34 quotes
Having for their object the Science of Man, present difficulties exceedingly great, and, to merit confidence, must be collected upon a scale far too extended to be attempted by an individual philosopher.
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
The Supreme has then not only spread life and movement throughout, and willed that its impress should be preserved, but has done more; for he has permitted man to associate in some degree with his work, and to modify it.
We then better understand the weakness of man, and the power of the Supreme: we are struck with the inflexible constancy of the laws which regulate the march of worlds, and which preside over the succession of human generations.
The progressive development of moral and intellectual man has scarcely occupied their [scientists] attention; nor have they noted how the faculties of his mind are at every age influenced by those of the body, nor how his faculties mutually react.
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
The tables of criminality for different ages, given in my published treatise, merit at least as much faith as the tables of mortality, and verify themselves within perhaps even narrower limits; so that crime pursues its path with even more constancy than death.
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
The analysis of the moral man through his actions, and of the intellectual man through his productions, seems to me calculated to form one of the most interesting parts of the sciences of observation, applied to anthropology.
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
The more advanced the sciences have become, the more they have tended to enter the domain of mathematics, which is a sort of center towards which they converge. We can judge of the perfection to which a science has come by the facility, more or less great, with which it may be approached by calculation.
We might even predict annually how many individuals will stain their hands with the blood of their fellow-men, how many will be forgers, how many will deal in poison, pretty nearly in the same way as we may foretell annual births and deaths.
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
It may be seen, in my work, that the course which I have adopted is that followed by the natural philosopher, in order to grasp the laws that regulate the material world. By the seizure of facts, I seek to rise to an appreciation of the causes whence they spring.
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
Hitherto, the science of Man has been limited to researches... respecting some of its laws, to results deduced from single or insulated observations, and to theories often based on mere glimpses; and these constitute pretty nearly all the materials it possesses.
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
Social physics never can pretend to discover laws which will verify themselves in every particular, in the case of isolated individuals. The science will have rendered a service sufficiently vast, in giving more precise views upon a host of points, of which vague glimpses only were before possessed.
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
Judgments upon books are formed with even more haste and levity than judgments upon men. Writings are talked of without being known; and people take up an opinion for or against, in consequence of decisions which it would cost them some trouble to determine the source. These are evils which must be borne with patience, and the more so because they are common.
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
It is only by long and laborious study, and by the comparison of a number of individuals, that it will be possible to succeed in establishing correct average proportions each age, and in settling the limits betwixt they can be made to vary, without ceasing to be accurate and faithful to nature—our first and guide in this difficult study.
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
This observation is merely the extension of a law well known to all who have studied the condition of society in a philosophic manner: it is, that so long as the same causes exist, we must expect a repetition of the same effects. What has induced some to believe that moral phenomena did not obey this law, has been the too great influence ascribed all times to man himself over his actions.
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)