Fact-finding

“ Far more profitable work than the construction of speculative theories, may be done by collecting facts or groups of facts leading to direct inferences. When both fact and inference are sound, every such argument is a step gained, while if either be unsound, a distinct statement of fact and issue is the best means of getting them corrected, or, if needful, discarded altogether. A principal object of the present chapter is to bring forward a variety of instances drawn from sources where indirect evidence bearing on our early history is to be sought. ”

“ We can do no better than follow in the path that he pointed out, add fact to fact, and detail to detail, avoiding vain theories and idle speculations, so that whatever advance we make in our knowledge of the subject, whether it be much or little, it may at any rate be accurate, and serve as a secure foundation for the work of the future. ”

“ Every alleged fact is to be verified or cancelled or qualified, every inference to be measured over and over again by its premises, every proposition to be tried by all the tests that can prove its strength or weakness, and the whole to be marshalled to the place it may claim in the alcoves of the universal library. ”

“ But the only alternative for the defender of our thesis is the assertion of a fact, viz. the Ego, — a fact whose Being is not wholly verified at present, although it is indirectly known as a fact, and as a fact possessed of this verified wealth of reality. ”

“ Of what consequence to you, reader, is my obscure individuality? I live, like you, in a century in which reason submits only to fact and to evidence. My name, like yours, is Truth-seeker. [1] My mission is written in these words of the law: Speak without hatred and without fear; tell that which thou knowest! The work of our race is to build the temple of science, and this science includes man and Nature. Now, truth reveals itself to all; to-day to Newton and Pascal, tomorrow to the herdsman in the valley and the journeyman in the shop. Each one contributes his stone to the edifice; ”

“ Only when the fact of communication is proved, will the real study of the subject begin. Much of the work, up to the present, has been undertaken with a view to establishing the reality of the facts. But this is a question of evidence, not scientific research. ”

“ Fact though it might be, you would call it an utterly useless fact—a fact that could in no way influence your actions in life—a fact that would not help you in learning how to live completely. Well, apply the same test to the great mass of historical facts, and you will get the same result. They are facts from which no conclusions can be drawn—unorganisable facts ”

“ In general, the more facts a particular fact can be said to be a delegate for, the more a particular fact can be said to represent other facts, the more of the floor it should have. The power of reading for facts depends upon a man’s power to recognise symbolic or sum-total or senatorial facts and keep all other facts, the general mob or common run of facts, from interrupting. The amount of knowledge a man is going to be able to master in the world depends upon the number of facts he knows how to avoid. ”

“ Hence we are driven back to correspondence with fact as constituting the nature of truth. It remains to define precisely what we mean by 'fact', and what is the nature of the correspondence which must subsist between belief and fact, in order that belief may be true. ”

“ Science, for instance, the patient searching after truth by building up knowledge from facts, and accepting nothing as a fact that had not been verified by proof, was a closed book in the thirteenth century. ”

“ It is more insistent in the first place on including the whole range of relevant data, of bringing to light all the facts that bear on a Page 383 given problem. In common-sense thinking we make, as we say, snap judgments; we jump at conclusions. Anything plausible is accepted as evidence; anything heard or seen is accepted as a fact. The scientific examiner insists on examining and subjecting to scrutiny the facts at hand, on searching for further facts, and on distinguishing the facts genuinely significant in a given situation from these that happen to be glaring or conspicuous. ”

“ The alterations in the minds of men, which the tendency of modern thought has effected in respect of evidence, may be summed up under two heads: First, the nature of the evidence required is altogether altered, and a great many arguments, that would in former days have gone to the jury, are now summarily suppressed. Fact can only be proved by facts, that is, by events, instances, things, which are submitted to experience and observation, and are confirmed by experiment and reason. ”

“ The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth HAPPENS to an idea. It BECOMES true, is MADE true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-FICATION. Its validity is the process of its valid-ATION.
But what do the words verification and validation themselves pragmatically mean? ”

“ The second is, that whatever fact has to be proved, should be proved by the best evidence, by the actual document alleged, or by the man who has seen with his own eyes or heard with his own ears the things or the words asserted to have occurred. ”

“ Correctness in the statement of fact and fundamental unity in the synthesis of facts should be the aim of every popular work and success in realizing these two aims should be the final test of the historical value of the book. ”

