Pure science

“ How, then, is pure science practical, when it avowedly seeks no quick useful end? It is so, as its records show, by serving as the pioneer that makes possible utilitarian ends, it breaks a road through the unknown for application to follow. For not until science has given the explanation can we turn that explanation to use. And the examples that I shall proceed to relate show clearly that the pursuit of pure science has made possible many of the benefits that we now enjoy. ”

“ The withholding of the supposition prevents science; but the greatest question is: Can the granting of it establish science? May not far other conditions have to be met, besides the required synthesis of sense with Space and Time and the Categories, before we can declare science to be a real possibility? Or, again, because a concentration of reason upon its pure sense-forms and their sense-contents is prerequisite to science, does it follow that this is sufficient for science? ”

“ There is no crying demand, no imperative necessity, for our acquisition of a Catholic Euclid or a Catholic Newton. The object of all science is truth;—the pure [pg 300] sciences proceed to their enunciations from principles which the intellect discerns by a natural light, and by a process recognized by natural reason; and the experimental sciences investigate facts by methods of analysis or by ingenious expedients, ultimately resolvable into instruments of thought equally native to the human mind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a general truth that the physical sciences of light and heat are based upon mechanical conditions of the particles of matter; that the science of chemistry is founded upon physics; that biological phenomena are dependent upon physical and chemical conditions; that psychological subjects are based upon biology; and that biological science cannot progress excepting in proportion to the advance of the sciences on which it is based. ”

“ The definitions which those works furnish of the sciences, for the most part either do not fit them—some being too wide, some too narrow—or do not go deep enough into them, but define a science by its accidents, not its essentials; by some one of its properties which may, indeed, serve the purpose of a distinguishing mark, but which is of too little importance to have ever of itself led mankind to give the science a name and rank as a separate object of study. ”

“ Let us, then, run a parallel between the procedure of science as applied to nature, and the procedure of science as applied to man, and see whether, in the latter case, science does not occupy a position of such a nature, that if she maintains it, all the true phenomena for which she is looking necessarily become invisible; and if she deserts it, she forgoes her own existence. ”

“ I have been compelled to use the words ‘science’ and ‘scientific’ because these terms have become firmly adherent to a group of subjects such as Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Botany, etc., and cannot now be detached from them. Unfortunately ‘scientific’ is used in another sense as implying accuracy of experimental method and in deduction from results. So that in calling ourselves scientific men we run the risk of seeming to claim a monopoly of method, as though we pretended to be somehow superior to the trained workers in other branches. ”

“ The way to science then lies through common knowledge; we must extend that knowledge by careful observation and experiment, and learn how to state the results of our investigations accurately, in general rules or laws of nature; finally, we must learn how to reason accurately from these rules, and thus arrive at rational explanations of natural phenomena, which may suffice for our guidance in life. ”

“ On this point even physicists agree. "Instead of regarding the proper object of physical science as a search after essential causes," says one of the best modern champions of scientific progress, "it ought to be, and must be, a search after facts and relations." [90] Hence, physical science deals with natural facts and their relations exclusively; the search after causes and essential principles constitutes the object of a higher science; and such a science is real philosophy, or metaphysics proper. ”

“ It may be a task, not hopeless, to extract from the past progress of science the elements of an effectual and substantial method of Scientific Discovery. The advances which have, during the last three centuries, been made in the physical sciences;—in Astronomy, in Physics, in Chemistry, in Natural History, in Physiology;—these are allowed by all to be real, to be great, to be striking ”

“ Every step of progress in our knowledge leads in the end to a forward step in our career. Even though we may not immediately comprehend the practical utility of a particular discovery, it will eventually bear a sure fruit. The innumerable and mysterious facts of the medium in which we live are subject to fixed laws that are only imperfectly known. All our efforts should tend to elucidate these laws; and science—that is, the investigation of the grand laws of Nature—seems to be one of the principal functions of human energy. ”

“ There is, if we will but reflect and understand that the course of procedure proper to the physical sciences, namely, the assumption that their, objects and the facts appertaining to these objects lie before them ready-made—is utterly inadmissible in true philosophy—is totally at variance with the scope and spirit of a science which professes to deal fairly with the phenomena of man. ”

“ What we at present call scientific discoveries had nothing to do with bringing it to birth, nor can one easily conceive that they should ever give it its quietus, no matter how logically incompatible with its spirit the ultimate phenomenal distinctions which science accumulates should turn out to be. It can laugh at the phenomenal distinctions on which science is based, for it draws its vital breath from a region which—whether above or below—is at least altogether different from that in which science dwells. ”

“ It is on this same basis that physical science pursues, with ever-increasing success, its quest of laws of nature. Nor need this restriction hamper the scientific study of human life, in which the real difficulties are the practical ones of enormous complexity of evidence, and imperfection of methods of observation. ”

“ Scientific investigations, scientific explanations, scientific inventions, scientific methods and theories, are dominant factors in the progress to which modern civilization has been devoting so much of its energy. In our schools, and colleges and text-books, the growing mind is being taught to approach all subjects and questions from a reasonable, practical and scientific point-of-view.
One of the first principles of all science is to take as little as possible for granted, but to investigate and prove everything, without prejudice, in strict accordance with the facts. ”

