Exact science

“ By scientific thought we mean the application of past experience to new circumstances, by means of an observed order of events. By saying that this order of events is exact, we mean that it is exact enough to correct experiments by, but we do not mean that it is theoretically or absolutely exact, because we do not know. The process of inference we found to be in itself an assumption of uniformity, and that, as the known exactness of the uniformity became greater, the stringency of the inference increased. ”

“ INTRODUCTION. IN order to the acquisition of any such exact and real knowledge of nature as that which we properly call Physical Science, it is requisite, as has already been said, that men should possess Ideas both distinct and appropriate, and should apply them to ascertained Facts. ”

“ What we know as science began when man commenced to compare one fact with another, to classify phenomena, and to arrange his knowledge systematically. Order, method, system, are basic principles of science. The best description would, therefore, appear to be systematized knowledge of any kind which had been gained and verified by exact observation and correct thinking. The whole field of human knowledge is now methodically formulated and arranged into rational systems. Modern science may, therefore, be said to embrace all our exact knowledge. ”

“ The legitimate aim of all systematic, exact experiments is to lay a foundation of well-ascertained and closely related facts on which may be developed a superstructure of science to supersede the theoretical speculations which form an important part of the prelude of scientific discovery. ”

“ Science: the Knowledge of the Laws of Nature obtained by Observation, Experiment, and Reasoning. No line can be drawn between common knowledge of things and scientific knowledge; nor between common reasoning and scientific reasoning. In strictness all accurate knowledge is Science; and all exact reasoning is scientific reasoning. The method of observation and experiment by which such great results are obtained in science, is identically the same as that which is employed by every one, every day of his life, but refined and rendered precise. ”

“ There requires, first, the discipline yielded by Physics and Chemistry, to make definite the ideas of forces and actions as necessarily related in their kinds and amounts; and then the study of organic phenomena may be carried on with a clear consciousness that while the processes of causation are so involved as often to be inexplicable, yet there is causation, no less necessary and no less exact than causation of simpler kinds. ”

“ In any special natural science, a scientific description appears as an adjustment, express, conscious, exact, of the internal structure of a system of ideas to the external structure of a world of preexistent facts; and the business of science has been repeatedly defined, of late years, as simply and wholly taken up with the exact description of the facts of nature. ”

“ Aims at a critical comparison of scientific methods of thought, with special reference to the relations between biology and the " exact sciences " of chemistry and physics.
"Interesting and valuable . . . original and striking . . . should be read and studied by all thinking men and women." — Education. ”

“ We sometimes classify sciences as exact and inexact, in accordance with our ability exactly to weigh forces and results. The exact sciences deal with simple data accessible and capable of measurement. ”

“ Biology, which not long ago was purely descriptive and speculative, has begun to adopt the methods of the exact sciences, recognizing that for permanent progress not only experiments are required but quantitative experiments. ”

“ It has been rendered possible only by the wonderful advance in the understanding of the adaptation of the living to the lifeless forces of the planet. Finally, it is obvious in such a projection of the physical from the purely biological that the degree of accuracy reached will represent the present state of the science and the extent of its approach toward the final goal of being an exact or complete science. ”

“ but, from the dawn of exact knowledge to the present day, observation, experiment, and speculation have gone hand in hand; and, whenever science has halted or strayed from the right path, it has been, either because its votaries have been content with mere unverified or unverifiable speculation (and this is the commonest case, because observation and experiment are hard work, while speculation is amusing) ; or it has been, because the accumulation of details of observation has for a time excluded speculation. ”

“ When we are engaged in investigating the foundations of a science, we must set up a system of axioms which contains an exact and complete description of the relations subsisting between the elementary ideas of that science. The axioms so set up are at the same time the definitions of those elementary ideas; and no statement within the realm of the science whose foundation we are testing is held to be correct unless it can be derived from those axioms by means of a finite number of logical steps. Upon closer consideration the question arises: ”

“ The processes by which truth is attained, reasoning and observation, have been carried to their greatest known perfection in the physical sciences. As classical literature furnishes the most perfect types of the art of expression, so do the physical sciences those of the art of thinking. Mathematics, and its application to astronomy and natural philosophy, are the most complete example of the discovery of truths by reasoning; experimental science, of their discovery by direct observation. ”

“ After this preliminary statement of the results of experimental investigation, we said, "Therefore, it is now regarded as a fundamental truth of physical science, and a fundamental law of Nature, that force, like matter, is never created or destroyed." The proposition is stated as an inference, as an induction from observations, as a result of experimental inquiry into the physical processes of Nature, and as a pure principle of science. ”

“ The same distinction could very easily be shown to be the foundation of every other science. All the physical sciences have this in common, that they are researches into what is real as distinguished from what is apparent, that is, from what lies exposed and obvious on the very surface of things. ”

“ It is a general truth that the physical sciences of light and heat are based upon mechanical conditions of the particles of matter; that the science of chemistry is founded upon physics; that biological phenomena are dependent upon physical and chemical conditions; that psychological subjects are based upon biology; and that biological science cannot progress excepting in proportion to the advance of the sciences on which it is based. ”

