Procession

“ Is it, then, that the unfolding of a human being in body and mind is so comparatively simple a process that any one may superintend and regulate it with no preparation whatever? If not--if the process is, with one exception, more complex than any in Nature, and the task of ministering to it one of the surpassing difficulty--is it not madness to make no provision for such a task!? ”

“ On Observation and Experiment.
§ 1. It results from the preceding exposition, that the process of ascertaining what consequents, in nature, are invariably connected with what antecedents, or in other words what phenomena are related to each other as causes and effects, is in some sort a process of analysis. That every fact which begins to exist has a cause, and that this cause must be found in some fact or concourse of facts which immediately preceded the occurrence, may be taken for certain. ”

“ Manipulation.—The process of applying practically methods of experiment and observation, is termed Manipulation; and the value of observations depends much upon the proficiency of the observer in this art. This skill appears, as we have said, not only in devising means and modes in measuring results, but also in inventing and executing arrangements by which elements are subjected to such conditions as the investigation requires: in finding and using some material combination by which nature shall be asked the question which we have in our minds. ”

“ Practice is laborious either from the multitude of instruments, or the bulk of matter and substances requisite for any given work. Those instances, therefore, are valuable, which either direct practice to that which is of most consequence to mankind, or lessen the number of instruments or of matter to be worked upon. We assign to the three instances relating to this class, the common name of propitious or benevolent instances, We will now separately discuss these seven instances, and conclude with them that part of our work which relates to the prerogative or illustrious instances. ”

“ When the familiarity of the change-process varies, then we get the statements which depend upon varied, i.e., diminished, familiarity: “less real or not real,” “unknown,” “uncertain,” etc.
(3) When the totality of the connexion of the inner change-processes varies, these latter become more active, more differentiated, more articulated. ”

“ Does not an account of thinking, basing itself on modern scientific procedure, demand a statement in which all the distinctions and terms of thought—judgment, concept, inference, subject, predicate, and copula of judgment, etc., ad infinitum—shall be interpreted simply and entirely as distinctive functions or divisions of labor within the doubt-inquiry process? ”

“ As far as our knowledge goes there is no psychic apparatus possessing only the primary process, and in so far it is a theoretic fiction; but so much is based on fact that the primary processes are present in the apparatus from the beginning, while the secondary processes develop gradually in the course of life, inhibiting and covering the primary ones, and gaining complete mastery over them perhaps only at the height of life. ”

“ Their inquiry always centers upon some manner of process. This notion of process about which the researches of modern science cluster, is a notion of a sequence, or complex, of consecutive change in which the nexus of the sequence, that by virtue of which the change inquired into is consecutive, is the relation of cause and effect. ”

“ A right understanding of the mental process itself, of the conditions it depends on, and the steps of which it consists, is the only basis on which a system of rules, fitted for the direction of the process, can possibly be founded. ”

“ One supposes also a conscious process as an existent fact, whose development is to be described. The basis of one’s description is then the principle that the external facts, which are supposed directly or indirectly to determine the conscious process, arouse responses in the organism of the being whose consciousness is in question; and that the conscious states which constitute cognition accompany these responses of the organism to the environment. ”

“ We can only investigate them when in process of formation, observing that the best formed habit is slowly and continuously acquired, and it is in the early stages that we can perceive the rationale of the process. ”

“ But the understanding in the process of knowledge makes use of the universal form of synthesis, the judgment; intellectual function is essentially of the nature of judgment or the reduction of a manifold to unity through a conception. The specific or type forms of such function will, therefore, be expressed in judgments; and a complete classification of the forms of judgments is the key by which one may hope to discover the system of categories. ”

“ It is, of course, true, that in any case of judgment, as for instance when we judge that gold is yellow, a process takes place in our minds, of which some one or other of these theories is a partially correct account. ”

“ A second process, to which the name of generalisation is often given, consists in passing from a fact or partial law to a multitude of unexamined cases, which we believe to be subject to the same conditions. ”

“ Sully says, in speaking of the judgment, 4 — "This process of judging illustrates the two fundamental elements in thought activity, viz., analysis and synthesis." "To judge is clearly to discern and to mark off as a special object of thought some connecting relation." "To begin with, before we can judge we must have the requisite materials for forming a judgment." "In the second place, to judge is to carry out a process of reflection on given material." "In addition to clearness and accuracy, our judgments may have other perfections. ”

“ Processes differing but little, apparently, give vastly different results, and the trained habits of observation quickly analyze and determine wherein the one process is more efficient than the other. ”

“ Your method was to classify the results established, to study their connections, with no care for the demonstrations, sure of finding others, if you happened to forget the ones which they had employed; at the time of your entrance examination, did you not find a new solution for a problem which had been set you? When you worked, you did not remain in your room, but gave your brain a promenade through the corridors, and in place of a pen, a pencil or a piece of chalk, your hand was busy with a bunch of keys—your opener of ideas. ”

“ Each psychic process is like the life process of a given individual, it has a definite beginning and a definite end; while a physical process has neither beginning nor end, and can be followed out endlessly in the direction of the line of antecedents or consequents. In other words while a physical process is infinite, a psychic process is finite.
Let P be a physical process and p represent a link in that process, then p1, p11, p111, etc., may be represented as its consequents, while p1, p2, p3, p4, etc., may be represented as its antecedents. ”

