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K.O. Meinsma
(14 Jan 1865 - 8 Oct 1929)
bdp=resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/bwn1/meinsma
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Science Quotes by K.O. Meinsma (1 quote)
Wij zien daar den wereldburger Christiaan Huygens, den man, die als devies had kunnen voeren “the World is my country, to promote Science my religion.”
We see there the cosmopolitan Christiaan Huygens, the man whose motto could have been “the World is my country, to promote Science my religion."
We see there the cosmopolitan Christiaan Huygens, the man whose motto could have been “the World is my country, to promote Science my religion."
— K.O. Meinsma
Original Dutch from Spinoza en Zijn Kring (1896), 258. The title translates as Spinosa and his Circle. English by Webmaster using Google Translate. Notice that this clearly indicates that Meinsma, using the words “had kunnen” (might have been) created the fictitious motto to describe Huygens. Thus it is a false attribution when the motto is seen some sources as being a quote directly by Christiaan Huygens. Notice that the author Meinsma and Huygens were both Dutch, but the Dutch text gives the motto in English, a clue to its real source. Meinsma likely adapted it from the well-known quote, “The world is my country, and to do good is my religion,” the common paraphrase of “My country is the world, and my religion is to do good,” as written by Thomas Paine in Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution (1791, 1792), 50.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
