate and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter.

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