Comparative method

“ The comparative method is unquestionably the more attractive and stimulating, but it cannot be adopted without a good deal of more or less conscious theorising, since every comparison implicitly involves a theory. ”

“ Now, to get not only at the truth, but at the whole of the truth, is precisely the business of the applied science of religion, and is the very object of that which, in order to distinguish it from the comparative method of science, I have called the method of comparison. For the purposes of fair comparison not only must the resemblances, which the {22} comparative method of science dwells on, be taken into account, but the differences, also, must be weighed. ”

“ Then we must remember that these external and internal evolutions of social life, take place often unconsciously, making comparisons and distinctions without reflecting on their nature or limits; we must remember that it is the business of reflective comparison, of the comparative method, to retrace this development consciously, and to seek the causes which have produced it. ”

“ The comparative method, if only it be begun and carried on aright—if the different objects of the genetic and the analogic comparison be kept steadily in view, and their results not confounded with one another—need not be restricted in its application, until, starting from any centre, it shall have comprehended the whole circle of human speech. ”

“ Every few years great discoveries are made; the use of the comparative method, long ago applied superficially and partially to History, has now become, owing to its employment in other fields of work, far more valuable and remunerative ”

“ For us who deal, not with the various forms of animal life, but with the various products of human intelligence, the legitimacy of the Comparative Method rests on the well-ascertained similarity of the working of the human mind in all races of men. ”

“ The mass of data that has not been seen, or very imperfectly seen, that has been misunderstood, or incorrectly recorded, the many pitfalls of omission and commission cause one at times to wonder at the temerity of those who feel confidence in what is termed the comparative method. ”

“ Closer inspection of our materials, the employment of the comparative method, occasionally the bringing to light of new authorities—all contribute to an increase of real knowledge, and historical studies in this respect do not differ from other branches of research. ”

“ With a formally correct method results may be obtained which are meaningless and unimportant, or mere mental tricks may be performed. To set up an arbitrary standard of comparison, to compare, and deduce, and to end by establishing a series of divergencies from this standard ”

“ The object of classification is clear. We understand things if we can comprehend them; that is to say, if we can grasp and hold together single facts, connect isolated impressions, distinguish between what is essential and what is merely accidental, and thus predicate the general of the individual, and class the individual under the general. This is the secret of all scientific knowledge. Many sciences, while passing through this second or classificatory stage, assume the title of comparative. ”

“ To determine that system of temperaments for the concords of the changeable scale, which will render it, including every consideration, the most harmonious possible.
We can scarcely expect to find any direct analytical process, which will furnish us with a solution of this complicated problem, at a single operation. We shall therefore content ourselves with a method which gradually approximates towards the desired results. The best position of any given degree, as C, supposing all the rest fixed, is determined by the last proposition. ”

“ The connections of historical facts with all the sciences, afford another useful theme; that may vastly increase our comparative knowledge: much of it has arisen, besides observation, from accurate comparison, analysis and generalization, which combine to give results, enlarging the field and sphere of human knowledge, in all its branches. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But this general method of comparison is subdivided into three or four sub-methods. Nature has prepared not only one but three or four series, not identical, not mere duplicates of each other, but varied, yet resembling and illustrating each other. ”

“ In order to apply to the case the most perfect of the methods of experimental inquiry, the Method of Difference, we require to find two instances, which tally in every particular except the one which is the subject of inquiry. If two nations can be found which are alike in all natural advantages and disadvantages; whose people resemble each other in every quality, physical and moral, spontaneous and acquired ”

“ If they are, as I have defined them, groups in Nature founded upon a greater or less complication of structure, they must of course form a regular gradation within the limits of their class, since comparative perfection implies comparative rank, and a correct estimate of these degrees of complication requires an intimate and extensive knowledge of structure throughout the class. ”

“ Now, in whatever science there are systematic differences of opinion—which is as much as to say, in all the moral or mental sciences, and in Political Economy among the rest; in whatever science there exist, among those who have attended to the subject, what are commonly called differences of principle, as distinguished from differences of matter-of-fact or detail,—the cause will be found to be, a difference in their conceptions of the philosophic method of the science. ”

“ In the first place, the reader should fix in his mind the nature of these distribution areas. Our analyses show that each is a more or less illy-defined area in which there are many trait differences, but that these show a gradation outward from a center, or nucleus. While, by comparative study, one arrives at the generalization of a type for the various social groups making up such a center, the result is, nevertheless, strongly grounded in empirical methods, and is not the work or interpretation of a single individual. ”

“ REGULAR COMPARISON OF ADJECTIVES
300. The quality denoted by an adjective may exist in either a higher or a lower degree, and this is expressed by a form of inflection called comparison. The mere presence of the quality is expressed by the positive degree, its presence in a higher or lower degree by the comparative, and in the highest or lowest of all by the superlative. ”

“ Concentration evidently involves a solution of the question as to the relative value of studies. All the light that the discussion of relative values can furnish will be needed in selecting the different lines of appropriate study and in properly adjusting them to one another. ”

“ There will be no royal road to the discovery of the best system,690 and it will even be impossible to lay down rules of procedure to assist those who are in search of a good arrangement. The only logical rule would be as follows:—Having given certain objects, group them in every way in which they can be grouped, and then observe in which method of grouping the correlation of properties is most conspicuously manifested. ”

