Analyte

“ The notion of a fact, when we come to examine it precisely, reduces to an affirmative judgment having reference to external reality. The operations by which we arrive at such a judgment are more or less difficult, and the risk of error is greater or smaller according to the nature of the realities185 investigated and the degree of precision with which we wish to formulate them. Chemistry and biology need to discern facts of a delicate order, rapid movements, transient states, and to measure them in exact figures. ”

“ We see in many of the brute creation the exercise of one, at least, of the same powers of reasoning as that which we ourselves employ.
The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind. It is simply the mode at which all phenomena are reasoned about, rendered precise and exact. ”

“ Prepare stock solutions by adding known amounts of analytes to 10-mL volumetric flasks containing high purity solvent (carbon disulfide, methanol, toluene) . Solvents are chosen based on solubility for the analytes of interest and ability to be separated from the analytes when chromatographed. Highly volatile compounds should be dissolved in a less volatile solvent. For most compounds, carbon disulfide is a good general purpose solvent, although this will interfere with early eluting compounds. ”

“ R. If I observe myself correctly, and look clearly into my consciousness, I shall not do so on any account. I cannot consent to limit the universal validity of my assertion.
A. Perhaps you take the many cases in which you have found your assertion to be correct, and extend them to universality, judging by analogy, habit, association of ideas, or whatever you choose to call it, that it will always prove valid?
R. I do not believe it. A single experiment is sufficient, and is as efficient as a thousand to impel my universal assertion. ”

“ It has been said that ‘The best idea which we can form of absolute truth is that it is able to meet every condition by which it can be tested.’ This we shall expect of our law—that it shall meet every test of experiment and every test of rational investigation. ”

“ I have pointed out that an analysis is guided by the practical demands of a solution of this conflict; that even that which is individual in its most unique sense in the conflict and in attempts at its solution does not enter into the field of psychology—which has its own problems peculiar to its science. Certain psychological problems belong to the problems of other sciences, as, for example, that of the personal equation belongs to astronomy or that of color vision to the theory of light. ”

“ Thus it will ever be with all human investigation. The primitive philosophical elements from which we start are examined, first by one and then by another, each drawing his own special conclusions and deductions, and each firmly believing in the truth of his inferences. Each analyst has seen the whole subject from a particular point of view, without concerning himself with the discordances, contradictions, and incompatibilities obvious enough when his conclusions come to be compared with those of other analysts as skilful as himself. ”

“ In contrast with the inductive and other methods of presentation, the chief characteristic of the analytical method consists therefore in the candid completeness with which it reveals and discusses the various steps by which the investigator passes from the incomplete conception of his problem, based directly on observable facts, to the complete and comprehensive scheme which he has been led to believe is the true counterpart of the whole enchainment of facts, past and present, involved in his problem. ”

“ In a wider sense the whole of formal logic is precisely the analysis of the laws of thought. Analytical psychology is distinguished from genetic and empirical psychology inasmuch as it proceeds by the method of introspective investigation of mental phenomena instead of by physiological or psycho-physical experiment. For the relation between analysis and synthesis on the one hand, and deduction and induction on the other, see Induction. ”

“ While we are analyzing an object, or tracing its genesis, we are not responding to it as a whole or feeling its beauty and power. The mystery, the spell, vanishes; we cease to thrill when we dissect. But knowledge proceeds by analysis, and gains by a study of origins and causes. ”

“ And, in truth, there is scarcely any investigation in the whole body of a science requiring so high a degree of analysis and abstraction, as the inquiry, what the science itself is; in other words, what are the properties common to all the truths composing it, and distinguishing them from all other truths. ”

“ We ask ourselves the general question: 'WHAT DO WE EXPERIENCE WHEN WE THINK?' Then we do not at all attempt a preliminary determination of the concept 'thought,' but choose for analysis only such processes as everyone would describe as processes of thought. ”

“ One gets much further if one allows himself to be analyzed by a competent analyst, observes the effect of the analysis on his own ego, and at the same time makes use of the opportunity to become familiar with the finer details of the technique of procedure. ”

“ At no point, then, does the test of ‘working’ conduct to the notion that absolute truth is discoverable. But the right inference may be, not that the test is worthless, but that absolute truth is a chimera. ”

“ We must search thoroughly without any fear. Truth can stand all the tests of analysis, all the tests of observation. And if it is not truth, it can not stand the test. So always keep the reasoning faculty, or power of analysis sharpened, ready to observe, ready to understand, [18] ready to reason out. ”

“ On Observation and Experiment.
§ 1. It results from the preceding exposition, that the process of ascertaining what consequents, in nature, are invariably connected with what antecedents, or in other words what phenomena are related to each other as causes and effects, is in some sort a process of analysis. That every fact which begins to exist has a cause, and that this cause must be found in some fact or concourse of facts which immediately preceded the occurrence, may be taken for certain. ”

“ The opinion that they are inferiour in the faculties of reason and imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence. To justify a general conclusion requires many observations, even where the subject may be submitted to the anatomical knife, to optical glasses, to analysis by fire or solvents: how much more, then, when it is a faculty, not a substance, we are examining; where it eludes the research of all the senses ”

“ But as the operations of body are slow, those of the mind vigorous and active, as experiment is dilatory and painful, speculation quick and amusing, the spirit of philosophy being excited, the reasoner, when destitute of experiment, had recourse to theory, and gave up what was useful for refinement. ”

