Discovery

“ His pupil writes in the same spirit and to the same end:—"A discovery, by means of reflection and mental experiment, of the limits of knowledge, is the highest and most universally applicable discovery of all; it is the one through which our intellectual life most strikingly blends with the moral and practical part of human nature. ”

“ The pleasure of future discovery is, as it were, a constant light, that shines upon him and warms him; and, in the very moments in which he watches, and calculates, and arranges, there are other principles of his nature, in as lively exercise as his powers of observation and reasoning. ”

“ Our experience in this life has taught us that, in the investigation of the phenomena of nature that are open to our observation here, we have never reached the end of possible discovery; that every fresh discovery has evinced that there are still new things to be learned, new manifestations of power to be revealed, new products and new methods to be seen. ”

“ I meditate and inquire into the mystery of the universe unceasingly; 155 but in the background of my inquiry, from time to time a solution appears, a discovery which urges my exploring mind onward. Mystery itself is not mystery unless it be known as such, and then it becomes knowledge. Inquiry is therefore at once a research and a discovery. ”

“ When I, a pioneer in one department of this beautiful science, discover the truths of Revelation and the truths of science reflecting light the one upon the other, how can I, as a truth loving, knowledge seeking man, fail to point out the beauty and rejoice in its discovery? ”

“ Experiment and observation instruct us in the discovery of a fact;—that fact connects itself with natural phenomena,—the ultimate cause of which we learn from Divine revelation, and receive in full belief,—but the proximate causes are reserved as trials of man’s intelligence; and every natural truth, discovered by induction, enables the contemplative mind to deduce those perfect laws which are exemplifications of the fresh-springing and all enduring Poetry of Science. ”

“ Nature had been interrogated repeatedly with an invariably negative result; her secret, if she possessed one, seemed to be impenetrable and destined to remain for ever unknown. No discovery in science had opened up the vista of a path which led through inexhaustible fields of knowledge. ”

“ On the other hand the tentative, hesitating, ambiguous hypotheses of Physical Science, transforming themselves afresh with every new discovery, seem, when the portentous mystery of Life's real secret confronts us, to be equally remote and elusive. ”

“ A new principle of research was everywhere acknowledged, a new method was created, and science, natural and historical, entered upon that astonishing career of discovery whose rich promise for the future we have but begun to anticipate. ”

“ When this wholly spontaneous character of discovery is not recognized, and when it is thought that the observation of facts naturally produces their explanation, it must needs be granted that a discovery is confirmed by the very fact that it is made. ”

“ Then we have made a discovery of peculiar value here; a discovery which greatly extends our knowledge of this creature in place of diminishing it; a discovery which will add lustre to the achievements of this expedition and win for us the commendations of scholars everywhere. ”

“ I know of no department of human knowledge, no sphere of human inquiry, no race of men, no region of the earth, where there has been retrogression. On the whole, the age has been alike fruitful in discovery, and in the practical, beneficial results of discovery. ”

“ We may work simply for the love of discovery, that is the exercise of the investigative instinct and the pleasure of overcoming difficulties; or we may work with the beneficent idea of increasing the sum of human knowledge, or of unravelling the string which forms the clue to the history of human progress, or of making such generalisations as may constitute the laws of a new historic science. ”

“ A Discovery is, as the very word implies, a change from ignorance to knowledge, and thus to either love or hate, in the personages marked for good or evil fortune. The finest form of Discovery is one attended by Peripeties, like that which goes with the Discovery in _Oedipus_. ”

“ Physiological Discoverers.
dr. jenner.
When we are young, we please ourselves with imagining the delights of discovery in natural science. We paint to ourselves scenes in which the Discoverer figures,—either lighting upon a new planet among the ordinary stars, or finding a fossil which suddenly opens up to him some wild glimpse into the ancient world; or, on seeing an apple fall from a tree, perceiving why the solar system, and the whole of the boundless heavens, are what they are. ”

“ We find that now, as in the days of the earliest physical speculations, all physical researches appear to converge toward the same point, and every inquirer, as he looks forward into the dim region toward which the path of discovery is leading him, sees, each according to his sight, the vision of the same quest. ”

“ These therefore took another and the right Method to come at the Knowledge of Nature, by entring into her secret Operations, and finding out the Coherence of Causes and Effects, and making one Discovery confess another, while by the Aids of Chymistry, and innumerable Experiments, they endeavoured to learn the Properties and Energy of Things. ”

“ The discovery of laws of nature, truly and satisfactorily connecting and explaining phenomena, of which, before, the connexion and causes had been unknown, displays much of a similar process, of obscurity succeeded by evidence, of effort and perplexity followed by conviction and repose. ”

“ But such ephemeral discoveries are simply indicative of an unhappily general tendency among modern scientists—that of hastening to announce discoveries, and to attach one's name to something new, before the supposed discovery has been submitted to the test of searching experiment. ”

“ My success in your cause must be attributed to my having followed the path of experiment and induction discovered by philosophers who have preceded me: willingly would I divide your plaudits with other men of science, and claim much for the general glory of scientific discovery in a long course of ages. ”

“ There will be found no doubt, when my history and tables of discovery are read, some things in the experiments themselves that are not quite certain, or perhaps that are quite false; which may make a man think that the foundations and principles upon which my discoveries rest are false and doubtful. ”

