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“ We are slowly beginning to recognize that there may be a science of History, a science of Language, a science of Religion, and, in fact, that all knowledge may be systematized on a common method. The facts of the External Order, which yield a cosmology, are supplemented by the facts of the Internal Order, which yield a psychology, and the facts of the Social Order, which yield a sociology. ”

“ All the institutions of society, all the fields of research, every occupation, art, and trade—every one of them contributes an element of diversity of meaning to the words at its command. Not only that, but, as we have seen, a protean spirit is manifest wherever circumstances demand change. ”

“ Even here, however, they have been great and most important, as well as in some collateral branches of knowledge, such as natural jurisprudence, political economy, criticism and morals, which spring up from the same root, or rather which are branches of that tree of which the science of mind is the trunk. ”

“ In the subjects of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, chemistry, vegetable and animal physiology, psychology and morality, and the more concrete subjects depending upon them, such as politics, trade, commerce, government, &c., our ideas have equally advanced, in consequence of scientific research ”

“ We have, thus, for the state or law or economy or knowledge or art or religion always one science which interprets the historical systems of state, etc., in a systematic and philological way, one science which deals with its function in the historical world and one which studies biographically and nationally the history of state, law, economical life, science, art or religion. ”

“ Let us begin our analytical studies of the value and the meaning of human history, by considering some opinions which deserve the foremost place in our discussion, not as being the first in time, but as being the first in simplicity. ”

“ Closer inspection of our materials, the employment of the comparative method, occasionally the bringing to light of new authorities—all contribute to an increase of real knowledge, and historical studies in this respect do not differ from other branches of research. ”

“ As we trace out with great pains the unbroken links stretching between the most diverse facts and appearances, links which a cursory view would never discover, we find that that theory which supposes a community of origin and descent for all that now is, has a remarkable body of evidence adducible in its favor. ”

“ The compilation of such a history, from materials of so extraordinary a character, and the powerful nature of the evidence which these materials afford, are calculated to excite our admiration, and the result must be allowed to exalt the dignity of science, as a product of man’s industry and his reason. ”

“ When any given custom or belief has undergone this double process of analysis of its component parts and classification of its several elements, another process has to be undertaken, namely, to ascertain its association with other customs or beliefs, in the same country or among the same people, each of which customs or beliefs, being treated in exactly the same manner, is found to exhibit some degree of relationship in origin, condition, or purpose to the whole group under examination. ”

“ Geology, biology, chemistry, history, political economy, language, medicine, theology, and politics, have each and all felt the influence of the scientific spirit and its methods of discovery and investigation. ”

“ We may suppose the one answer to be that our knowledge is wholly, or almost wholly, due to the mind itself; that none, or, at any rate, very few of the ingredients of cognition are derived from foreign sources. And conversely we may suppose the other answer to be, that all, or nearly all, the elements of cognition are derived from foreign sources, and that none, or scarcely any, of them are native products of the mind. ”

“ Though each great state has adopted its own methods, influenced by historical circumstances and by ideas of policy, there are general resemblances that furnish material for scientific treatment and allow of important generalizations being made. ”

“ Let me illustrate the importance of synonymous distinctions by another example, by the words, 'to invent' and 'to discover'; or 'invention' and 'discovery.' How slight may seem to us the distinction between them, even if we see any at all. Yet try them a little closer, try them, which is the true proof, by aid of examples, and you will perceive that they can by no means be indifferently used; that, on the contrary, a great truth lies at the root of their distinction. Thus we speak of the 'invention' of printing, of the 'discovery' of America. ”

“ To such a degree has this spirit permeated all our modes of thinking, that with respect to every branch of knowledge, no less than with respect to every institution and every form of human activity, we almost instinctively ask, not merely what is its existing condition, but what were its earliest discoverable germs, and what has been the course of its development.—Ingram, History of Political Economy, 2. ”

“ It may often be a task of some difficulty to detect and enunciate in words the Principles which are thus, perhaps silently and unconsciously, taken for granted by those who have a share in the establishment of scientific truth: but inasmuch as these Principles are an essential element in our knowledge, it is very important to our present purpose to separate them from the associated materials, and to trace them to their origin. ”

“ Just as in the man there are structures and functions which make possible the doings his biographer tells of, so in the nation there are structures and functions which make possible the doings its historian tells of; and in both cases it is with these structures and functions, in their origin, development, and decline, that science is concerned. ”

“ It is not, however, my province, or that of any other philosopher, to dictate belief. Any one may found hypotheses if he will state his facts and the reasoning by which he derives the conclusions which constitute the hypothesis. ”

“ A short appendix explains how the ways of primitive man have been read from existing evidence; and there are practical suggestions for teachers who wish to make the most of this capital book as an introduction to a subject so suggestive along the lines, not only of social life, but of history, geography and nature study."—Education. ”

“ The first principle, then, which appears to me to have been established is that folk-lore must be studied item by item in its own home, before it can properly be applied to other uses demanded by the comparative method of scientific inquiry. ”

“ Though applicable at all ages, the use of sources becomes more and more valuable, however, as the student advances ; and when he reaches the highest stage of the student's work, — the preparation of materials for a thorough-going account of some episode or period, — sources are the reservoirs from which he must draw most of his knowledge. ”