“ Does not an account of thinking, basing itself on modern scientific procedure, demand a statement in which all the distinctions and terms of thought—judgment, concept, inference, subject, predicate, and copula of judgment, etc., ad infinitum—shall be interpreted simply and entirely as distinctive functions or divisions of labor within the doubt-inquiry process? ”

“ That which determines us, from given premises, to draw one inference rather than another, is some habit of mind, whether it be constitutional or acquired. The habit is good or otherwise, according as it produces true conclusions from true premises or not; and an inference is regarded as valid or not, without reference to the truth or falsity of its conclusion specially, but according as the habit which determines it is such as to produce true conclusions in general or not. ”

“ Author's standpoint that of the scientist, not practical physician—The analyst works in spite of the transference—Psychoanalysis not the only way—Sometimes less efficacious than any known method—Cases must be selected—For the author and his patients it is the best way—The real solution of the moral conflict comes from within, and then only because the patient has been brought to a new standpoint. ”

“ To this we reply, that our inquiry must be, whether the Facts have the same relation in the Hypothesis which they have in reality;—whether the results of our suppositions agree with the phenomena which nature presents to us. For this purpose, we must both carefully observe the phenomena, and steadily trace the consequences of our assumptions, till we can 68 bring the two into comparison. The Conceptions which our hypotheses involve, being derived from certain Fundamental Ideas, afford a basis of rigorous reasoning, as we have shown in the Books of the History of those Ideas. ”

“ The causes being given, we may know what will be their effect, without an actual trial of every possible combination; since the causes are human feelings, and outward circumstances fitted to excite them: and, as these for the most part are, or at least might be, familiar to us, we can more surely judge of their combined effect from that familiarity, than from any evidence which can be elicited from the complicated and entangled circumstances of an actual experiment. ”

“ The same defect occurs in the reasoning of an empirical psychologist when he analyses an action into the various aspects which it presents, and then sticks to these aspects in their separation. The object which is subjected to analysis is treated as a sort of onion from which one coat is peeled off after another. ”

“ The aggregates of matter we analyze by the use of other matter, adding substance after substance, and varying manipulation after manipulation;—the complex mental phenomena we analyze virtually by mere reflection; the same individual mind being the subject of analysis, the instrument of analysis, and the analysing inquirer. ”

“ But a student who loves the fulness of human nature will prefer to follow the 'analytic' method, and to begin with the most concrete facts, those with which he has a daily acquaintance in his own inner life. The analytic method will discover in due time the elementary parts, if such exist, without danger of precipitate assumption. The reader will bear in mind that our own chapters on sensation have dealt mainly with the physiological conditions thereof. They were put first as a mere matter of convenience, because incoming currents come first. ”

“ But when we are striving to go deeper, and are employing that gift of analysis which is man's prerogative, in order to proceed to a higher and more complete synthesis,—then we must be careful to keep separate those processes which analysis discloses to be distinct. ”

“ We may even trace the antagonism within a narrower range, between general reasoning and special reasoning. One prone to far-reaching speculations rarely pursues to much purpose those investigations by which particular truths are reached; while the scientific specialist ordinarily has but little tendency to occupy himself with wide views. ”

“ The evidence which we have of their presence lies in the phenomena which address our senses, and our warrant for taking these for evidence is our instinctive certitude that they are evidence. By the law of our [pg 103] nature we associate those sensible phenomena or impressions with certain units, individuals, substances, whatever they are to be called, which are outside and out of the reach of sense, and we picture them to ourselves in those phenomena. ”

“ In every new and rather delicate experiment, although to us it may appear sure and satisfactory, we yet publish the method we employed, that, by the discovery of every attendant circumstance, men may perceive the possibly latent and inherent errors, and be roused to proofs of a more certain and exact nature, if such there be. ”

“ Ultimate Analysis Justifiable. — It is the justification for analysis to approach the ultimate as nearly as possible, that the smaller and more difficult of measurement the division is, the more often it will appear in various combinations of elements. The permanence and exactness of the result vary with the effort for obtaining it.
Qualifications of an Analyst. — To be most successful, an analyst should have ingenuity, patience, and that love of dividing a process into its component parts and studying each separate part that characterizes the analytic mind. ”

“ But the science of the Investigation of Truth by means of Evidence, is happily independent of many of the controversies which perplex the science of the ultimate constitution of the human mind, and is under no necessity of pushing the analysis of mental phenomena to that extreme limit which alone ought to satisfy a metaphysician. ”

“ Now by what tests does the psychologist decide whether the state of mind he is studying is a bit of knowledge, or only a subjective fact not referring to anything outside itself? He uses the tests we all practically use. If the state of mind resembles his own idea of a certain reality ”

“ We know by these, that if an analysis is good, there must be present in each instance of the phenomenon the causes assigned, one or more; and should one exist in a low degree, or be entirely wanting, the others must have a compensating intensity. ”

“ The facts being so, it is obvious that the psychoanalyst should discuss the principles rather than the results of his method, when he speaks in public; for he who does not acknowledge the scientific character of the method cannot acknowledge the scientific character of its results. ”

“ The conclusions which that yields, when the number of instances compared is small, are of no real value, except as, in the character of suggestions, they may lead either to experiments bringing them to the test of the Method of Difference, or to reasonings which may explain and verify them deductively. ”

“ Discursive observation and experiment are the sources of facts or particular truths. Nature, poetically says Dr. Reid, is put to the question by a thousand observations and experiments, and forced to confess her secrets. ”