Experiment

“ In almost every department of physiology, an experiment, or a series of experiments, has proved a turning-point at which vague, nebulous fancies were exchanged for clear, decided knowledge, or a starting-point for the introduction of wholly new and startling ideas. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You may make many mistakes, but one experiment will correct the other; and while you are storing up in your own mind knowledge which lifts you far above this little world, or enables you to look deep below the outward surface of life, you may add your little group of facts to the general store, and help to pave the way to such grand discoveries as those of Newton in astronomy, Bunsen and Kirchhoff in spectrum analysis, and Darwin in the world of life. ”

“ The circumstances of the experiment are so arranged that the phenomenon which we wish to observe or to exhibit is brought into prominence, instead of being obscured and entangled among other phenomena, as it is when it occurs in the ordinary course of nature. To exhibit illustrative experiments, to encourage others to make them, and to cultivate in every way the ideas on which they throw light, forms an important part of our duty. ”

“ 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. If a child acquires a new toy, he observes its characters and experiments upon its properties; and we are all of us constantly making observations and experiments upon one thing or another. ”

“ There are only two modes in which laws of nature can be ascertained--deductively and experimentally; including under the denomination of experimental inquiry, observation as well as artificial experiment. Are the laws of the formation of character susceptible of a satisfactory investigation by the method of experimentation? ”

“ Such a logic will not fear the challenge of science, for it is precisely this continuity that makes possible experimentation, which is the fundamental characteristic of scientific procedure. Science without experiment is indeed a strange apparition. ”

“ The discoveries which change the method of a science from experimental to deductive, mostly consist in establishing, either by deduction or by direct experiment, that the varieties of a particular phenomenon uniformly accompany the varieties of some other phenomenon better known. ”

“ We bring the matter to the test of actual experiment. We make certain experiments, seriatim, upon each of the items that lie within the sentient sphere, and we note the effect which each experiment has upon that portion of the contents which is not meddled with. ”

“ To carry it into effect, there needs only an immediate appeal on a sufficiently large scale, to experiment; reason has done her part, when experiment does hers, nature will not refuse to sanction the whole. ”

“ Now in the matter of experiment for the proof of the thesis that changes in the habits of an animal cause the changes observed in their hair, it is at once seen that, ex hypothesi, no one can impose and work with such calculated conditions as are ordained by experiment, strictly so-called. ”

“ We see then that there are two excellent reasons for conceiving the notion of experiment so broadly. In the first place it becomes possible thereby to comprehend under one head the infinite complications and gradations which are possible in the consciousness of the experimenter, from the most random restlessness and the most blindly instinctive adaptations, to the most clearly conscious testing of an elaborate theory; in the second, it serves to bring out the radically tentative tendency which runs through the whole cosmos. ”

“ It must next be admitted that when it is said that the world is constructed by experiment, the conception of experiment is taken very widely and in a way that extends far beyond the conscious experiment of the scientist who is fully aware of what he does and what he wants, and precisely controls all the conditions. ”

“ In one of his later experimental researches he wrote:—
As an experimentalist, I feel bound to let experiment guide me into any train of thought which it may justify; being satisfied that experiment, like analysis, must lead to strict truth if rightly interpreted; and believing also that it is in its nature far more suggestive of new trains of thought and new conditions of natural power. ”

“ We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation. ”

“ When we have thus brought together the requisites, both material and intellectual, for a particular experiment, it may sometimes be desirable that before the instruments are dismounted and the observers dispersed, we should make some other experiment, requiring the same method, but dealing perhaps with an entirely different class of physical phenomena. ”

“ EXPERIMENT. We may now consider the great advantages which we enjoy in examining the combinations of phenomena when things are within our reach and capable of being experimented on. We are said to experiment when we bring substances together under various conditions of temperature, pressure, electric disturbance, chemical action, &c., and then record the changes observed. Our object in inductive investigation is to ascertain exactly the group of circumstances or conditions which being present, a certain other group of phenomena will follow. ”

“ Admitting that in certain cases a single experiment in the laboratory is insufficient to reproduce the phenomenon, yet a series of experiments, each of which would be performed to make clear the action of one of the components of the problem, would represent it in its entirety. ”

“ The first experiment strongly illustrates a truth of the theory, well confirmed by practice: whatever can happen will happen if we make trials enough. ”

