Research method

“ "You see, I went on with this research just the way it led me. That is the only way I ever heard of research going. I asked a question, devised some method of getting an answer, and got—a fresh question. Was this possible, or that possible? You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator, what an intellectual passion grows upon him. You cannot imagine the strange colourless delight of these intellectual desires. ”

“ All science is based upon experience and consists in subjecting the data furnished by the senses to a rational method of investigation. Induction, analysis, comparison, observation, experiment, are the chief instruments of such a rational method. ”

“ We see in many of the brute creation the exercise of one, at least, of the same powers of reasoning as that which we ourselves employ.
The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind. It is simply the mode at which all phenomena are reasoned about, rendered precise and exact. ”

“ Let us seek our foundation in the broadest possible contact with phenomena. I hold that the working test when brought to bear in its fullest, most intimate and severest forms is the supreme criterion of that which should stand to us for truth. Our interpretative effort should, therefore, be to organize a complete set of working hypotheses for all phenomena, physical, vital and mental, so far as appropriate to our sphere of research. These should be at once the basis of our philosophy and of our science. ”

“ It is the aim of the authors of these essays to present the results of experience in scientific investigation, to illustrate by concrete examples the sources of progress in a few departments of knowledge and so make clear to the layman the position of research as a factor in national prosperity. ”

“ Such matters as knowledge of the past, of current technique, of materials, of the ways in which one's own best results are assured, supply the material for what may be called general method. There exists a cumulative body of fairly stable methods for reaching results, a body authorized by past experience and by intellectual analysis, which an individual ignores at his peril. ”

“ Research defines its problem by isolating certain facts which appear for the time being not as the sense-data of a solipsistic mind, but as experiences of an individual in a highly organized society,207 facts which, because they are in conflict with accepted doctrines, must be described so that they can be experienced by others under like conditions. The ground for the analysis which leads to such facts is found in the conflict between the accepted theory and the experience of the individual scientist. ”

“ Do not some of the standard methods which are familiar in the descriptions or criticisms of scientific discovery, such as ‘reasoning from the known to the unknown’, ‘the adoption of a working hypothesis’, ‘the scientific use of the imagination’, often resolve themselves on analysis into the simple process of being struck by an analogy and being led by it to adopt an explanation or to try an experiment suggested by it? ”

“ But for the particular purpose of conducting discovery with a view to ascertainment of fact, the latter relations are fundamental. The more one emphasizes organization as a mark of science, then, the more he is committed to a recognition of the primacy of method in the definition of science. ”

“ In every one of all these conditions, man, in mind and body, must be studied by us; and every one of them offers some different problems for inquiry and solution. Wherever our duty or our scientific curiosity, or, in happy combination, both, may lead us, there are the materials and there the opportunities for separate original research. ”

“ His name will long survive as that of one of the ablest thinkers the world has produced, a reasoner of exceptional ability, whose scope of research covered all fields and whose discoveries in practical science formed the first true introduction to mankind of this great field of human study, to-day the greatest of them all. ”

“ This reform of logic, like all revolutions in science, should advance under the guidance of the scientific method. By the scientific method, I mean that method of obtaining and organizing knowledge which consists in defining, so far as is possible to expert human faculties, the boundaries between the possible and the probable, between the known and the unknown. ”

“ The answer which the man of science returns to this question, as to what is the use of his discovery, is, ‘I only tell you what is the interest of that discovery, that interest which compels and impels me to go on in the path of investigation.’ It is knowledge, mere knowledge of the facts and laws of nature, that the scientific mind seeks to gain. ”

“ They soon recognized that science is knowledge gained by certain methods of abstraction. Data had to be systematically collected, digested, classified, and impartially studied. The results of such studies had to be assembled and expressed in the most useful forms. Progress had to be made by the trial and error method and the results of experiments tested by synthesis as well as analysis; by induction as well as deduction. ”

“ Accordingly, what we should demand of investigators is not a creed, a philosophic system, but "the objective method in their researches and in the sources of their inductions." For this is the way to train the workers and philosophers of experimental science. ”

“ There are only two modes in which laws of nature can be ascertained—deductively and experimentally; including under the denomination of experimental inquiry, observation as well as artificial experiment. Are the laws of the formation of character susceptible of a satisfactory investigation by the method of experimentation? ”

“ The research which enables us to add to the sum of complete knowledge stands first; but second only stands the research which, while enabling us clearly to pose the problem, also requires us to say that with our present knowledge we can offer no complete solution. ”

“ Such is frequently the mission of the true discoverer, to leap over mounds of facts and figures, bring us back close to nature and show us that her movements are often far simpler than we dared imagine.
Thus far I have dealt with research as a thing by itself to be furthered by endowment and prosecuted by specially fitted men for the sake of its value to mankind. ”

“ And, in truth, there is scarcely any investigation in the whole body of a science requiring so high a degree of analysis and abstraction, as the inquiry, what the science itself is; in other words, what are the properties common to all the truths composing it, and distinguishing them from all other truths. ”

