Dmitri Mendeleev Quotes
It is the function of science to discover the existence of a general reign of order in nature and to find the causes governing this order. And this refers in equal measure to the relations of man - social and political - and to the entire universe as a whole.
Mendeleeff, Dmitri. The Principles of Chemistry. Translated by George Kamensky, vol. 1, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1891, p. 4.
Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
This is one of the first written statements that primary causes should be studied by man and not just accepted as mysteries created by God. At the time, all of the sciences and mathematics were considered part of natural philosophy.
Spinoza was one of the most feared intellectuals in human history—feared, that is, by the established power structures. Spinoza’s ideas were considered so radical and dangerous that he was the only man in history who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims. This quotation is an example of why the religions were so fearful of his ideas. Essentially, he stated that Priests, Pastors, Rabbis, Imams and all clerics have no monopoly on understanding, knowledge, or wisdom. Each man was to think for himself and clerics should have to prove their claims and convince people, not ask them to have faith in their ideas and instructions. Spinoza himself was a religious Jew and produced all his work to try and persuade others. He challenged all clerics of all religions to do the same. When people started to listen to Spinoza, the clerics wanted to get rid of his influence. Therefore they banned all from talking to him and above all banned his books and other writings.
This was one of the great scientific predictions of how science would develop.
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (sometimes transliterated as Mendeleyev or Mendeleef) was a Russian chemist and inventor. He is best remembered for formulating the Periodic Law and creating a farsighted version of the periodic table of elements. He used the Periodic Law not only to correct the then-accepted properties of some known elements, such as the valence and atomic weight of uranium, but also to predict the properties of eight elements that were yet to be discovered.
