Positive science

“ It is not merely because of the material advantages, the comforts and luxuries, which science indirectly secures to mankind, that the man of science devotes himself to the scientific ideal and seeks to make it universal: it is for the sacred cause of truth. ”

“ For the scientists themselves, I acknowledge, for that comparatively small number of men who engage in the pursuits of science as a business of their life, science does much more. For these men science affords a means to vast enlargement and ennoblement of mind. The brilliant hypotheses, the bold speculations, the broad generalizations, the stimulating guesses, the expansive conceptions, with which science deals—what can be thought of more fitted to feed the imagination and reason of man and advance him to the strength and stature of angels than is such occupation of mind as these afford? ”

“ It was thought that the temper of the really scientific man, so patient in research, so accurate and conscientious, so slow to dogmatize, so deferential to others, might be fostered by experimental science in the schools, acquiring "knowledge at first hand," making experiments, looking with great respect at balances, weighing and measuring, and giving an account of results. ”

“ Prominent attention has been also devoted to those various sciences which help to a better understanding of the nature of man, to the bearings of science upon the questions of society and government, to scientific education, and to the conflicts which spring from the progressive nature of scientific knowledge. ”

“ All of this represents the slow evolution of science, each new discovery quickening the thought of the age in which it occurred, changing the attitude of the mind toward nature and life, and contributing to human comfort and human welfare. But the greatest accomplishment always in the development of science is its effect on the mental processes of humanity, stimulating thought and changing the attitude of mind toward life. ”

“ Only in recent years have men learned to gather facts, to sift them, and correctly to interpret them, thus creating science. We are only beginning to construct the science of living, which is living in intelligent obedience to all natural laws ”

“ The abundance, the solidity, and the splendour of the results already achieved by science are well fitted to inspire us with a cheerful confidence in the soundness of its method. ”

“ When we have discovered how character depends upon physiological conditions, we shall be able, if we choose, to produce far more of the type of human beings that we admire. Intelligence, artistic capacity, benevolence—all these things no doubt could be increased by science. There seems scarcely any limit to what could be done in the way of producing a good world, if only men would use science wisely. I have expressed elsewhere my fears that men may not make a wise use of the power they derive from science. ”

“ Every known method must be used by the laboratory to develop this hope into a belief wide enough to reach all members of every section of the community and deep enough to become a vital working principle. Only through a belief strong enough to ride over unbelief and inertia, a belief in the value of science for personal life strong enough to make a wise choice possible, can the will to obtain a better environment be developed. The belief in better things must be thoroughly impressed on the individual mind. ”

“ Necessary and eternal as are its truths, all Science concerns all mankind for all time. Equally at present and in the remotest future, must it be of incalculable importance for the regulation of their conduct, that men should understand the science of life, physical, mental, and social; and that they should understand all other science as a key to the science of life. ”

“ Is it not the case that we ourselves, in as far as the delight in knowledge and the enthusiasm for solving riddles have taken hold of us, rejoice in every new piece of elucidation and interpretation that science succeeds in making, that we are in the fullest sympathy with the impulse to understand everything and bring reason and clearness into it, and that we give hearty adherence to the leading ideas which guide the investigations of natural science? ”

“ The fact also that the discoveries of science usually precede the developments of the moral advantages of science to mankind, is in harmony with the general truth that effects follow their causes, and with the conclusion that moral rules and moral progress have a scientific basis. ”

“ The scientific method ignores no faculty of man or fact in Nature; it recognizes to the full our emotions, affections, and sentiments, but subordinates all these to the intellect, whose dictum alone is given command over the educated will. Authority relies on inspiration, revelation, the miraculous, and the supernatural; science relies on brain, on experience, the mastery of facts by accurate and patient thought. ”

“ The advance of scientific knowledge—the astonishing discovery of the atom and the cell, and of the unsubstantially or unmateriality, so to speak, of matter itself, and of the elusiveness of energy and life, as indicated by the newer theories of the nature of the ether, and the acceptance of thought-transference as a physical or psychological fact—these and other remarkable scientific discoveries which are leading science to what is seemingly the borderline of a world beyond the cognizance of the bodily senses, have powerfully affected the rationalism and idealism of the present day. ”

“ Fundamentally, I just think that we are all scientists. Every human who is successful on the Earth thinks scientifically, evaluates the world around him, decides what to do each and every day based on trial and error, and what we would call traditionally, the scientific method.
Now people ask me all the time, people ask me very often: What is your secret? How do you combine science and entertainment? How do combine a show about science with something that's so fun and interesting? ”

“ What is all we know of mechanics, astronomy, and optics, but connections established by nature, and discovered by experience or observation, and consequences deduced from them? All the knowledge we have in agriculture, gardening, chymistry, and medicine, is built upon the same foundation. And if ever our philosophy concerning the human mind is carried so far as to deserve the name of science, which ought never to be despaired of, it must be by observing facts, reducing them to general rules, and drawing just conclusions from them. ”

“ In that pure enjoyment experienced on approaching to the ideal, in that eagerness to draw aside the veil from the hidden truth, and even in that discord which exists between the various workers, we ought to see the surest pledges of further scientific progress. Science thus advances, discovering new truths, and at the same time obtaining practical results. ”

