Expertise

“ If, upon every science, every art, every profession, you respect the opinions of those who have made them their peculiar study; and prefer their authority, and the result of their researches, to the sallies, the loose reasoning, and accidental knowledge of those who dispute at large, from general, however brilliant conceptions ”

“ To know how far the opinion of an expert must be followed, and how far it may be overruled; to know what is really general policy, and what is mere detail; to know these things is the most valuable art in life. ”

“ What title has the opinion of experts to authority in matters aesthetic? Even if it showed that agreement in which it is so conspicuously lacking, why should men endeavour to mould their feelings into the patterns it prescribes? In the practical affairs of life we follow those who have made a special study of some particular problem, only because they have greater knowledge than ourselves of the relevant facts. ”

“ And still more, when the astronomer or the physician or the carpenter appeals, as a man of science or of common sense, to the “general experience of mankind,” or to the experience of any selected company of experts, as the guarantee of the truth of any of his beliefs, each of them appeals to a body of fact which, as such a body of fact, has never been present to the experience of any man at any time. ”

“ In approaching this question, therefore, I have realized the importance of obtaining the opinions of experts who are alone qualified to express a well-balanced judgment upon a matter demanding knowledge and opportunities of observation of a very special nature. ”

“ Where, then, is such a one to look for the limits and the standard of a legitimate venture—the guide and safeguard against temerity—when his boldness of speculation springs really from a profound love of truth, and a pure enthusiasm for science? ”

“ We gladly recognise that such specialists are doing invaluable service, in their several lines, to the cause of knowledge; but we may also wish that the desire to be scientific was more uniformly tempered by a regard for the nature of the materials with which all scholarship has to deal. Those materials are the creations of the human intellect, whether as seen in the evolution of language, or of literature, or of art. ”

“ How full of information, of philosophic observation, of accurate knowledge! It appears to be written by men of trained intellect and of experience,—educated men of the world, who, by reason of their position and character, have access to the highest sources of information. ”

“ In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two of them. And, in scientific inquiry, at any rate, it is to that one or two that we must look for light and guidance. ”

“ THE investigator in any field of knowledge must, as the price of success, both comprehend the general principles underlying his special problem, and give constant care to its details. Yet it is well, now and then, to leave details behind and consider the bearing of his work upon the science as a whole. ”

“ Its object as a study is not to add to or to modify these materials, but to afford some coherent and systematic satisfaction for the intellectual curiosity which we all feel at times as to the general nature of the whole to which these various materials belong, and the relative truth and clearness with which that general nature is expressed in the different departments of experience. Its aim is the organisation, not the enlargement of knowledge. ”

“ Knowledge, however, is always to be so gathered that it shall create power and minister to efficiency. The accumulation of information is to be made with such orderliness, accuracy, thoroughness and comprehensiveness, that these qualities shall represent the chief and lasting result of knowledge. Facts may be forgotten, but the orderliness, accuracy, thoroughness and comprehensiveness in which these facts have been gathered are more important than the facts themselves, and these qualities should, and may, become a permanent intellectual treasure. ”

“ Let us hold fast to the cheering truth exemplified on all sides of every science, that a just analysis and exact description of ultimate facts in any department of knowledge are for all time, in spite of the transient meaning of current words. ”

“ Thus enlightened, we recognize in science the deliberate effort to reduce the chaos of sensible experiences within the orderliness of ideal constructions, condensing multitudes of facts into simple laws—an effort which the intellect acknowledges as a supreme duty, and which conduct acknowledges as a guide. ”

“ In order to do this, we must reconsider, in a more definite and precise shape, the doctrine which has already been laid down;—that our Knowledge consists 29 in applying Ideas to Facts; and that the conditions of real knowledge are that the ideas be distinct and appropriate, and exactly applied to clear and certain facts. The steps by which our knowledge is advanced are those by which one or the other of these two processes is rendered more complete;—by which Conceptions are made more clear in themselves, or by which the Conceptions more strictly bind together the Facts. ”

“ The knowledge of the languages, moral and natural philosophy, sacred and profane history, mathematical science, the art of speaking, particularly those branches of logic which teach us to range our thoughts in a right method, to form propositions distinctly, and to draw just conclusions from acknowledged premises: I say, the knowledge of these different branches of literature and science, may very much assist ministers to discover and defend the truth, and refute its adversaries with their own weapons. ”

“ To compress such a movement—whether it be commerce or government or education—in a single conception requires a multitude of experiences involving actual adjustments with the materials involved; involving constant reflection upon hidden meanings, painful investigations into hidden causes, and mastery of a vast body of specialized knowledge which it takes years of study to digest and assimilate. ”

“ The search [48] for objective truth, the extension of the realm of law and regularity, the expansion and organization of the army of facts constantly marshaled and reviewed and made ready for service, the ever widening development of principles and the furthering of a deeper insight into their significance,—these are ideals for the advancement of science, far easier of expression than of execution, but the clear and accepted formulation of which itself attests a highly developed stage of accurate thought. ”