“ Exposition des sources où l’homme a puisé les connaissances qu’il possède et dans lesquelles il pourra en recueillir quantité d’autres; sources dont l’ensemble constitue pour lui le champ des réalités ”

“ I know the scientific names of beings animalculous: In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General. All In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, He is the very model of a modern Major-General. ”

“ No just nor advantageous deductions from any subject or fact which is worthy of a position in the world’s history, and which is capable of permanently maintaining such a position, can be arrived at, except through a complete philosophical analysis of all the elements entering into its composition. All facts as well as all chemical compounds are made up of elementary principles brought into intimate productive relations by some general power, operating by some general law of combination. ”

“ On the other hand the economists, the scholars who busy themselves with comparative law, with the history of religions, of art, of moral ideas, or who criticise political constitutions, all these perform a work of systematization upon the data collected with reference to these different orders of facts. ”

“ Neither the culture of past times nor the culture of the present time has given to any considerable number of people a scientific conception of a society—a conception of it as having a natural structure in which all its institutions, governmental, religious, industrial, commercial, etc., etc., are interdependently bound—a structure which is in a sense organic. ”

“ It is more than a mere fanciful description, to say that in languages, customs, forms of Society, political institutions, we see a number of formations super-imposed upon one another, each of which is, for the most part, an assemblage of fragments and results of the preceding condition. ”

“ We shall find, firstly, that the forms of their implements, instead of showing evidence of having been derived from higher and more complex forms, will, in proportion to the low state of their civilization, show evidence of being derived from natural forms, such as might have been employed by man before he had learnt the art of modifying them to his uses; and secondly, we shall find that the persistency of the forms is proportioned to the low state of their culture. ”

“ In each a peculiar economy is observed in the management of the arguments, in the sentiments, in the opinions, in the logical tone, in the manifestations of individuality which diffuse themselves over the whole and give a colour to it. ”

“ The connections of historical facts with all the sciences, afford another useful theme; that may vastly increase our comparative knowledge: much of it has arisen, besides observation, from accurate comparison, analysis and generalization, which combine to give results, enlarging the field and sphere of human knowledge, in all its branches. ”

“ SO then it is our expression that Science relates to real knowledge no more than does the growth of a plant, or the organization of a department store, or the development of a nation: that all are assimilative, or organizing, or systematizing processes that represent different attempts to attain the positive state—the state commonly called heaven, I suppose I mean. ”

“ The Principal Scientific Societies and Academies of the world, British and foreign, have their transactions regularly recorded in Nature, the Editor being in correspondence, for this purpose, with representatives of Societies in all parts of the world. ”

“ Every few years great discoveries are made; the use of the comparative method, long ago applied superficially and partially to History, has now become, owing to its employment in other fields of work, far more valuable and remunerative ”

“ The 'Outlines of General Knowledge' embrace a great variety of facts connected with the natural sciences. Even the names of all the divisions into which the moderns have classified knowledge fill no inconsiderable space. Add to them the names and height of mountains, and names and length of rivers, the names of constellations, the names of the chemical elements, the amount of population of the different kingdoms of the world, the amount of their respective taxation per head, &c. ”

“ An elementary knowledge will thus be gained, especially of the simplest facts about manufacturing processes, and about intercourse among human beings, which facts will serve subsequently as the groundwork for instruction in natural history and geography. ”

“ The commercial argument in favour of encouraging research, although the most effective with the great mass of persons, and therefore much dwelt upon in this chapter, is however quite a secondary one; the encouragement of truth for the sake of its own intrinsic worth, in preference to the material or extrinsic value of its results, should be the foundation of all aid to discovery. ”

“ By considering what is the real import of our acquisitions, where they are certain and definite, we may learn something respecting the difference between true knowledge and its precarious or illusory semblances; by examining the steps by which such acquisitions have been made, we may discover the conditions under which truth is to be obtained; by tracing the boundary-line between our knowledge and our ignorance, we may ascertain in some measure the extent of the powers of man’s understanding. ”

“ The theory of the progressive production of language in the early times of society, and its gradual improvements in the more civilized ones, may be readily induced from the preceding pages. In the commencement of Society the names of the ideas of entire things, which, it was necessary most frequently to communicate, would first be invented, as the names of individual persons, or places, fire, water, this berry, that root ”

“ All terms used in business, however general or abstract, have that well-defined meaning which is the first requisite of the scientific language. Now one important lesson which I wish to inculcate is that the language of science in this respect corresponds to that of business; in that each and every term that is employed has a meaning as well defined as the subject of discussion can admit of. ”

“ Every word is a generalisation, and contains in itself a general idea, the so-called root. These first generalisations are, no doubt, at first the work of mother-wit and untaught intelligence only, and hence the necessity of constantly correcting them, whether by experience or by philosophy. ”

“ It is manifest that the sum of human knowledge in all its departments and ramifications can be arranged in a variety of ways, and that all kinds of methods of classification can be devised to suit the basis selected, be it supernatural, physical, ethnological, philosophical, historical or other. ”