Scientific investigation

“ Both these books, as channels by which the experimental labours of each investigator reached the prepared and instructed public, exercised at once, and have continued ever since to exercise, an enormous effect on thought as well as on knowledge. They transformed the methods by which man approaches scientific investigation, and while they instructed they stimulated a new ardour for instruction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The hypothesis guiding a scientific investigation narrows the work only enough to give it point, and a well-chosen particular aim will have the same effect on any study.
Further than that, the consciousness in advance that any conclusions reached must be tested by actual conditions has only a good influence by nerving us to do our best; and the actual test is of value in informing us as to the degree of soundness of our ideas. ”

“ In considering the subject of experimentation, reason requires that we realize the necessary distinction between the methods employed in training students for a practical profession, and the exceptional position of the few geniuses who possess the rare combination of qualities essential to scientific investigation. ”

“ From time to time men of eminence, and fully competent, by their knowledge of biological phenomena, and their skill and accuracy in conducting scientific investigation, have made the most patient and careful examination of the evidence placed before them by the professed believers and practitioners of so-called magnetic, phreno-magnetic, electro-biological, and spiritualistic phenomena ”

“ The stage of investigation now reached requires us to consider recent advances in our knowledge of more complicated organisms. This leads into the line of observation disclosing steadily advancing complexity of structure, and brings us into contact with the claim that man be included within the area of scientific inquiry, and regarded as a more fully organized life to which lower orders are not only pointing, but actually tending. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And it was not only necessary to learn by scientific practice the difficult art of investigation, but the solution of mental problems was vitally dependent upon a species of knowledge which ordinary science alone could disclose. ”

“ Add to this the fact that every conclusion is not only based upon these fundamental scientific principles, but has been carefully verified by investigation and observation in not only hundreds but thousands of cases, and has been used daily for years under the trying conditions of actual commercial practice, and this science has passed out of the merely experimental stage. ”

“ If medical progress simply involved the investigation of inorganic Nature, the general public would be only learners, gladly receiving such information in geology, chemistry, astronomy, or physics, as specialists in those branches of physical science were good enough to impart to the unlearned. ”

“ It is this study which has given science its present-day prominence. In the world of intellect, doubtless, the most marked features in the history of the past century have been the extraordinary advances in scientific knowledge and investigation, and in the position held by the men of science with reference to those engaged in other pursuits. ”

“ In order to attain truth respecting biology, therefore, the facts concerning sensation and consciousness, and their relation with, or the way in which these new factors modify the facts of, physics and chemistry, must be carefully considered in this higher state, which we call life, or the investigation is not scientific, no matter how interesting as an intellectual exercise. ”

“ Such research should be carried on, if possible, in connection with the great body of serious scientific investigations, by persons of proved ability and clear moral sense, and the work should be cordially open to the observation of all earnest friends. ”

“ Those also who are in the profession can most fully estimate the real and beneficial results, both in surgery and medicine, derived from careful and persistent research, notwithstanding the severe disappointment often caused by the theoretical error and unjustifiable practice resulting from rivalry in erroneous methods of investigation. ”

“ Such research, reconciling by right methods of investigation intellectual activity with human conscience, would increase our knowledge and advance our well-being in accordance with the higher reason of the race. Only when thus guided by intelligence and conscience can biological research deserve the noble name of science. ”

“ All experiments made with an intelligent purpose by a scientific man or medical practitioner upon himself.
3. All experiments made with their consent upon physicians, surgeons, pathologists, medical students or other scientific men, who, aware of the nature of the investigation and of possible results, voluntarily offer themselves as "material." ”

“ In other words, modern science does not deal with such phenomena as are at the present day outside the range of the human intellect; and I venture to warn the reader that speculation concerning matters upon which we have as yet no scientific data is waste of time. Modern science is founded upon investigation and observation, and the evidence is always weighed as carefully and as impartially as are the statements of witnesses in a law court.
One naturally asks: “What is Evolution?” ”

“ Nearly all great modern scientific discoveries have been made by teachers of science and others, who spend a large portion of their lives in experimental investigation, searching for new truths, and not by persons who have hit upon them by accident. The greatest discoveries in physics and chemistry in modern times, were made chiefly by such men as Newton, Cavendish, Scheele, Priestley, Oersted, Volta, Davy and Faraday: all great workers in science. ”

“ Many persons in this country think that all scientific men are investigators, and that a portion of the funds of scientific institutions generally are expended upon investigation, but such is rarely the case. Many also consider that those scientific men who are applying new knowledge are discovering new truths. And nearly all persons look upon inventors as the only really practical scientific men, and upon discoverers as unpractical enthusiasts who spend their lives in pursuit of vague theories. ”

