Scientific knowledge

“ 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. ”

“ Now that science has entered into her kingdom and the vastness of her domain is willingly recognized,—for in a vital sense all that may be known by human ken, supported by evidence, presented in orderly arrangement, related to other knowledge, and developed by further study may be called science,—the busy problem is the infusion of the scientific method into all our ways of thinking, its application to all the various kinds of beliefs that affect our ideals, our working conceptions, and our actions. ”

“ Prominent attention has been also devoted to those various sciences which help to a better understanding of the nature of man, to the bearings of science upon the questions of society and government, to scientific education, and to the conflicts which spring from the progressive nature of scientific knowledge. ”

“ And, therefore, in ancient times, down to even a very recent date, until the appearance of scientific science, man’s highest wisdom consisted in finding that guiding thread, according to which the knowledge of men should be classified as being of primary or of secondary importance. And this knowledge, which forms the guide to all other branches of knowledge, men have always called science in the strictest acceptation of the word. ”

“ But in each of those sciences we shall obtain solid and complete systems of knowledge, only so far as we study, with steady thought and careful observation, that peculiar kind of cause which is appropriate to the phenomena under our consideration. ”

“ It implies a clear account of what that is which entitles any portion of knowledge to the designation of scientific, what the methods are by which vague, and narrow or imperfect knowledge may become science, what the principles may be which mark off one science into a province distinct from another, and what the bond of connexion among all the sciences is, with the scale of their relative value and importance, and the place of each as a part of that organic whole into which the philosophic mind seeks to mould all its knowledge. ”

“ Other portions of our physical knowledge approach more or less nearly to the dignity of scientific, in proportion as their parts are joined in the tie of defined relations which, as the first principles of the science, at once unite and explain them. ”

“ So far, indeed, as this persuasion of a connexion among apparently different kinds of agencies, impels men, engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, to collect observations, to multiply, repeat, and vary experiments, and to contemplate the result of these in all aspects and relations, it may be an occasion of the most important discoveries. ”

“ The application of the principle which I have been enforcing, of learning to know man through Nature, the thorough knowledge of his environment, and of those of his relations to it which constitute his life, must clearly be the foundation of a scientific medicine. ”

“ For the conclusions stated in the present work, respecting knowledge and discovery, are drawn from a connected and systematic survey of the whole range of Physical Science and its History; whereas, hitherto, philosophers have contented themselves with adducing detached examples of scientific doctrines, drawn from one or two departments of science. ”

“ Now there do exist among us doctrines of solid and acknowledged certainty, and truths of which the discovery has been received with universal applause. These constitute what we commonly term Sciences; and of these bodies of exact and enduring knowledge, we have within our 4 reach so large and varied a collection, that we may examine them, and the history of their formation, with a good prospect of deriving from the study such instruction as we seek. ”

“ "The phrase 'popular science' has in itself a touch of absurdity. That knowledge which is popular is not scientific. ”

“ Man constructed a science of numbers, of the stars, of molar and molecular masses, of plants, of stones, and of creeping things, before he realized that he was himself an object capable of receiving scientific attention. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In any special natural science, a scientific description appears as an adjustment, express, conscious, exact, of the internal structure of a system of ideas to the external structure of a world of preexistent facts; and the business of science has been repeatedly defined, of late years, as simply and wholly taken up with the exact description of the facts of nature. ”

“ Natural science has become so vastly extended, its recorded facts and its unanswered questions so immensely multiplied, that every strictly scientific man must be a specialist, and confine the researches of a whole life within a comparatively narrow circle. ”

“ For complete science, however, we need the aid of every special science,—of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Physiology, Anatomy, Psychology, and all the other branches which can contribute to any side of our knowledge of nature. ”

“ I am not a practical chemist seeking the mysteries of nature in the laboratory, nor a professional scientist exploring the fields of original research; but, like La Place, Comte, Herbert Spencer and others, I formulate my theories and scientific hypotheses from the latest and best established facts of science as I see it. ”

“ Seen in its subjective aspect, each of the steps in the growth of this adjustment is a recognition of a scientific law, the perception of the permanency of a relation between external phenomena; for science is simply the recognition of the order of nature. ”

