What Is There In A Name? It

That The State Of Knowledge In Any Country Will Exert A Directive Influence On The General System Of Instruction Adopted In It, Is A Principle Too Obvious To Require Investigation.

On Two Occasions I Have Been Asked, 'pray, Mr. Babbage, If You Put Into The Machine Wrong Figures, Will The Right Answers Come Out?' I Am Not Able Rightly To Apprehend The Kind Of Confusion Of Ideas That Could Provoke Such A Question.

Whenever A Man Can Get Hold Of Numbers, They Are Invaluable: If Correct, They Assist In Informing His Own Mind, But They Are Still More Useful In Deluding The Minds Of Others. Numbers Are The Masters Of The Weak, But The Slaves Of The Strong.

If We Define A Miracle As An Effect Of Which The Cause Is Unknown To Us, Then We Make Our Ignorance The Source Of Miracles! And The Universe Itself Would Be A Standing Miracle. A Miracle Might Be Perhaps Defined More Exactly As An Effect Which Is Not The Consequence Or Effect Of Any Known Laws Of Nature.

Miracles May Be, For Anything We Know To The Contrary, Phenomena Of A Higher Order Of God's Laws, Superior To, And, Under Certain Conditions, Controlling The Inferior Order Known To Us As The Ordinary Laws Of Nature.