“ The discovery of a new theory, which is true, is a step widely distinct from any mere development of the consequences of a theory already invented and established.
7. In the other sciences also, which have been framed by a study of natural phenomena, we may find examples of the explanation of new phenomena by applying the principles of the science when once established. ”

“ In the history of science it has happened often enough that some discovery, at the same time that it was apperceived, i.e. brought into connection with the system of our knowledge, transformed the whole system. ”

“ To show what has been the result in the enlargement of the fields of human knowledge through the discovery of new means of sensuous perception, or of new organs, or instruments by means of which we are brought into closer touch with terrestrial and celestial objects. ”

“ Conceptions, for purposes of science, must be appropriate as well as clear: that is, they must be modifications of that Fundamental Idea, by which the phenomena can really be interpreted. This maxim may warn us from errour, though it may not lead to discovery. Discovery depends upon the previous cultivation or natural clearness of the appropriate Idea, and therefore no discovery is the work of accident. ”

“ Scientific discovery, whether as regards the solar system, the dynamic forces, chemical affinities, or the properties of the world’s flora, the habits of its fauna and the uses to which all these may be put, is—next to the development of theological truth, of which in a certain sense, as will one day be proved, it is the correlative—the highest gift of God. ”

“ To inquire into what God has made is the main function of the imagination. It is aroused by facts, is nourished by facts; seeks for higher and yet higher laws in those facts; but refuses to regard science as the sole interpreter of nature, or the laws of science as the only region of discovery. ”

“ The importance we accord the physiological accompaniments of mental process is partly accounted for by the significance which attaches to more recent knowledge as constituting scientific progress; in the effort to bring together in our [Pg 358] conception the two elements of consciousness and brain-action, to whose association we are not accustomed by immediate perception, we are led to lay especial weight upon the facts of recent discovery, which are connected with so great advance in science and have done away with so many superstitions. ”

“ We, who have gradually elaborated and established through generations of increasing discovery and invention a habit of regarding everything from a more or less scientific standpoint, have acquired a series of presuppositions of an entirely different character. ”

“ Under these two formulæ may be classified all the phenomena which properly belong to this period. The discovery of the world divides itself into two branches—the exploration of the globe, and the systematic exploration of the universe which is in fact what we call Science. ”

“ Now there do exist among us doctrines of solid and acknowledged certainty, and truths of which the discovery has been received with universal applause. These constitute what we commonly term Sciences; and of these bodies of exact and enduring knowledge, we have within our 4 reach so large and varied a collection, that we may examine them, and the history of their formation, with a good prospect of deriving from the study such instruction as we seek. ”

“ In this, as in other considerable advances in real science, the complete disclosure of the new truths by the principal discoverer, was preceded by movements and glimpses, by trials, seekings, and guesses on the part of others; by indications, in short, that men’s minds were already carried by their intellectual impulses in the direction in which the truth lay, and were beginning to detect its nature. In a case so important and interesting as this, it is more peculiarly proper to give some view of this Prelude to the Epoch of the full discovery. ”

“ But supposing the Facts to be adequately observed, they can never be combined into any new Truth, except by means of some new Conceptions, clear and appropriate, such as I have endeavoured to characterize. When the observer’s mind is prepared with such instruments, a very few facts, or it may be a single one, may bring the process of discovery into action. ”

“ In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others, of which we could have no idea before; ”

“ For an Art of Discovery is not possible. At each step of the investigation are needed Invention, Sagacity, Genius,—elements which no art can give. We may hope in vain, as Bacon hoped, for an Organ which shall enable all men to construct Scientific Truths, as a pair of compasses enables all men to construct exact circles2. This cannot be. The practical results of the Philosophy of Science must be rather classification and analysis of what has been done, than precept and method for future doing. ”

“ I know of nothing so pleasant to the mind, as the discovery of anything which is at once new and valuable -- nothing which so lightens and sweetens toil, as the hopeful pursuit of such discovery. ”

“ We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck; ”

“ And a countless number of investigators are persistently and confidently enlarging, amplifying, correcting, and pushing farther and farther back the boundaries of this greater past—this prehuman past—that the scientific criticism of existing phenomena has discovered and restored and brought for the first time into the world of human thought. We have become possessed of a new and once unsuspected history of the world—of which all the history that was known, for example, to Dr. ”

“ At the time I sent my letter to Captain Ross, I did not know the English discoverer's name; but whether the English discovery was so marked or not, is of but little consequence, for Captain Ross knew of Bellamy's discovery before he left England, and therefore must have seen at once the longitude and latitude of that on the tracing were almost identically the same with those of Bellamy's; and I am satisfied that the only erroneous conclusion Captain Ross could have been led into by it, was, that I had verified Bellamy's discovery. ”

“ It was a memorable day in the annals of discovery, 30th June 1587, when Davis reached this famous point on the coast of Greenland. "A bright blue sea extended to the horizon on the north and west, obstructed by no ice, but here and there a few majestic icebergs with peaks snowy shooting up into the sky." To the eastward were the granite mountains of Greenland, and beyond them the white line of the mightiest glacier in the world. Rising immediately above the tiny vessel was the beetling wall of Hope Sanderson, with its summit eight hundred and fifty feet above sea-level. ”

“ But insensibly we are in the day. If we care to look, we can foresee growing knowledge, growing order, and presently a deliberate improvement of the blood and character of the race. And what we can see and imagine [60] gives us a measure and gives us faith for what surpasses the imagination. ”