June 21, 2010 | Comments | Eureka, a Prose Poem
I maintain, first, that only in the mode described is it conceivable that Matter could have been diffused so as to fulfil at once the conditions of radiation and of generally equable distribution. I maintain, secondly, that these conditions themselves have been imposed upon me, as necessities, in a train of ratiocination as rigorously logical [...]
Popularity: 10%
April 12, 2010 | Comments | Eureka, a Prose Poem
The process of thought, at this point, may be thus roughly sketched: — I say to myself — “Unity, as I have explained it, is a truth; I feel it. Diffusion is a truth; I see it. Radiation, by which alone these two truths are reconciled, is a consequent truth; I perceive it. Equability of [...]
Popularity: 18%
February 16, 2010 | Comments | Eureka, a Prose Poem
Discarding now the two equivocal terms, “gravitation” and “electricity,” let us adopt the more definite expressions, “Attraction” and “Repulsion.” The former is the body, the latter the soul; the one is the material, the other the spiritual, principle of the Universe. No other principles exist. All phenomena are referable to one, or to the [...]
Popularity: 24%
December 19, 2009 | Comments | Eureka, a Prose Poem
Let us begin, then, at once, with that merest of words, “Infinity.” This, like “God,” “spirit,” and some other expressions of which the equivalents exist in all languages, is by no means the expression of an idea, but of an effort at one. It stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception. Man needed [...]
Popularity: 39%
October 11, 2009 | Comments | Eureka, a Prose Poem
AN ESSAY ON THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
IT is with humility really unassumed — it is with a sentiment even of awe — that I pen the opening sentence of this work; for of all conceivable subjects, I approach the reader with the most solemn, the most comprehensive, the most difficult, the most august.
What terms [...]
Popularity: 34%
March 28, 2009 | Comments | Eureka, a Prose Poem
WITH VERY PROFOUND RESPECT,
This Work is Dedicated
TO
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.
To the few who love me and whom I love — to those who feel rather than to those who think — to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only realities — I offer this book of Truths, not in its [...]
Popularity: 42%
