Third Theory.-According to this theory, there is nothing in the whole Universe... that is due to chance; everything is the result of will, intention, and rule. It is a matter of course that he who rules must know. The Mohametan Ashariyah adhere to this theory, notwithstanding evident absurdities implied in it. ...The Ashariyah were therefore compelled to assume that motion and rest of living beings are predestined, and that it is not in the power of a man to do a certain thing or to leave it undone. ...It follows also from this theory, that precepts are perfectly useless, since the people to whom any law is given... can neither do what they are commanded nor abstain from what they are forbidden. ...According to this theory, it must also be assumed that the actions of God have no final cause. All these absurdities are admitted by the Ashariyah for the purpose of saving this theory.
MaimonidesRelated topics
cause certain chance course due everything final given intention law leave living man matter motion nor nothing people power purpose rest result rule saving theory thing third undo universe mohametan rulesRelated quotes
It is my purpose nowhere in these remarks to make personal reproaches; I entertain no ill-will toward any human being, nor any brute, that I know of, not even the skunk across the way to which I referred. Least of all would I reproach the South. I honor her courage and fidelity. Even in a bad, a wicked cause, she shows a united front. All her sons are faithful to the cause of human bondage, because it is their cause. But the North - the poor, timid, mercenary, driveling North - has no such united defenders of her cause, although it is the cause of human liberty. None of the bright lights of the nation shine upon her section. Even her own great men have turned her accusers. She is the victim of low ambition - an ambition which prefers self to country, personal aggrandizement to the high cause of human liberty. She is offered up a sacrifice to propitiate southern tyranny - to conciliate southern treason.
Thaddeus Stevens
Would you like to know, for instance, to what extent higher mathematics is used in our two great industries? Well, it is never used at all. Having found this to be the case in my own experience, after quite a long career, I wondered whether I was not an exception; so I made enquiries, and I found that it was a general rule that neither engineers nor managers used higher mathematics in carrying out their duties. We must, of course, learn mathematics that goes without saying but the question is how much must we learn? Up to the present this point has nearly always been decided simply by professors, but it seems to me to be a question in which professors do not count very much, and in which they count less as they become more learned and more devoted to their work. They would like to pass on all their scientific knowledge and they find that their pupils always leave them too soon.
Henri Fayol
It may be observed of mathematicians that they only meddle with such things as are certain, passing by those that are doubtful and unknown. They profess not to know all things, neither do they affect to speak of all things. What they know to be true, and can make good by invincible arguments, that they publish and insert among their theorems. Of other things they are silent and pass no judgment at all, choosing rather to acknowledge their ignorance, than affirm anything rashly. They affirm nothing among their arguments or assertions which is not most manifestly known and examined with utmost rigour, rejecting all probable conjectures and little witticisms. They submit nothing to authority, indulge no affection, detest subterfuges of words, and declare their sentiments, as in a court of justice, without passion, without apology; knowing that their reasons, as Seneca testifies of them, are not brought to persuade, but to compel.
Isaac Barrow
If Christ were to walk in this world today, do you know what would happen to Him? He would be placed in a mental institution and given psycho-therapy, just as would His Saints. The world would crucify Him today just as it did 2000 years ago, for the world has not learned a thing, except more devious forms of hypocrisy. And what would happen if, in one of my classes at the university, I would one day tell my students that all the learning of this world is of no importance beside the duty of worshipping God, accepting the God-man who died for our sins, and preparing for the life of the world to come? They would probably laugh at me, and the university officials, if they found out, would fire me-for it is against the law to preach the Truth in our universities. We say that we live in a Christian society, but we do not: we live in a society.
Seraphim Rose
I reproach myself for a gross error. But I would reproach myself more if I had persisted in an error after observations revealed it clearly to be that. I made a deal of money in the late 1940s on the bull side, ignoring Satchel Paige's advice to Lot's wife, "Never look back.” Rather I would advocate Samuelson's Law: "Always look back. You may learn something from your residuals. Usually one's forecasts are not so good as one remembers them; the difference may be instructive.” The dictum "If you must forecast, forecast often,” is neither a joke nor a confession of impotence. It is a recognition of the primacy of brute fact over pretty theory. That part of the future that cannot be related to the present's past is precisely what science cannot hope to capture. Fortunately, there is plenty of work for science to do, plenty of scientific tasks not yet done.
Paul Samuelson
