Experimental philosophy

“ It is known to all persons who are conversant in experimental philosophy, that there are many little attentions and precautions necessary to be observed in the conducting of experiments, which cannot well be described in words, but which it is needless to describe, since practice will necessarily suggest them; though, like all other arts in which the hands and fingers are made use of, it is only much practice that can enable a person to go through complex experiments, of this or any other kind, with ease and readiness. ”

“ Rule IV In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions collected by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.
This rule we must follow that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses. ”

“ The experimental method, constant to systematic obstinacy in erecting so many barriers between the different sections of natural philosophy, has greatly hindered the completeness of whatever knowledge we possess as the result of mutual interaction among all truths. ”

“ But hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phænomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phænomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But to say that physical experiment is either the test, or source, or guide of that other part of philosophy which relates to our internal perceptions, that we are to look in external nature for the form, the substance, the colour, the very life and being of whatever exists in our minds, or that we can only infer the laws which regulate the phenomena of the mind from those which regulate the phenomena of matter, is to confound two things entirely distinct. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Indeed the experiments of the man of science have become so refined and elaborate, and deal often with such subtle matter, and this in so minute quantities, that, as it has been said of the astronomer, that it requires a separate education, and takes half a life to learn to observe, so it may be truly said, that to devise and conduct new experiments in philosophy has become an art in itself. ”

“ In doing this, we shall learn that the life of the experimental philosopher is twofold. He lives, in his vocation, a life of the senses, using his hands, eyes, and ears in his experiments: but such a question as that now before us carries him beyond the margin of the senses. ”

“ The vocation of the true experimentalist is the incessant correction and realization of his insight; his experiments finally constituting a body, of which his purified intuitions are, as it were, the soul. ”

“ In the experimental sciences for inventing methods of research or of control—whence its analogy, above mentioned, to the practical imagination. Furthermore, the reciprocal influence of these two forms of imagination is a matter of common observation: a scientific discovery permits the invention of new instruments; the invention of new instruments makes possible experiments that are increasingly more complicated and delicate. ”

“ The practical procedure and practical assumptions of modern experimental science, since they make thinking essentially and not merely accidentally a process of discovery, seem irreconcilable with both the empirical and transcendental interpretations. ”

“ The problem of experimental science is the sequence of cause and effect in material phenomena. It is only necessary for experimental science to introduce the question of a final cause for it to become nonsensical. The problem of abstract science is the recognition of the primordial essence of life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In our very laboratory experiments we are demonstrating the great fact that thoughts are forces. They have form, and quality, and substance, and power, and we are beginning to find that there is what we may term a science of thought. We are beginning also to find that through the instrumentality of our thought forces we have creative power, not merely in a figurative sense, but creative power in reality.
Everything in the material universe about us, everything the universe has ever known, had its origin first in thought. ”

“ Experiments must be the foundation of theory. With them the beginner should learn to observe, reflect, and judge; from them he should himself unfold the general chemical relations and truths; he should himself discover, and in this way by his own efforts, along with manual dexterity, acquire an intellectual possession also. Every experiment and every fact observed therein will thus be to him a conquest, and will incite to new exertion. ”

“ The physical world is now to be regarded as a construction which does not assimilate to itself the content of sensations, but enables one to anticipate them. The sensation signifies a contact to which science can provide a key for practical guidance.
Experimentalism. § 118. This last phase of naturalism is an attempt to state a pure and consistent experimentalism, a workable theory of the routine of sensations. But it commonly falls into the error of the vicious circle. The hypothetical cause of sensations is said to be matter. ”

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

“ 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. ”

“ His universals, when applied to nature, are all hypothetical universals; hence the import of experiment as the test of an hypothesis. Experience does not rule out the possible cropping up of a new problem which may shift the values attained. Experience simply reveals that the new hypothesis fits into the meanings of the world which are not shaken; it shows that, with the reconstruction which the hypothesis offers, it is possible for scientific conduct to proceed. ”

“ And though we must endeavour to render all our principles as universal as possible, by tracing up our experiments to the utmost, and explaining all effects from the simplest and fewest causes, 'tis still certain we cannot go beyond experience; and any hypothesis that pretends to discover the ultimate original qualities of human nature, ought at first to be rejected as presumptuous and chimerical.... ”

“ We will, moreover, show those who, in love with contemplation, regard our frequent mention of experiments as something harsh, unworthy, and mechanical, how they oppose the attainment of their own wishes, since abstract contemplation, and the construction and invention of experiments, rest upon the same principles, and are brought to perfection in a similar manner. ”

“ For, though we do not deny that by transferring the experiments from one art to another (when all the experiments of each have been collected and arranged, and have been acquired by the knowledge, and subjected to the judgment of a single individual) , many new experiments may be discovered tending to benefit society and mankind, by what we term literate experience ”

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

“ But on the whole, though I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy, this first trial confirmed in me the taste for experimental research in the fields of physics and chemistry. ”

“ when we consider, that the experimental Reasoning itself, which we possess in common with Beasts, and on which the whole Conduct of Life depends, is nothing but a Species of Instinct or mechanical Power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves, and in its chief Operations; ”

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

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

“ Nature holds no brief for the human experiment: it must stand or fall by its results. ”

“ 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; ”

“ We must therefore glean up our experiments in this science from a cautious observation of human life, and take them as they appear in the common course of the world, by men's behaviour in company, in affairs, and in their pleasures. Where experiments of this kind are judiciously collected and compared, we may hope to establish on them a science which will not be inferior in certainty, and will be much superior in utility to any other of human comprehension. ”

“ The constant flux and caprice of mental events do not admit of the establishment of stable experimental conditions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Everybody allows that to know any other science you must have first studied it, and that you can only claim to express a judgment upon it in virtue of such knowledge. Everybody allows that to make a shoe you must have learned and practised the craft of the shoemaker, though every man has a model in his own foot, and possesses in his hands the natural endowments for the operations required. For philosophy alone, it seems to be imagined, such study, care, and application are not in the least requisite. ”

“ If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school-metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning for quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.’—‘Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding,’ at the end. ”

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

“ 'The Philosophy of Nature takes up the material, prepared for it by physics out of experience, at the point to which physics has brought it, and again transforms it, without basing it ultimately on the authority of experience. Physics therefore must work into the hands of philosophy, so that the latter may translate into a true comprehension (Begriff) the abstract universal transmitted to it, showing how it issues from that comprehension as an intrinsically necessary whole. ”

“ 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. ”