“ Like observation, experimentation has been wonderfully improved of late years. The experimental sciences which make most use of it—experimental physics, chemistry, physiology, pathology, etc.—have made astounding progress. But it is just as important in the case of experiment—or observation under artificial conditions—as of simple observation that it be undertaken and carried out with a sound and clear judgment. Nature can only give a correct and unambiguous answer to the question you put it when it is clearly and distinctly proposed. ”

“ It is true that an experiment, in which the principal aim is to see what happens under certain conditions, may be regarded as an experiment of research by those who are not yet familiar with the result, but in experimental researches, strictly so called, the ultimate object is to measure something which we have already seen—to obtain a numerical estimate of some magnitude. ”

“ An experiment belongs under what we called "general psychology", and a test under "differential psychology", since the first outcome of a test is to show how the individual differs from others in a certain respect. ”

“ And, although in the study of political economy we can not use that potent method of experiment by artificially produced conditions which is so valuable in the physical sciences, yet, not only may we find, in the diversity of human society, experiments already worked out for us, but there is at our command a method analogous to that of the chemist, in what may be called mental experiment. ”

“ We look, therefore, anxiously toward the pathological investigations of the time, and we deeply deplore the well-meaning but misguided zeal which is at present placing such grave obstacles in the way of the only means by which true science can advance—namely, direct experiment. ”

“ A reaction had set in, led by Galileo, Gilbert, and the whole modern school of experimental philosophers, lasting down to the present day:—men who teach that the only right way of investigating Nature is by experiment and observation. ”

“ To make an experiment fruitful, it is necessary to eliminate all the irrelevant elements which intrude into the concrete cases spontaneously offered by nature, and, for example, to obtain two cases differing only in one element, to which we may therefore plausibly attribute other contrasts. ”

“ A very simple experiment, that succeeds in many cases even with unpractised persons, will serve to illustrate this. The experimenter thinks, say, of the number four, and then waits, his hands quietly resting on the table, until he feels that the table makes the first inclination to announce the number thought of. ”

“ We make an experiment of the crucial kind when we form combinations, and put in action causes from which some particular one shall be deliberately excluded, and some other purposely admitted; and by the agreement or disagreement of the resulting phenomena with those of the class under examination, we decide our judgment. ”

“ Experiment is the observation of that which happens when we intentionally bring natural objects together, or separate them, or in any way change the conditions under which they are placed. Scientific experiment, therefore, is scientific observation performed under accurately known artificial conditions. ”

“ In their numerous writings on mechanics, hydrostatics, optics, it is interesting to remark that the solution of a problem is always obtained by performing an experiment, or by an instrumental observation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment. ”

“ You are prepared to establish that as a principle which you approve?—I think that with regard to an experimenter, a man who conducts special research, and performs an experiment, he has no time, so to speak, for thinking what will the animal feel or suffer. ”

“ As the true method of Knowledge is Experiment, the true faculty of knowing must be the faculty which experiences. ”

“ Those who have handled sciences have been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are [p. 93] like the ant; they only collect and use: the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a middle course; it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy; ”

“ In the earlier stage of physical research, all observation and experiment lead forward to general results, which gain ready acceptance because they may be said to be involved in scientific procedure itself. ”

“ His contribution to the development of science was abstracting the method of experiment from the concrete problem to see its bearing and importance as a universal method of research. He advocated changing education to include studies of the natural world using observation, exact measurement, and experiments. ”

“ Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist, and the laborious collator some unlucky moment frolicks in conjecture. ”

“ We give the name scientist to the type of man who has felt experiment to be a means guiding him to search out the deep truth of life, to lift a veil from its fascinating secrets, and who, in this pursuit, has felt arising within him a love for the mysteries of nature, so passionate as to annihilate the thought of himself. ”

“ These experiments and these reports are often made by strong and earnest men; indeed, the abler the experimenter in the present state of the subject, the worse his experiments and his reports of these experiments: instead of arriving at the truth of many questions of physiology, we get farther and farther from it the more we study them. ”

“ The Rôle of Experiment and Generalisation.—Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new; ”

“ Not until the laws of physics, chemistry, anatomy, and physiology, were determined by a long course of patient and assiduous observation and experiment, pursued with no reference to any thing but the simple establishment of the truth, did the various arts become settled in their practice, so that they could be pursued with efficiency, economy, and success. ”

“ It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy, that a just theory will always be confirmed by experiment. ”