Results

“ It may not be of interest to all to discuss the process by which results are attained when what is most desired are the results themselves. But in truth the two parts of this study cannot well be separated. ”

“ How, indeed, can any man, and how more especially can any man of scientific culture, think special results of special political acts can be calculated, when he contemplates the incalculable complexity of the influences under which each individual, and a fortiori each society, develops, lives, and decays? The multiplicity of these factors is illustrated even in the material composition of a man's body. ”

“ I have now passed in rapid review what may perhaps without exaggeration be referred to as an array of conditions and theories, ideals and policies. It remains to refer to the actual results which have come about during these sixty years as respects them, or because of them; and, finally, to reach if possible conclusions as to the causes which have affected what may not inaptly be termed a process of general evolution. ”

“ An enlarged perception of what have been the previous results may enable us to see what results are possible, and among them to select what may be worthy ends. It is not to be supposed that we shall ever get beyond the need of constant and careful experiment. ”

“ We can be more sure of the accuracy of our results in comparing two groups of children of a thousand each, than we could in the attempt to measure accurately a single individual with regard to ability in school subjects. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is, however, equally obvious that if nothing is to matter but success, the attainment of results, the results for which everything is thus sacrificed, and for which innumerable complex side-issues are swept away, must be of the highest importance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the outset, we distinguish the province of Reason, in which is included the calculation of the results of actions, and the devising of the best means for accomplishing a desired end without incurring pains and inconveniences. If a certain end is desired, the intellect has to forecast the outcome of different modes for effecting the desired result, and to discern that which secures the end with the fewest drawbacks. ”

“ We cannot, therefore, too carefully endeavour to verify our theory, by comparing, in the particular cases to which we have access, the results which it would have led us to predict, with the most trustworthy accounts we can obtain of those which have been actually realized. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It must be said that in some of these fields the results have as yet borne little theoretic fruit commensurate with the great labor expended in their acquisition. But facts are facts, and if we only get enough of them they are sure to combine. New ground will from year to year be broken, and theoretic results will grow. ”

“ They want that fine balance, that accurate self-measurement and knowledge of results, which goes by the name of common-sense and is the best manifestation of brains they can give, and the thing which men most prize. ”

“ But to predict what has not been observed, is to attempt ourselves to use the legislative phrases of nature; and when she responds plainly and precisely to that which we thus utter, we cannot but suppose that we have in a great measure made ourselves masters of the meaning and structure of her language. The prediction of results, even of the same kind as those which have been observed, in new cases, is a proof of real success in our inductive processes. ”

“ Of course, it is insufficient merely to study the individual manifestations of human capacities, for these may be accidental results or phenomena, determined by unknown factors. Our task consists in attaining abstractions in accord with careful and conscientious perceptions, and in finding each determining occasion in its particular activities. ”

“ But in the end it is a necessity: we are concerned chiefly with the best and clearest results, and it is only the few who care to follow the elaborate details of effort and progress, often painful and obscure. ”

“ But no study is likely to be fruitful of results if carried on without a system. The majority of those who pursue knowledge for its own sake pursue it after an aimless and desultory fashion. ”

“ While the most direct results are acquired by systematic experiments with a given point in view, still general observations carefully recorded by competent persons, are important for the interpretation which a great many such records may afford in the end. In the multitude of experiences here, as everywhere, there is strength. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer. ”

“ The various causes, natural and artificial, which educate the human body or the human mind, have for their principal effect, not to make the body or mind immediately do any thing, but to endow it with certain properties—in other words, to give assurance that in given circumstances certain results will take place in it, or as consequences of it. ”

“ Hence, estimating life by multiplying its length into its breadth, we must say that the augmentation of it which accompanies evolution of conduct, results from increase of both factors. The more multiplied and varied adjustments of acts to ends, by which the more developed creature from hour to hour fulfills more numerous requirements, severally add to the activities that are carried on abreast, and severally help to make greater the period through which such simultaneous activities endure. Each further evolution of conduct widens the aggregate of actions while conducing to elongation of it. ”

“ THE surprising consequences which have attended investigations in natural science have excited among the representatives of historical and speculative studies a desire to reach results of corresponding value by the application of observation and analysis to the affairs of life. ”

“ Our fathers valued change for the sake of its results; we value it in the act. ”

“ This conclusion which objective science illustrates, and subjective science shows to be unavoidable,—this conclusion which, while it in the main expresses the doctrine of the English 99school of philosophy, recognizes also a soul of truth in the doctrine of the antagonist German school—this conclusion which brings the results of speculation into harmony with those of common sense; is also the conclusion which reconciles Religion with Science. ”