“ Exact science, which recognizes only observation, experience, work and research, as the only legitimate means of acquiring mental and material wealth, and considers speculation to be only a combination of mental trickery and unfounded hypothesis must, in my case, become the supreme authority to which I appeal. ”

“ New sources of information and knowledge were opened to me by those who possessed vast stores of acquirement; and I learned how the conversation of gifted and accomplished persons may be made a great agent in training and forming the mind, if not to the higher walks of knowledge, at least to those paths in which the greater part of life is spent, and where it imports each to make the road agreeable to his fellows. ”

“ Yes, all kinds and all degrees of knowledge, to be called knowledge, belong by right and obligation to his office who is the minister and interpreter of Him Who made all things, Who is the Heir of all things, and by Whom all things consist. ”

“ Is there any other distinction than this between general and professional? In the infancy of knowledge, all callings, trades, and professions, are mysteries, whose secrets are carefully guarded from the uninitiated. ”

“ You gentlemen, cannot place yourselves at this standpoint of speculative science; your profession demands that you occupy the opposite position; not that which professes acquaintance with things as they actually exist, but which presumes a thorough understanding of matters which to ordinary mortals are entirely incomprehensible. ”

“ It follows, then, that one who is endowed with more than ordinary acuteness of observation, and has had an experience so varied and extensive as to cover most of these lines, is likely to be best fitted for critical and reliable expert work. ”

“ We need that ripe scholarship which regards theory as truth stated in an abstract form, to be constantly measured by practice as a test of its correctness; for theory and practice are in reality correlatives, each of which requires the aid of the other for its own proper development. ”

“ Such matters as knowledge of the past, of current technique, of materials, of the ways in which one's own best results are assured, supply the material for what may be called general method. There exists a cumulative body of fairly stable methods for reaching results, a body authorized by past experience and by intellectual analysis, which an individual ignores at his peril. ”

“ The influence of the scientific spirit is now rapidly spreading in every field of human activity. Social progress, it is felt, must be guided and accompanied by accurate knowledge,—knowledge which is, in many departments, not yet open to the English reader. ”

“ Every sort of preliminary information, all the theoretical knowledge which, even indirectly, may serve them in their future profession or which is of service in neighboring professions, are classified in their brains, ready to come forth at the first call, and, as proved by the examination, disposable at a minute ”

“ This contrast is traceable not only as we pass from popular ignorance to professional knowledge, but as we pass from the smaller professional knowledge of early times to the greater professional knowledge of our own. ”

“ Without it, there is no science in any branch of human knowledge.” Thus do we rise, with the aid of a critical mind, by careful investigation and great sagacity, to the truths founded on observations made. ”

“ They gain much of their general knowledge, outside the limits of their profession or of any peculiar study, by means of periodical literature; and, as a rule, they are supplied with copious and accurate, though general, information. ”

“ The ability to attain it lies in themselves; for their profession also will have been relieved by the Science of Knowledge from all superstitious and traditionary rules, and will have been reduced to fixed principles. ”

“ What the philosopher needs to know, as the starting-point for his investigation, is not the specialist’s facts as such, but the general principles which the specialist uses for their discovery and correlation. ”

“ But less ambitious labourers in the field of investigation which is only as yet partly cultivated, may each assist, by carefully collecting a little heap of ascertained facts; and it is, indeed, the duty of each as he passes to add his pebble to the slowly accumulating cairn of recorded human knowledge. ”

“ Even when we read of the persons by whom, and the occasions on which, any particular branch of knowledge has been improved, we naturally wish to know something of the places where such improvements were made. ”

“ Thus the clerical profession has to deal with the facts of Nature from a certain point of view; and hence it comes into contact with that of the man of science, who has to treat the same facts from another point of view. ”

“ The method by which this Society proposes to work is to collect expert opinion on matters wherein our present use is indeterminate or unsatisfactory, and thus to arrive at a general understanding and consensus of opinion which might be relied on to influence practice. ”

“ We want people who know about life at large, who will come to the public service seasoned by experience, not people who have specialised and acquired that sort of knowledge which is called, in much the same spirit of qualification as one speaks of German Silver, Expert Knowledge. ”

“ For those to whom no such resource is open, there is no other way but to put the matter into the hands of certain experts, of great experience in such matters—a class of persons to be found everywhere. ”

“ The art of those who govern, as is the case with the art of advocates, consists above all in the science of employing words. ”

“ And we have, in fact, many other special fields of knowledge to survey, before we are led by the order of our subject, to 271 those general questions and doctrines, those antitheses brought into view and again resolved, which a view of the whole territory of human knowledge suggests, and by which the nature and conditions of knowledge are exhibited. ”