“ Whatever subjects involve accessible and observable phenomena, one causing another, or in any way related to another, belong properly to science for investigation. Intellect, feeling, human action, language, education, history, morals, religion, law, commerce, and all social relations and activities, answer to this condition; each has its basis of fact, which is the legitimate subject matter of scientific inquiry. ”

“ I understand the word science in its old acceptation; a deep rational research into the first principles of things and the origin of our knowledge. At no epoch of history, I dare to say, has this research been carried on by more passionate lovers, by more powerful intelligences, by more magnanimous hearts, than the Mendicant monks of the thirteenth century. ”

“ Aims at a critical comparison of scientific methods of thought, with special reference to the relations between biology and the " exact sciences " of chemistry and physics.
"Interesting and valuable . . . original and striking . . . should be read and studied by all thinking men and women." — Education. ”

“ 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 ”

“ That same science which fills our cabinets and herbariums, and chambers of natural history, with mute stones and shells and plants and dead birds and insects—that same science that fills our scientific volumes with coloured pictures true as life itself, and letter-press of prose description—that same science that anatomises the physical frame with microscopic nicety,—in the hand of its master, found in the soul, that which had most need of science ”

“ My success in your cause must be attributed to my having followed the path of experiment and induction discovered by philosophers who have preceded me: willingly would I divide your plaudits with other men of science, and claim much for the general glory of scientific discovery in a long course of ages. ”

“ One of the urgent needs of modern physical science is a thorough investigation of the nature, methods, and aids of scientific cognition, and thus of the nature of its real limits, chiefly in the light of the teachings of comparative philology and comparative psychology. ”

“ Our Science has been built on the labours of scientific men in past ages. New generalisations imagined by one thinker, new crucial experiments devised by another, new instruments of observation invented by another,—these have been the steps by which Science has grown and established its authority and enlarged its dominion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My object has been gained if I have been able to make clear to you that it is possible to present the science of chemistry as a systematic body of truths independent of the mass of details with which the science is usually encumbered, and make the study a most valuable means of training the power of inductive reasoning, and thus securing the great end of scientific culture. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I do not mean the mechanical sciences alone, physical astronomy and the like, though these undoubtedly have a prerogative value as the instruments of such a culture; but the like effect will be promoted by the exact and solid study of any portion of the circle of natural sciences; botany, comparative anatomy, geology, chemistry, for instance. But I say the exact and solid knowledge; not a mere verbal knowledge, but a knowledge which is real in its character, though it may be elementary and limited in its extent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In examining, therefore, the truths which science has revealed to us, it is advantageous, for the purpose of fixing the mind to the subject, that we assume certain conditions as true. These may be stated in a few sentences, and then, without wasting a thought upon those metaphysical subtleties which have from time to time perplexed science, and served to impede the progress of truth, we shall proceed to examine our knowledge of the phenomena which constantly occur around us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For the latter half of the eighteenth century, when the foundations of our modern science were being rapidly laid, a considerable list might be given of early publications of similar scientific bodies. ”

“ But I would like to call attention here to what appears to me a fundamental condition of scientific work and thereby a necessary result of scientific training. Science is naught if not exact. Accurate observation, accurate record, accurate deduction from data, all of which may be reduced to simple, plain honesty. Anything else is error, not science. ”

“ It cannot be doubted that the analogy of the natural sciences has indirectly helped the tendency towards a scientific rigour in the provinces of scholarship at which we have glanced. The whole atmosphere of our century has been charged with the influences of science—the science which has made this age so memorable in the history of material progress ”

“ When will professed scientists, better informed of the close connection between metaphysics and science, whence our modern knowledge of Nature has sprung, better taught in the necessary laws that govern the conflict of reason with the vast unknown, confess that there are realities beyond those they attain? ”

“ We have dwelt long enough on these generalities, and it is time to come down to commonplaces, and to inquire what are the essential conditions of this scientific culture which shall fit us to investigate Nature; and the first thought that occurs to me in this connection may be expressed thus: Science presents to us two aspects, which I may call its objective and its subjective aspect. Objectively it is a body of facts, which we have to observe, and subjectively it is a body of truths, conclusions, or inferences, deduced from these facts ”