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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

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
Wherein they fancy intersperses Long avenues of universes, While Klein and Clifford fill the void With one finite, unbounded homoloid, And think the Infinite is now at last destroyed.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Avenue Country Destroy Fancy Infinite Long People Person Think Unbound Universe
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
Ampere was the Newton of Electricity.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Ampere Electricity Newton
The experimental verification of the mathematical results therefore is no evidence for or against the peculiar doctrines of this theory.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Doctrine Evidence Against Experiment Mathematician Result Theory Verification
Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent it must have been created.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Creation Incomplete Itself Matter Nothing Reason Science Upon
All the mathematical sciences are founded on relations between physical laws and laws of numbers, so that the aim of exact science is to reduce the problems of nature to the determination of quantities by operations with numbers.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Between Exact Found Law Mathematical Number Physical Problem Reduce Relation Science
The equations at which we arrive must be such that a person of any nation, by substituting the numerical values of the quantities as measured by his own national units, would obtain a true result.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Arrive Eualation Measure Nation National Numerical Own Person Quantities Substuiting Such Value
The popularisation of scientific doctrines is producing as great an alteration in the mental state of society as the material applications of science are effecting in its outward life.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Accompanied Alternation Application Disturbance Doctrine Great Material Mental Popularisation Produce Scientific Society State
We define thermodynamics … as the investigation of the dynamical and thermal properties of bodies, deduced entirely from the first and second law of thermodynamics, without speculation as to the molecular constitution.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Body Constitution Deduct Define Entirely First Investigation Law Molecular Property Second Speculation Thermal Thermodynamics
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
When I reappear it will be in the dusky ring, which is something like the state of the air supposing the siege of Sebastopol conducted from a forest of guns 100 miles one way, and 30,000 miles the other, and the shot never to stop, but go spinning away round a circle, radius 170,000 miles.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Appear Away Conduct Forget Gun Hundred Mile Record Seige Something Spin State Stop Stot
The 2nd law of thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea, you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Degree Law Same Sea Second Statement Thermodynamics Throw Tumble Water
… that, in a few years, all great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will be left to men of science will be to carry these measurements to another place of decimals.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Approximately Constant Estimate Few Great Left Men Occupation Only Physical Science Will Work Year
Science appears to us with a very different aspect after we have found out that it is not in lecture rooms only, and by means of the electric light projected on a screen, that we may witness physical phenomena.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Appear Aspect Different Electric Found Lecture Light Mean Project Science Woom
In every branch of knowledge the progress is proportional to the amount of facts on which to build, and therefore to the facility of obtaining data.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Amount Build Data Every Branch Facility Fact Knowledge Obtain Progress Proportional Therefore
Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is as yet unable to express.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Express Flatter Human Idea Language Mathematician Passes Themselves Unable Yet
In fact, whenever energy is transmitted from one body to another in time, there must be a medium or substance in which the energy exists after it leaves one body and before it reaches the other … and if we admit this medium as an hypothesis.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Another Body Energy Exist Leave Medium Must One Substance Time Transmitted
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
It is of great advantage to the student of any subject to read the original memoirs on that subject, for science is always most completely assimilated when it is in the nascent state.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Advantage Always Assimilate Great Memories Mostly Original Raed Science Student Subject
The rate of change of scientific hypothesis is naturally much more rapid than that of Biblical interpretations, so that if an interpretation is founded on such an hypothesis, it may help to keep the hypothesis above ground long after it ought to be buried and forgotten.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Biblical Bury Change Ground Hypothesis Interpretation Dimension Long More Rate Scientific
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

Law Matter Mind Must Fabricate Only
I think men of science as well as other men need to learn from Christ, and I think Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that their view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Christ Christmas Coundm Study Learn Men Mind Need Other Science Scientific Think View Well
The vast interplanetary and vast interstellar regions will no longer be regarded as waste places in the universe. We shall find them to be already full of this wonderful medium; so full that no human power can remove it from the smallest portion of space or produce the slightest flaw in its infinite continuity.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Interplanetary Place Regard Region Universe Vast
We can scarcely avoid the inference that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Cause Consist Electric Light Magnetic Medium Phenomena Reference Same Scarcely Void
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
What’s the go of that? What’s the particular go of that?
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Go Particular

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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