A law explains a set of observations; a theory explains a set of laws. The quintessential illustration of this jump in level is th...e way in which Newton's theory of mechanics explained Kepler's law of planetary motion. Basically, a law applies to observed phenomena in one domain (e.g., planetary bodies and their movements), while a theory is intended to unify phenomena in many domains. Thus, Newton's theory of mechanics explained not only Kepler's laws, but also Galileo's findings about the motion of balls rolling down an inclined plane, as well as the pattern of oceanic tides. Unlike laws, theories often postulate unobservable objects as part of their explanatory mechanism. So, for instance, Freud's theory of mind relies upon the unobservable ego, superego, and id, and in modern physics we have theories of elementary particles that postulate various types of quarks, all of which have yet to be observed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the neve...r seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We begin with friendships, and all our youth is a reconnoitering and recruiting of the holy fraternity they shall combine for the ...salvation of men. But so the remoter stars seem a nebula of united light, yet there is no group which a telescope will not resolve; and the dearest friends are separated by impassable gulfs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The philosophic mind inclines always to an elaborate life--the life of Goethe or of Leonardo da Vinci; but the life of the poet is... intense--the life of Blake or of Dante--taking into its centre the life that surrounds it and flinging it abroad again amid planetary music.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This is the excellent foppery of the world: that when we are sick in fortune--often the surfeits of our own behaviour--we make gui...lty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence.... An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We cannot cheat on DNA. We cannot get round photosynthesis. We cannot say I am not going to give a damn about phytoplankton. All t...hese tiny mechanisms provide the preconditions of our planetary life. To say we do not care is to say in the most literal sense that "we choose death."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »