Experimentation

“ In considering the subject of experimentation, reason requires that we realize the necessary distinction between the methods employed in training students for a practical profession, and the exceptional position of the few geniuses who possess the rare combination of qualities essential to scientific investigation. ”

“ Experiment after experiment gave the same result, and I knew, and shrank even as the thought passed through my mind, that in the work I had to do there must be elements which no laboratory could furnish, which no scales could ever measure. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Great deficiencies remain to be supplied, and many vaguely-known points to be cleared up, nor has an effort even been made as yet to systematize all the groups of results gained. The latter task we propose to attempt here, with the purpose of showing by a remarkable instance the manner of evolving knowledge through the power of the experimental method, the sequent, cumulative, and mutually-supporting character of well-conducted experiments, and their endless wealth of instruction; in a word, the process adopted by eminent men in the great art of wresting her secrets from living Nature. ”

“ We bring the matter to the test or 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. ”

“ If, now, we can introduce the scientific method of original research and experiment into our workshops; if, instead of one experimenter, there may be dozens of wide-awake, observing, and energetic men in search of scientific and mechanical truth ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

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

“ What is true, however, is that we cannot try such experiments as a man of science can sometimes try in his laboratory, where he can select and isolate the necessary elements in any given process, and decide, by subjecting them to proper conditions, how a definite question is to be answered. ”

“ The experiments conducted by means of such apparatus, and the handing round of specimens, are not only absolutely essential, oftentimes, to the comprehension of the science to which they belong, but contribute powerfully to fix it in the memory. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

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

“ These records of wars, intrigues, factions, and revolutions are so many collections of experiments, by which the politician or moral philosopher fixes the principles of his science, in the same manner as the physician or natural philosopher becomes acquainted with the nature of plants, minerals, and other external objects, by the experiments which he forms concerning them. ”

“ However, some experiments are an exception to this—experiments on which I have based my own, wishing to accomplish the greater thing, before successfully accomplishing the lesser, and to graft a fish on a bird before dealing with humanity alone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What, then, may we expect when these experiments are infinitely multiplied and varied, under the superintendence of skilful and experienced men, who will devote their whole time and attention to the subject? ”

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

“ My first undertaking in the way of scientific experiment was in the field of economics and psychology. ”

“ The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind. ”

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

“ 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. ”

“ I wished, by treating Psychology like a natural science, to help her to become one. ”

“ 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. ”

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