Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

Excerpt from Passages From the Life of a Philosopher I have no desire to write my own biography, as lon g as I have strength and means to do better work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and

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Charles Babbage (14)

The foundation of all religion is the belief in a God, and that He exists in certain relation with His creatures. Such belief necessarily leads to the consciousness of some obligation towards the Deity; and this consciousness suggests the duty of worship; and in the selection of the form of this wor…

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

Religion foundation Belief

Miracles may be, for anything we know to the contrary, phenomena of a higher order of God's laws, superior to, and, under certain conditions, controlling the inferior order known to us as the ordinary laws of nature.

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

Miracles Belief God Religion Law

If we define a miracle as an effect of which the cause is unknown to us, then we make our ignorance the source of miracles! and the universe itself would be a standing miracle. A miracle might be perhaps defined more exactly as an effect which is not the consequence or effect of any known laws of na…

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

Miracle Ignorance Laws of Nature

We must be careful to discriminate between our own incapacity to test truth and the necessary improbability of an event. It is plain that from our ignorance of the remote spheres of God's action we cannot judge of His works removed from our experience; but a fact is not necessarily doubtful because…

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

Truth Facts Ignorance

There is nothing in the nature of a miracle that should render it incredible: its credibility depends upon the nature of the evidence by which it is supported. An event of extreme probability will not necessarily command our belief unless upon a sufficiency of proof; and so an event which we may reg…

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

Miracle Credibility Proof

The limits of man's observation lie within very narrow boundaries, and it would be arrogance to suppose that the reach of man's power is to form the limits of the natural world. The universe offers daily proof of the existence of power of which we know nothing, but whose mighty agency nevertheless m…

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

Observation Universe Existence Creation Mysteries

The true value of the Christian religion rests, not upon speculative views of the Creator, which must necessarily be different in each individual, according to the extent of the knowledge of the finite being, who employs his own feeble powers in contemplating the infinite: but it rests upon those do…

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

Religion Christianity creator Doctrine

I may now state, as the result of a long life spent in studying the works of the Creator, that I am satisfied they afford far more satisfactory and more convincing proofs of the existence of a supreme Being than any evidence transmitted through human testimony can possibly supply.

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

studies Works Belief creator Proof

The works of the Creator, ever present to our senses, give a living and perpetual testimony of his power and goodness far surpassing any evidence transmitted through human testimony. The testimony of man becomes fainter at every stage of transmission, whilst each new inquiry into the works of the Al…

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

creator Belief Testimony Creation

Almost all thinking men who have studied the laws which govern the animate and the inanimate world around us, agree that the belief in the existence of one Supreme Creator, possessed of infinite wisdom and power, is open to far less difficulties than the supposition of the absence of any cause, or o…

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

creator Belief Existence Wisdom

It is difficult to estimate the misery inflicted upon thousands of persons, and the absolute pecuniary penalty imposed upon multitudes of intellectual workers by the loss of their time, destroyed by organ-grinders and other similar nuisances.

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

Misery Penalty workers Labor nuisances

As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of the science. Whenever any result is sought by its aid, the question will then arise — by what course of calculation can these results be arrived at by the machine in the shortest time?

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

Analytical Engine Science Calculation arithmetic

The whole of arithmetic now appeared within the grasp of mechanism.

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

arithmetic mechanism

On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas…

— Charles Babbage, amazon.com

Ideas Questions Confusion

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