“ The laws of mind as characterized in the preceding chapter, compose the universal or abstract portion of the philosophy of human nature; and all the truths of common experience, constituting a practical knowledge of mankind, must, to the extent to which they are truths, be results or consequences of these. Such familiar maxims, when collected a posteriori from observation of life, occupy among the truths of the science the place of what, in our analysis of Induction, have so often been spoken of under the title of Empirical Laws. ”

“ In conclusion, let me thank you most heartily for your kindness and attention, and assure you that the honor I have had in addressing such a distinguished audience, the pleasure I have had in presenting these results to a gathering of so many able men—and among them also some of those in whose work for many years past I have found enlightenment and constant pleasure—I shall never forget. ”

“ URLs are everywhere. Most obviously, they appear at the top of the browser window while people are using your website, but they also appear in a myriad of other contexts: in the status bar when someone has the mouse over a link, in search results, in emails, in blogs, read over the phone, written down on napkins, listed in bibliographies, printed on business cards and t-shirts and mousepads and bumper stickers. ”

“ And finally the process of judgment and appraisal, of examination and revaluation. To judge for the sake of judging, to analyze and evaluate for the sake of the process hardly seems worth while. But if we supply the process with the new factors of increased life, physical, social, intelligent, we shall be compelled to new valuations. ”

“ Each fresh item of knowledge is like a new step upon a ladder, and raises us to a fresh height from which we can take a wider survey, and which we can assume as a loftier and broader basis for further enquiry. ”

“ If we were in this way to make a survey of the whole world, we should encounter an immeasurable mass of the most various and, according to our ideas, the strangest notions, as to what is proper and improper. ”

“ In each of these subjects, we first, either with or without the aid of experiment, make observations, record facts, compare them, and draw conclusions from our comparisons; we also group the facts, and the conclusions, in every possible way, and then draw other conclusions; we also analyse, combine, and permutate the various truths arrived at, and cross examine the evidence in every possible manner in order to extract from it the greatest amount of new knowledge. ”

“ Nothing, therefore, would be more urgently required than calm reflection, a quiet survey of the whole field, so as to ascertain what there is calling for transformation, and what the means are, and where and how proper material can be found, to execute it. ”

“ The causes being given, we may know what will be their effect, without an actual trial of every possible combination; since the causes are human feelings, and outward circumstances fitted to excite them: and, as these for the most part are, or at least might be, familiar to us, we can more surely judge of their combined effect from that familiarity, than from any evidence which can be elicited from the complicated and entangled circumstances of an actual experiment. ”

“ Before applying the doctrine of chances to any scientific purpose, the foundation must be laid for an evaluation of the chances, by possessing ourselves of the utmost attainable amount of positive knowledge. ”

“ For by extending the base of observation over a long period, errors due to personal equation, change of circumstance, and other temporary causes, are eliminated from the survey, and the seeker after truth is thus furnished with a trustworthy criterion by which he may verify his conclusions. ”

“ Without such a survey we shall find ourselves floating aimlessly among the clouds of fancy instead of treading, with sure foothold, the solid ground of fact. At this point, more perhaps than at any other of our history, a definite, accurate, and comprehensive inventory of conditions is essential. ”

“ Let me, in concluding these observations, sum up in a few words some other advantages which you may derive from history. It is, I think, one of the best schools for that kind of reasoning which is most useful in practical life. It teaches men to weigh conflicting probabilities, to estimate degrees of evidence, to form a sound judgment of the value of authorities. ”

“ This is a quantitative matter, a matter of gradual improvement, of early training, of educational experiment. Only impatience prompts the belief in the possibility of sudden improvement. The gradual improvement that is possible, and the methods by which it may be achieved, are a matter for future science. ”

“ For, once launched on this line of hypothesis and inference, with a Supreme Governor assumed, and the task thrown upon us of making out what he means us to infer and what we may suppose him to do and to intend, one of us may infer one thing and another of us another, and neither can possibly prove himself to be right or his adversary to be wrong. ”

“ Foresight of possible consequences leads to more careful and extensive observation of the nature and performances of the things he had to do with, and to laying out a plan—that is, of a certain order in the acts to be performed. ”

“ The mere classification of examples of successful inquiry, to which our rules give occasion, is full of interest for the philosophical speculator. And if our maxims direct the discoverer to no operations which might not have occurred to his mind of themselves, they may still concentrate our attention on that which is most important and characteristic in these operations, and may direct us to the best mode of insuring their success. ”

“ But when we see how wide and complex is the range of speculation to which our analogy has referred us, we may well be disposed to pause in our review of science;—to survey from our present position the ground that we have passed over;—and thus to collect, so far as we may, guidance and encouragement to enable us to advance in the track which lies before us. ”