“ To pursue science for the sake of the truths it may reveal, is an endeavour to advance the elements of human happiness through the intelligence of the race. To avail ourselves of facts for the improvement of art and manufactures, is the duty of every nation moving in the [Pg 411] advance of civilization. But to draw from the great truths of science intelligible inferences and masterly deductions, and from these to advance to new and beautiful abstractions, is a mental exercise which tends to the refinement and elevation of every human feeling. ”

“ But these facts were not only intrinsically veracious but were capable of occular demonstration, beyond all possibility of doubt, and thus, as nothing could be changed or refuted, science found itself compelled, for once, to honour the truth in its initial stage—to receive them gracefully unto itself and adopt them in its teachings. ”

“ The application of the principle which I have been enforcing, of learning to know man through Nature, the thorough knowledge of his environment, and of those of his relations to it which constitute his life, must clearly be the foundation of a scientific medicine. ”

“ That mental progress is advanced by scientific discovery is a common circumstance. Our ideas of facts, our knowledge of general principles, our views of man, of nature, and of the Universe; and even our modes of thought, have been gradually and profoundly changed by the new knowledge acquired by means of scientific research. This truth is capable of being most extensively illustrated by a multitude of facts in the whole of the sciences, and in the arts, manufactures, and other subjects dependent upon science. ”

“ But when the imagination has exhausted itself in transcendental ecstasies over an ethereal sentiment so named, but undescribed except in poetry, what wiser or better thing can we say of any branch of physical or natural science, cultivated by our association, than that its votaries arc knowingly or unknowingly bettering the condition and character of mankind? Every advancement in science is, of its own nature, an improvement of the commonwealth. ”

“ It breathes the spirit of the loftiest science in its clear-eyed vision of the nature of the problem he had to solve, the factors which make up the problem, and the experimental observations necessary to elucidate it. ”

“ That little girl had found the principle—admiration, wonder—which makes science vital, and without wonder her highest value is, not spiritual, but utilitarian. A man might as well collect matchboxes, like those charming people in one of Anatole France’s novels, as search for diatoma, unless the wonder [318] of the world be ever fresh before his eyes. In the eighteenth century science was alive, quick with emotion, and therefore it found expression in literature. ”

“ For complete science, however, we need the aid of every special science,—of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Physiology, Anatomy, Psychology, and all the other branches which can contribute to any side of our knowledge of nature. ”

“ The great achievement of recent science, of which we are so proud, has been the deciphering of the hieroglyphic of organic nature. To worship the facts and neglect the implications of the message of science is to applaud the drama without taking the moral to heart. ”

“ My success in your cause must be attributed to my having followed the path of experiment and induction discovered by philosophers who have preceded me: willingly would I divide your plaudits with other men of science, and claim much for the general glory of scientific discovery in a long course of ages. ”

“ I know some will say, at least to themselves: “What need for us to study science? There are plenty to do that already; and we shall be sure sooner or later to profit by their discoveries; and meanwhile it is not science which is needed to make mankind thrive, but simple common sense.” ”

“ In the second place, what is the proper business and procedure of science in its application to man? Here science adopts precisely the same views, and follows precisely the same method. Man objectises himself as "the human mind," and declares that the only fact, or at least that the sum total of all the facts appertaining to this object, is that it is visited by certain changes constituting its varieties of "feeling," "passion," "states of mind," or by whatever other name they may be called, and that the only legitimate business of science here is to observe these changes and classify them. ”

“ The whole history of arts and inventions is a continued comment on this text; and since the knowledge can be obtained only by observation of Nature, it follows that Science, which is the exact and orderly summing-up of the results of such observation, must powerfully contribute to the well-being and progress of mankind. ”

“ A higher and more generous purpose is now the stimulus to all efforts of improvement: our views are more enlightened, because more general; the many have taken the place of the few. In the earlier ages, science kept as secrets those discoveries, which now its chief object is to promulgate. ”

“ The human mind cannot greatly resist impression, the various effects of scientific research necessarily produce an influence upon it. Whilst great deep-seated truths make a powerful impression on the minds of philosophers, the great practical effects of science in inventions, &c., profoundly impress the mass of mankind. ”

“ Thus science as an activity is marked off by its method and its intent rather than by its subject-matter. As a method it is characterized by thoroughness, persistency, completeness, generality, and system. As regards its intent, it is characterized by its freedom from partiality or prejudice, and its interest in discovering what the facts are, apart from personal expectations and desires. In the scientific mood we wish to know what the nature of things is. ”

“ It seems, indeed, as if nature had, in this instance, admitted an exception to the will by which she has ordained the perpetual accumulation of knowledge among civilized men, and had destined a considerable portion of science continually to grow up and perish with individuals. ”

“ Ever since mankind has existed, teachers have always arisen among peoples, who have enunciated science in this restricted sense,--the science of what it is most useful for man to know. This science has always had for its object the knowledge of what is the true ground of the well-being of each individual man, and of all men, and why. ”

“ Given unity of purpose throughout the world, given a surcease of mutual thwarting and destruction, do we realize what science has made possible now and here for mankind 1
I shall not indulge in any imaginative anticipations of things still undiscovered in the scientific realm, I will only suppose that things already known and tested are systematically used all over the world, that the good knowledge we have already stored in our laboratories and libraries is really applied with some thoroughness and with some community of purpose to the needs and enlargement of life. ”

“ To see a simple phenomenon in nature and report it fully and correctly is no easy matter, but the habit of trying to do so teaches what truthfulness is and leaves the impress of truth upon the whole life and character. I do not hesitate to say, therefore, that elements of science should be taught to children for the moral effects of its influences. ”