“ Anyone conversant with a single branch of Natural Science is aware that experiment, as well as observation, is necessary. Who would expect discoveries in physics, or in chemistry, without laboratories and experiments? Do not botanists investigate the functions of plants by dissection, by microscopic and chemical investigation, and by experiment? ”

“ Although we cannot always isolate our factors, control our processes, and otherwise apply scientific method, with results as conclusive as those obtained in laboratories of chemistry, physics, or biology, we need not therefore reject scientific method in favor of a rule-of-thumb. ”

“ In every department of science, when prosecuted far enough, these two great steps of investigation must succeed each other. The laws of phenomena must be known before we can speculate concerning causes; the causes must be inquired into when the phenomena have been 128 reduced to rule. In both these speculations the suppositions and conceptions which occur must be constantly tested by reference to observation and experiment. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The discernment of right methods of investigation lay ever open to his clear and cultivated intellect, and he knew well that there were cases in which the scalpel and experiments could not determine a question, and where the truth was only to be elicited by means of chemical agents and physical instruments. ”

“ The tests which we are making are given for the advancement of science and for the information of the person tested. By scientific means we will be able to separate characteristics derived from heredity and environment and to treat each class separately. ”

“ In the earlier stage of physical research, all observation and experiment lead forward to general results, which gain ready acceptance because they may be said to be involved in scientific procedure itself. ”

“ The Study of the Biological and Physical Sciences.—The last century is marked by scientific development along several {466} rather distinct lines as follows: the study of the earth, or geology; animal and vegetable life, or biology; atomic analysis, or chemistry; biochemistry; physics, especially that part relating to electricity and radioactivity; and more recently it might be stated that investigations are carried on in psychology and sociology, while mathematics and astronomy have made progress. ”

“ I replied truthfully, "even before my experience of this evening went so far toward convincing me. But, with the examples I have seen, I felt that true scientific control was lacking. With all their science, most of the investigators trust too greatly." ”

“ Nearly all our medical and surgical knowledge has been obtained by observation and study, either of the results of experiments made by ourselves, or by the course of nature for us; and the former is often attended by immeasurably less pain and expence than the latter. No one who has ever made in a proper manner new experiments, would venture to assert that valuable knowledge is not gained by them; and this statement is as correct of experiments in physiology as in all the other sciences. ”

“ Consequently, biological research, in order to be scientific, requires a special modification of method, because the new factors of sensation and consciousness come into play in biology—factors which do not exist in astronomy, or geology, in mechanics, physics, or chemistry. ”

“ By the continuance of patient, well directed researches, it is reasonable to expect much important evidence on this subject; and, from the improved state of collateral branches of knowledge, together with the addition of new sources, and methods of investigation, it may not be unreasonable to hope for an ultimate solution of these phenomena, no less complete, and consistent, than that of any other desideratum in physical science. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Science being proved truth, scientific method requires that all the factors which concern the subject of research shall be duly considered, in order to arrive at correct thought respecting the special subject of inquiry. ”

“ III. Scientific research in biology must be based upon close and extensive observation of the varying forms of animal life, under natural conditions, with post-mortem examination of the records left by health and disease. Experiments, whether for the repair of lesions or the cure of disease, can only become scientific when made upon the type of life to be benefited by the experiment. ”

“ And who that knows anything of the world can be silly enough to suppose for a moment that any empirical scheme can ever overthrow, or in the least harm, the established system of scientific medicine? It is founded upon reason and well-established truths, and is essentially the same everywhere, in all countries. Differences as to climate, modes of living, social and domestic habits, may to some extent vary medical treatment; but the essential principles of the science are acknowledged to be everywhere the same, among all Christian nations. ”

“ It is characteristic of the progress of research that as one proceeds the horizon broadens and new questions spring up in the pathway of the investigator. He does not solve the problems he sets out to solve, but opens a lot of new ones. This is one of the features of scientific research that make its votaries characteristically optimistic.
Experimental Work.—Among the recent influences tending to advance biology, none is more important than the application of experiments to biological studies. ”

“ In estimating the value of the various aspects of the study, it is shown that our knowledge of the composition of the tissues, organs, and fluids of the organism is derived entirely from chemical study and investigation. ”

“ According to the lights which they possess, they are guided often by the same motives which sway the civilized physician, and apply the same method of investigation employed by the enlightened scientist. ”

“ Instead of previously employing and paying scientific investigators to make experiments in physiological and chemical science, to enable us to combat it successfully, we vainly attempt to apply our present stock of chemical and physiological knowledge to ward off the difficulty. ”

“ It can hardly be said, however, that thinking and discernment have been advanced at the same rate as the mechanical helps to research. In becoming more intensive, the investigation of biological problems has lost something in comprehensiveness. That which some of the earlier investigators lacked in technique was compensated for in the breadth of their preliminary training and in their splendid appreciation of the relations of the facts at their disposal. ”