“ Erroneous conclusions or opinions which are the result of illogical reasoning from correct facts may be discovered by the student who himself knows how to reason, but perversions of fact may escape detection, if not traced back to original authorities or observations, which the student may not have time or opportunity to do. ”

“ We say of a fact or statement, that it is proved, when we believe its truth by reason of some other fact or statement from which it is said to follow. Most of the propositions, whether affirmative or negative, universal, particular, or singular, which we believe, are not believed on their own evidence, but on the ground of something previously assented to, from which they are said to be inferred. ”

“ I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer. ”

“ The mere knowledge of a fact is pale; but when you come to realize your fact, it takes on color. It is all the difference between hearing of a man being stabbed to the heart, and seeing it done. ”

“ One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If we were to pass from opinions regarding the shape of the earth to the many other and complex problems that appeal to human interests, it would be equally easy to collect "ideas" comparable to these in value, evidence, and eccentricity. ”

“ That is what is understood by ultimate scientific truth; something that will endure unmodified by passing ways of viewing it, open to every one's verification who comes equipped with the proper means to verify,—a permanent objective, to be ascertained by careful logical inquiry, not to be determined by subjective opinion. ”

“ so that, in our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence.
A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. ”

“ But anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact, rarely get as far as fact; ”

“ The pragmatic method starts from the postulate that there is no difference of truth that doesn't make a difference of fact somewhere; and it seeks to determine the meaning of all differences of opinion by making the discussion hinge as soon as possible upon some practical or particular issue. ”

“ We must remember, in attempting to look fairly, to see clearly, that a concept is a much stronger stimulus to the brain than a fact. ”

“ To him, as to all true philosophers, the main value of a fact was its position and suggestiveness in the general sequence of scientific truth. ”

“ To form a truth, two factors are needed—a fact and an abstraction. ”

“ Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory—let the theory go.” ”

“ My business is to teach my aspirations to confirm themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ”

“ Science herself consults her heart when she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact and correction of false belief are the supreme goods for man. ”

“ There are also two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible: truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. ”

“ The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesmanlike habits, supplies their demands. ”

“ Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. ”

“ It is our intention that the majority of the extracts should be vilively in style—that is, personal, or descriptive, or rhetorical, or even strongly partisan—and should not so much profess to give the truth as supply data for inference. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Haunting foreshadowings of the temple appear in the realm of imagination, in music, in architecture, in the untroubled kingdom of reason, and in the golden sunset magic of lyrics, where beauty shines and glows, remote from the touch of sorrow, remote from the fear of change, remote from the failures and disenchantments of the world of fact. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If but certain common and generally accepted data are established, that may serve everywhere as sign-posts to guide investigation, a mass of facts will follow, throwing a wholly new light upon the relations of man in the past and the present. ”

“ Nothing is easier than it select only those cases that favor one's preconceived ideas and leap the gap to a generalization. Nevertheless, this newspaper argument—the lacking every safeguard of the methods it pretends to use—doubtless convinces more people than the most rigorously scientific, statistical evidence—because it tells them what they want to believe as true. ”

“ Where the facts which you bring forward come from persons with first-hand knowledge of them, they are direct evidence; where you must establish them by reasoning from other facts they are indirect evidence, and in the latter case reasoning is an essential part of establishing the facts. ”

“ The result of this method of presentation is that the works mentioned above represent a collection of most valuable documents even for those who feel impelled to draw from the data other conclusions than those of the author. Each investigation is the outcome of a definite question, a "preconceived opinion," which is either supported by the facts or must be abandoned. "How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!" ”

“ Then, too, the sources of information are so varied that the results of studying them are like looking through glasses of differing color and focus, and the individual receives and describes the impression from their own particular lense and confidently asserts that to be the only truth, hence investigation, comparison and discussion are needful in the clarifying process. ”

“ We usually judge of a man’s fitness to assume the rôle of an original investigator in any branch of human knowledge, by noting his powers of observation and generalization, and by observing his capacity to perceive connections between closely related facts; also, by tracing the various processes by which he arrives at his conclusions. The ability, however, to collect facts, and the power to generalize and draw conclusions from them, avail little, when brought into direct opposition to deeply rooted prejudices. ”