“ It is in the intermediate period that the opportunity is offered of extended research into the records of science, of confirming or correcting the results of reading and study by observation, of making original investigations into the worlds of matter and of thought, and thus bringing forth to the light truths which may benefit mankind, and at the same time serve as the basis of honor and success to their discoverer. ”

“ Great deficiencies remain to be supplied, and many vaguely-known points to be cleared up, nor has an effort even been made as yet to systematize all the groups of results gained. The latter task we propose to attempt here, with the purpose of showing by a remarkable instance the manner of evolving knowledge through the power of the experimental method, the sequent, cumulative, and mutually-supporting character of well-conducted experiments, and their endless wealth of instruction; in a word, the process adopted by eminent men in the great art of wresting her secrets from living Nature. ”

“ It is thus seen that, as already stated, in useful scientific investigation the object to be attained, the method to be employed, and the application to be made of the knowledge searched for, must all be considered in determining the distinction between genuine science and simple unguided intellectual activity or curiosity. ”

“ Let this first be recognized fully—the importance, which cannot be exaggerated, of a kind of study in which no man in England has had a regular training—and then we may proceed to consider the method by which this study may be raised to the prominence which it deserves. ”

“ The subject of our research is the individual human being.
1. The Objective Collecting of Single Facts.—In the gathering of data, our science makes use of two means of investigation, as we have already seen: observation or anthroposcopy; and measurement or anthropometry. In order to take measurements, we must know the special anthropometric instruments and how to use them; and in making observations, we must treat ourselves as instruments, that is, we must divest ourselves of our own personality, of every preconception, in order to become capable of recording the real facts objectively. ”

“ Hence in deciding upon the right method of education, an inquiry into the method of civilisation will help to guide us.
5. One of the conclusions to which such an inquiry leads, is, that in each branch of instruction we should proceed from the empirical to the rational. During human progress, every science is evolved out of its corresponding art. It results from the necessity we are under, both individually and as a race, of reaching the abstract by way of the concrete, that there must be practice and an accruing experience with its empirical generalisation, before there can be science. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They prove that, although the force of mechanics, physics, and chemistry are employed in the animal economy, there are also powers far beyond these limited forces, which must be studied also in biological research, if we are to learn how these physical may be overridden by mental forces. Without such correlation of knowledge we fail to realize the unity of Nature, and cannot attain to true science or proved knowledge. ”

“ The general aspect in which scientific research is viewed by many persons in this country, is that of a refined intellectual pursuit, which may be encouraged and honoured for the purpose of maintaining the tone of society. ”

“ We may call it analytical research work. The other kind is that done by the man of clear vision and wide outlook, mature enough to see that the analytical work is merely material for a bigger thing—call it what you will—the man who can take the information others have collected and impart it in the form of culture. ”

“ The method of reaching scientific knowledge through the inductive process, that is by the collection and comparison of data with a view to positive insight, will give greater meaning to the results. Interest is awakened and self-activity exercised at every step in the progress toward general truths. By the reflective habit these truths will be seen in their origin and causal connection, and the line of similarity, contrast, causal relation, analogy and coincidence will be thoughtfully traced. ”

“ The preliminary discrimination of method is the distribution of all phenomena among certain grand divisions.
⁠7. It is of vital importance to discriminate between a division of phenomena for purposes of study, and a separation of the phenomena thernselves.
⁠8. Since the sciences deal with different aspects of the same objective world, it follows that they must cooperate to give a complete account of reality.
⁠9. Scientific method has been developed historically first in application to inorganic phenomena, then to organic life, more recently to psychical and social phenomena. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In prosecuting our investigations into the science of education, therefore, our business is to study Nature in all the educational processes in which we find her occupied, and of which we shall find there are many;—to observe and collect facts;—to detect principles, and to discover the means employed in carrying them out, and the modes of their working;—to trace effects back to their causes, and then again to follow the effects through their various ramifications, to some ultimate end. ”

“ The Trend of Scientific Investigations.—While research is carried on in many lines, with many different objectives, it may be stated that intense study is devoted to the nature of matter and the direct connection of it with elemental forces. ”

“ Its object as a study is not to add to or to modify these materials, but to afford some coherent and systematic satisfaction for the intellectual curiosity which we all feel at times as to the general nature of the whole to which these various materials belong, and the relative truth and clearness with which that general nature is expressed in the different departments of experience. Its aim is the organisation, not the enlargement of knowledge. ”

“ Again, your training here has shown you how needful it is in scientific research to adopt thorough and exhaustive methods of procedure. The conditions to be taken into account are so numerous and complex, the possible combinations so manifold, before a satisfactory conclusion can be reached. A laborious collection of facts must be made. ”

“ A clear-cut conception of the purposes and methods of scientific investigation and of the scope of the several sciences is a dearly bought product of generations of well-directed, as also of misdirected, effort. ”

“ Within each area they have collected and compared a vast quantity of facts which form an indispensable preliminary to, and constitute the raw material for, a scientific treatment of the studies with which they are concerned. ”

“ General argument and information of all kinds may properly be employed in designing and choosing the best experiments, but specific experience on a limited scale and in closely proximate circumstances is the only sure guide in the complex questions of social science. ”