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Thomas Love Peacock
(18 Oct 1785 - 23 Jan 1866)
English novelist and poet who was a clerk and examiner to East India Company (1819-56). He was a close friend of Percy Shelley. Peacock’s works include the satirical novel Nightmare Alley (1818).
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Science Quotes by Thomas Love Peacock (3 quotes)
I almost think it is the ultimate destiny of science to exterminate the human race.
— Thomas Love Peacock
Written for fictional character, the Rev. Dr. Opimian, in Gryll Grange (1861), collected in Sir Henry Cole (ed.) The Works of Thomas Love Peacock(1875), Vol. 2, 382. [Hans Øersted discovered electromagnetism in 1820. Presumably the next reference to magnetism refers to a compass needle for navigation. —Webmaster]
Magnetism, galvanism, electricity, are “one form of many names.” Without magnetism we should never have discovered America; to which we are indebted for nothing but evil; diseases in the worst forms that can afflict humanity, and slavery in the worst form in which slavery can exist. The Old World had the sugar-cane and the cotton-plant, though it did not so misuse them.
— Thomas Love Peacock
Written for fictional character, the Rev. Dr. Opimian, in Gryll Grange (1861), collected in Sir Henry Cole (ed.) The Works of Thomas Love Peacock(1875), Vol. 2, 382. [Hans Øersted discovered electromagnetism in 1820. Presumably the next reference to magnetism refers to a compass needle for navigation. —Webmaster]
Science is one thing, wisdom is another. Science is an edged tool, with which men play like children, and cut their own fingers. If you look at the results which science has brought in its train, you will find them to consist almost wholly in elements of mischief. See how much belongs to the word “Explosion” alone, of which the ancients knew nothing.
— Thomas Love Peacock
Written for fictional character, the Rev. Dr. Opimian, in Gryll Grange (1861), collected in Sir Henry Cole (ed.) The Works of Thomas Love Peacock(1875), Vol. 2, 380. (An incorrect citation is found in Robert L. Weber, More Random Walks in Science (1982), 48. Weber attributes to Arthur Eddington in 'The Decline of Determinism.' Webmaster checked an article by this name in Mathematical Gazette (May 1932) but found nothing resembling the quote therein.)
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) -- 