“ The glories of the sunrise and sunset, decking the fading stars of the morning and the waxing lights of the evening with the pure colors of the spectrum, elevate the heart of man to a loftier adoration for the marvels of nature, than any works of art prepared by his own hand. ”

“ The processes by which truth is attained, reasoning and observation, have been carried to their greatest known perfection in the physical sciences. As classical literature furnishes the most perfect types of the art of expression, so do the physical sciences those of the art of thinking. Mathematics, and its application to astronomy and natural philosophy, are the most complete example of the discovery of truths by reasoning; experimental science, of their discovery by direct observation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Can the biologist undertake to interpret life with purely mechanical principles; can he reconcile the purposiveness of organisms with the mechanical theory of causation? Will the psychologist, who deals with states of mind or consciousness, be able to account for the existence of these from the physicist's principles, atoms and motion? A science is needed that will consciously and methodically aim to bring order into this chaos, that will consider all the facts, and, if possible, unify these facts. ”

“ We cannot expect men who work with books chiefly to have much in common with men whose lives are passed in laboratories. But, after differences of this kind, the next most important are differences in the modes of reasoning. Of the natural sciences, we have, first, the classificatory sciences, which are purely inductive—systematic botany 153and zoölogy, mineralogy, and chemistry. Then, we have the sciences of theory, as above explained—astronomy, pure physics, etc. Then, we have sciences of hypothesis—geology, biology, etc. ”

“ The same distinction could very easily be shown to be the foundation of every other science. All the physical sciences have this in common, that they are researches into what is real as distinguished from what is apparent, that is, from what lies exposed and obvious on the very surface of things. ”

“ These scholars and inquirers, with Bacon, believe that the only science is general science. What they want to know is not what instruments we use, our processes, our technique, and the thousand and one details of the experiments on which we spend our lives in the laboratory. ”

“ The same mind is measuring the same environment, only with carefully devised instruments of precision instead of arm's lengths or stone's throws and rules of thumb. In a word, science is merely the ordinary consciousness highly developed, not without considerable abstraction, into critically conscious method and clearest possible perception. Indeed, perhaps without myself clearly knowing all my reasons, I am constrained to say that science is related to ordinary perception very much as the inventor's consciousness of his wonderful flying-machine to the simple sensations of a bird. ”

“ And all the sciences have recourse to similar inventions,—such as the electron, or the ion, or energy regarded as a substance, and in mathematics the sublimated, space-transcending concepts. Looking through the eyes of science, we are taught to see, underlying the grossest forms of matter, imaginary entities which are well-nigh metaphysical in nature. Science starts from the realm of the sensible, and constructs its super-rarefied devices on mechanical models. ”

“ The greatest triumph of the scientific revolution was, arguably, the advent of the kind of experimental method that still underlies most science today: the fundamental insight that we could get a better handle on the natural world by manipulating it through experiment was, to a large degree, the most important conceptual leap of the era. ”

“ This happened to you because you have no conception of a synthetical, systematic science, but know only collations of the sayings of wise men. Each science is to you a sand-pile, whereof each grain is existing and complete in itself, and comprehensible even as a grain of sand. But you know nothing of a science as an organic and self-organizing body. ”

“ It is, first of all, necessary to understand the method of experimental science. One of the greatest tasks of the next few generations is to give to the human sciences something of the same certainty, something of the same possibility of accumulating tested knowledge, that has marked the natural sciences since their new start made, let us say, by Francis Bacon's "Novum Organum." ”

“ INTRODUCTION. IN order to the acquisition of any such exact and real knowledge of nature as that which we properly call Physical Science, it is requisite, as has already been said, that men should possess Ideas both distinct and appropriate, and should apply them to ascertained Facts. ”

“ And in this series or ramification of the sciences, the more general science will not suffice to solve the problems of the more special. Chemistry embraces phenomena which are not explicable by Physics; Biology embraces phenomena which are not explicable by Chemistry; and no biological generalization will enable us to predict the infinite specialities produced by the complexity of vital conditions. ”

“ Such a logic will not fear the challenge of science, for it is precisely this continuity that makes possible experimentation, which is the fundamental characteristic of scientific procedure. Science without experiment is indeed a strange apparition. ”

“ Yes, science to-day, at the close of this nineteenth century, in the laboratory is discovering and scientifically demonstrating the great, immutable laws upon which the inspired and illuminated ones of all ages have based all their teachings, those who by ordering their lives according to the higher laws of their being get in a moment of time, through the direct touch of inspiration, what it takes the physical investigator a whole lifetime or a series of investigators a series of lifetimes to discover and demonstrate. ”

“ The legitimate aim of all systematic, exact experiments is to lay a foundation of well-ascertained and closely related facts on which may be developed a superstructure of science to supersede the theoretical speculations which form an important part of the prelude of scientific discovery. ”