John William Draper

Every movement in the skies or upon the earth proclaims to us that the universe is under government.

John William Draper (May 5, 1811 – January 4, 1882) was an English-born American scientist, philosopher, physician, chemist, historian and photographer. He is credited with producing the first clear photograph of a female face (1839–40) and the first detailed photograph of the moon in 1840. He was also the first president of the American Chemical Society (1876–77) and a founder of the New York University School of Medicine.

Quotes

A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe (1863)

History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Harper & Bros., 1863.

• Every movement in the skies or upon the earth proclaims to us that the universe is under government.
  • Chapter I, p. 4.

• Time, to the nation as to the individual, is nothing absolute; its duration depends on the rate of thought and feeling.
  • Chapter I, p. 18.

• Four years after the death of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born at Mecca, in Arabia, the man who, of all others, has exercised the greatest influence upon the human race—Mohammed… To be the religious head of many empires, to guide the daily life of one third of the human race, may perhaps justify the title of a messenger of God.
  • Chapter XI, p. 244.

• The Koran abounds in excellent moral suggestions and precepts; its composition is so fragmentary that we can not turn to a single page without finding maxims of which all men must approve. This fragmentary construction yields texts, and mottoes, and rules complete in themselves, suitable for common men in any of the incidents of life.
  • Chapter XI, p. 254.

• I have to deplore the systematic manner in which the literature of Europe has contrived to put out of sight our scientific obligations to the Mohammedans. Surely they can not be much longer hidden. Injustice founded on religious rancor and national conceit can not be perpetuated forever. … The Arab has left his intellectual impress on Europe, as, before long, Christendom will have to confess; he has indelibly written it on the heavens, as any one may see who reads the names of the stars on a common celestial globe.
  • Chapter XVI, p. 356.

• "But, though the Church hath evermore from Holy Writ affirmed that the earth should be a wide-spread plain bordered by the waters, yet he [Magellan] comforted himself when he considered that in the eclipses of the moon the shadow cast of the earth is round; and as is the shadow, such, in like manner, is the substance." It was a stout heart - a heart of triple brass - which could thus, against such authority, extract unyielding faith from a shadow.
  • Chapter XIX, p. 451.

External links

Encyclopedic article on John William Draper on Wikipedia

Quotation which might have been misattributed to Ferdinand Magellan or his crew