“ There are certain broad and general principles which describe very crudely and roughly and inadequately certain phases of certain processes that mind undergoes in organizing experience—perception, apperception, conception, induction, deduction, inference, generalization, and the like. ”

“ The processes involved in the acquisition and systematization of knowledge may, undoubtedly, be regarded as mental processes and fall thus within the province of psychology. It may be claimed, therefore, that every logical process is also a psychological one. ”

“ Not only has the order in which the facts of organization and life successively manifest themselves, from the first germ of existence to death, been found to be uniform, and very accurately ascertainable; but, by a great application of the Method of Concomitant Variations to the entire facts of comparative anatomy and physiology, the characteristic organic structure corresponding to each class of functions has been determined with considerable precision. ”

“ If, for example, the process us pyramidal is was abnormally small and the processus papillaris abnormally large, it pointed to a reversion of the natural order, to wit, that the servant should control the master or that the son would be above the father. ”

“ The mind initiating the process is the agent, and the other mind the percipient. A common form of the experiment is for the agent to draw a geometrical figure on a card and the percipient, who can neither see, hear, taste, touch nor smell what is being done, reproduces the figure. ”

“ Instead of giving his time and thought to the whole process, each worker concentrates his attention upon one single step of the process, and by repeating a simple set of motions over and over again acquires wonderful dexterity. ”

“ But, while we may trace and understand the process in the former of these aggregates, and may declare such to be its law as the result of more or less accurate experimental proof, this is not the case with the latter. We see the varied forms of life spring into being and vanish out of being. ”

“ We should therefore expect that in the psychic process which is the most highly developed biological process, purposiveness, formed out of psychic chance variations, will be one of the most important traits. ”

“ The investigation of Forms proceeds thus: a nature being given, we must first of all have a muster or presentation before the understanding of all known instances which agree in the same nature, though in substances the most unlike. And such collection must be made in the manner of a history, without premature speculation, or any great amount of subtlety. For example, let the investigation be into the Form of Heat. ”

“ Now the finite process, whereby our own consciousness passes from an indeterminate to a relatively determinate state of purpose, of intention, of seeking for contents, is known to us in its psychological manifestations as a process of Selective Attention, growing more and more definite as it proceeds. ”

“ If the improvement which it is sought to make is a process, it should first be considered whether any radically different process can be conceived of, and if so, whether or not it is better than the old process, and the reason for its defects, and whether it is possible to cure those defects. ”

“ In the study of stimulus and response, where the unimpeachable facts are relatively few, and their present correlation slight, the working hypothesis is an indispensable aid. “The true course of inductive procedure ... consists in anticipating nature, in the sense of forming hypotheses as to the laws which are probably in operation, and then observing whether the combinations of phenomena are such as would follow from the laws supposed. The investigator begins with facts and ends with them. ”

“ A process of thought which leads to a comprehensive generality, is felt as of greater importance than one which terminates in an insulated fact; and the mind is, even unconsciously, led to bestow greater attention upon the process, and to weigh more carefully the sufficiency of the experience appealed to, for supporting the inference grounded upon it. ”

“ Two years ago your uncle advanced a theory that materialization phenomena were produced by a substance which he termed 'psychoplasm.' After listening to his argument, I was convinced that he was right. Since then, we have attended numerous materialization seances, with the object of securing a sample of this elusive material for examination. It always disappears instantly when bright light is flashed upon it, or when the medium is startled or alarmed, and our efforts in this direction have always been fruitless. ”

“ But the moment we apply our laws to the calculation of the actual course of an individual process, we have to recognise that the condition for their rigid exactness is absent; in the individual process there are always aspects not comprised in the conditions for which the law was enunciated, and nothing but actual experience can inform us whether the presence of these aspects will perceptibly affect the result in which we are interested. ”

“ It is a vast and difficult question, and one for which a complete answer may possibly be looked for in the next century; but the method of inquiry is understood; and the mode in which the materials are now being accumulated bearing on that inquiry, the processes by which results are now obtained, and the observation of these phenomena, lead to the belief that the problem also, some day or other, will be solved. ”

“ The chemical process does not rise above a conditioned [Pg 343] and finite process. The notion as notion is only the heart and core of the process, and does not in this stage come to an existence of its own. In the neutral product the process is extinct, and the existing cause falls outside it. ”

“ Here, as in so many similar cases, a phrase, a technical term, a word, is introduced to designate the process observed, and not infrequently those who use it ultimately come to think they have given an explanation of the process, while they really have only stated it. ”

“ On the subject of Induction, the task to be performed was that of generalizing the modes of investigating truth and estimating evidence, by which so many important and recondite laws of nature have, in the various sciences, been aggregated to the stock of human knowledge. ”

“ The employment, in observation, of instruments of precision, and in particular of registering apparatus, and of all those processes which suppress causes of error resulting from the personal peculiarities of the observer, gives to the results of research a degree of certitude which renders indisputable facts properly so called, the only question that remains being as to whether these results have been rightly or wrongly interpreted. ”

“ 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. ”