“ Obviously the facts comparative morphology sets forth, form a whole which, though it cannot be treated in general or in detail without taking into account facts belonging to comparative physiology, is essentially independent. ”

“ The regressive search of analysis for a determining principle is Invention; the forward progress of synthesis from the simple elements seeking for the multiplicity of the single one is Construction. Each, in its result, passes over into the other; but their truth is found in the dialectic method, which in each The Logical Presupposition or Method.51 phase allows unity to separate into diversity and diversity to return into unity. ”

“ Nothing but a grave inability to estimate values, based on a pseudo-scientific dogma, can explain the lack of any just standard of comparative values that was the essential quality in pre-war society. ”

“ They say it begins with general and abstract notions and puts off the interesting details to the later years, while any correct method with children will take the interesting particulars first, will collect abundant concrete materials, and by a gradual process of comparison and induction reach the general principles and concepts at the close. It inevitably leads to a dull and mechanical repetition instead of cultivating an interesting comparison of new and old and a thoughtful retrospect. ”

“ LESSON 128. CONSTRUCTION OF COMPARATIVES AND SUPERLATIVES. +Caution+.—In stating a comparison avoid comparing a thing with itself. [Footnote: A thing may, of course, be compared with itself as existing under different conditions; as, The star is brighter to-night; The grass is greener to-day.]
+Remark+.—The comparative degree refers to two things (or sets of things) as distinct from each other, and implies that one has more of the quality than the other. The comparative degree is generally followed by than. ”

“ And hence it is that the Method of Agreement, though applicable in principle to either case, is more emphatically the method of investigation on those subjects where artificial experimentation is impossible; because on those it is, generally, our only resource [pg 283] of a directly inductive nature; while, in the phenomena which we can produce at pleasure, the Method of Difference generally affords a more efficacious process, which will ascertain causes as well as mere laws. ”

“ The second principle I shall take notice of is that of comparison, or the variation of our judgments concerning objects, according to the proportion they bear to those with which we compare them. We judge more of objects by comparison than by their intrinsic worth and value; and regard every thing as mean, when set in opposition to what is superior of the same kind. ”

“ Empirical psychology has established the fact that we can know a quality only by means of its contrast with or similarity to another. By contrast and agreement a thing is referred to a correlate, if this term may be used in a wider sense than usual. The occasion of the introduction of the conception of reference to a ground is the reference to a correlate, and this is, therefore, the next conception in order. ”

“ Such matters as knowledge of the past, of current technique, of materials, of the ways in which one's own best results are assured, supply the material for what may be called general method. There exists a cumulative body of fairly stable methods for reaching results, a body authorized by past experience and by intellectual analysis, which an individual ignores at his peril. ”

“ This mode of correcting one generalization by means of another, a narrower generalization by a wider, which common sense suggests and adopts in practice, is the real type of scientific Induction. All that art can do is but to give accuracy and precision to this process, and adapt it to all varieties of cases, without any essential alteration in its principle. ”

“ They remind us that, for the mere purpose of comparison, the average man of any group or class is a much better object for selection than the eminent one. There may be greater difficulties in the way of detecting him, but when we have done so we have got possession of a securer and more stable basis of comparison. ”

“ Don't use the superlative degree of the adjective for the comparative; as "He is the richest of the two" for "He is the richer of the two." Other mistakes often made in this connection are (1) Using the double comparative and superlative; as, "These apples are much more preferable." "The most universal motive to business is gain." (2) Comparing objects which belong to dissimilar classes; as "There is no nicer life than a teacher." (3) Including objects in class to which they do not belong; as, "The fairest of her daughters, Eve." (4) Excluding an object from a class to which it does belong ”

“ This discovery is made by means of comparison and classification. We cease to study each flower for its own sake; and by continually enlarging the sphere of our observation, we try to discover what is common to many and offers those essential points on which groups or natural classes may be established. These classes again, in their more general features, are mutually compared; new points of difference, or of similarity of a more general and higher character, spring to view, and enable us to discover classes of classes, or families. ”

“ The second element in the technique necessary in reasoning is the use of either the inductive or the deductive method in the process. Induction requires--a problem, search for facts with which to solve it, comparison and analysis of those facts, abstraction of the essential likenesses, and conclusion. Deduction requires--a problem, the analysis of the situation and abstraction of its essential elements, search for generals under which to classify it, comparison of it with each general found, and conclusion. ”

“ The empirical method inevitably magnifies the influences of the past; the experimental method throws into relief the possibilities of the future. The empirical method says, "Wait till there is a sufficient number of cases;" ”

“ Correlation is either a rational or an empirical principle, according as we know or do not know the interdependence of function of which it is the expression. Even when we apply the rational principle of correlation it would be useless in our hands if we had not extensive empirical knowledge; when we use an empirical rule of correlation we depend entirely upon observation. ”

“ Still more clearly will this be seen on recognising the fact that there is a certain parallelism between reasoning and classification; that the two have a common root; and that neither can go on without the other. For on the one hand, it is a familiar truth that the attributing to a body in consequence of some of its properties, all those other properties in virtue of which it is referred to a particular class, is an act of inference. And, on the other hand, the forming of a generalisation is the putting together in one class all those cases which present like relations ”