“ There is, if we will but reflect and understand that the course of procedure proper to the physical sciences, namely, the assumption that their, objects and the facts appertaining to these objects lie before them ready-made—is utterly inadmissible in true philosophy—is totally at variance with the scope and spirit of a science which professes to deal fairly with the phenomena of man. ”

“ The way to science then lies through common knowledge; we must extend that knowledge by careful observation and experiment, and learn how to state the results of our investigations accurately, in general rules or laws of nature; finally, we must learn how to reason accurately from these rules, and thus arrive at rational explanations of natural phenomena, which may suffice for our guidance in life. ”

“ The definitions which those works furnish of the sciences, for the most part either do not fit them—some being too wide, some too narrow—or do not go deep enough into them, but define a science by its accidents, not its essentials; by some one of its properties which may, indeed, serve the purpose of a distinguishing mark, but which is of too little importance to have ever of itself led mankind to give the science a name and rank as a separate object of study. ”

“ On this point even physicists agree. "Instead of regarding the proper object of physical science as a search after essential causes," says one of the best modern champions of scientific progress, "it ought to be, and must be, a search after facts and relations." [90] Hence, physical science deals with natural facts and their relations exclusively; the search after causes and essential principles constitutes the object of a higher science; and such a science is real philosophy, or metaphysics proper. ”

“ The advance of scientific knowledge—the astonishing discovery of the atom and the cell, and of the unsubstantially or unmateriality, so to speak, of matter itself, and of the elusiveness of energy and life, as indicated by the newer theories of the nature of the ether, and the acceptance of thought-transference as a physical or psychological fact—these and other remarkable scientific discoveries which are leading science to what is seemingly the borderline of a world beyond the cognizance of the bodily senses, have powerfully affected the rationalism and idealism of the present day. ”

“ One of the urgent needs of modern physical science is a thorough investigation of the nature, methods, and aids of scientific cognition, and thus of the nature of its real limits, chiefly in the light of the teachings of comparative philology and comparative psychology. ”

“ It may be a task, not hopeless, to extract from the past progress of science the elements of an effectual and substantial method of Scientific Discovery. The advances which have, during the last three centuries, been made in the physical sciences;—in Astronomy, in Physics, in Chemistry, in Natural History, in Physiology;—these are allowed by all to be real, to be great, to be striking ”

“ To have reached, in the study of observed phenomena, the point of perception indicated in this motto, and to feel the full force of the remark, is to have imbibed the spirit of science—-whose traits are dear distinctions, accurate classification, and strict reference to primitive data. The bases of all science are methodical facts. The first step to the perfection and enlargement of a science is the resolution of its propositions into axioms, and into propositions which are to be proved. ”

“ I am not a practical chemist seeking the mysteries of nature in the laboratory, nor a professional scientist exploring the fields of original research; but, like La Place, Comte, Herbert Spencer and others, I formulate my theories and scientific hypotheses from the latest and best established facts of science as I see it. ”

“ When physical science is said to depend on the assumption that the course of nature is invariable, all that is meant is that the conclusions of physical science are not known as absolute truths: the truth of them is conditional on the uniformity of the course of nature; and all that the most conclusive observations and experiments can prove, is that the result arrived at will be true if, and as long as, the present laws of nature are valid. But this is all the assurance we require for the guidance of our conduct. ”

“ Can the biologist undertake to interpret life with purely mechanical principles; can he reconcile the purposiveness of organisms with the mechanical theory of causation? Will the psychologist, who deals with states of mind or consciousness, be able to account for the existence of these from the physicist's principles, atoms and motion? A science is needed that will consciously and methodically aim to bring order into this chaos, that will consider all the facts, and, if possible, unify these facts. ”

“ This scientific conception of causation has been developed and rendered definite by the investigations of those physical sciences that can avail themselves of exact experiments and mathematical calculation; and it is there, in Chemistry and Physics, that it is most at home. The conception can indeed be carried into the Biological and Social Sciences, even in its quantitative form, by making the proper allowances. For the limbs of animals are levers, and act upon mechanical principles ”

“ I have been compelled to use the words ‘science’ and ‘scientific’ because these terms have become firmly adherent to a group of subjects such as Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Botany, etc., and cannot now be detached from them. Unfortunately ‘scientific’ is used in another sense as implying accuracy of experimental method and in deduction from results. So that in calling ourselves scientific men we run the risk of seeming to claim a monopoly of method, as though we pretended to be somehow superior to the trained workers in other branches. ”

“ Measure, weight, and proportion were applied to all celestial and terrestrial phenomena, and physics, chemistry, and all the organic sciences became the manifestation of facts, of observed and calculated laws, arranged in a natural order, and in this way an immense advance was made in all branches of science. ”

“ The various branches of physical science differ in the extent to which at any given moment of their history, observation on the one hand, or ratiocination on the other, is their more obvious feature, but in no other way, and nothing can be more incorrect than the assumption one sometimes meets with, that physics has one method, chemistry another, and biology a third. ”

“ For the conclusions stated in the present work, respecting knowledge and discovery, are drawn from a connected and systematic survey of the whole range of Physical Science and its History; whereas, hitherto, philosophers have contented themselves with adducing detached examples of scientific doctrines, drawn from one or two departments of science. ”