Scientific terminology

“ 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. ”

“ A scientific classification, on the other hand, aims at the utmost comprehensiveness, ransacking the whole world from the depths of the earth to the remotest star for new objects, and scrutinising everything with the aid of crucible and dissecting knife, microscope and spectroscope, to find the qualities and constitution of everything, in order that it may be classed among those things with which it has most in common and distinguished from those other things from which it differs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hence, while Chemistry and Biology, even apart from the possibility of their conversion into branches of applied Mechanics, are essentially descriptive sciences, the task fulfilled by them, so far as they use qualitative and teleological categories, is one of æsthetic and historical rather than of properly scientific description. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For the classification of the sciences it is convenient to prepare the way by distinguishing between theoretical sciences which are the sciences properly so called, and practical science. A theoretical science embraces a distinct department of nature, and is so arranged as to give in the most compact form the entire body of ascertained (scientific) knowledge in that department, such as mathematics, chemistry, physiology, and zoology. ”

“ 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 is one of the most valid recommendations of any classification to the character of a scientific one, that it shall be a natural classification in this sense also; for the test of its scientific character is the number and importance of the properties which can be asserted in common of all objects included in a group ”

“ In the absence of such a Classification, it is only by viewing departments of the Universe with reference to the Method or Process employed in the investigation of their Phenomena, that we are able to estimate their present relations to Science, and to ascertain proximately their Scientific or Unscientific character. We proceed, then, to examine the connection of History, in its present development, with Science, a task to which the foregoing brief and incomplete consideration of the subject of Method has been a necessary preliminary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is well stated by one of our most experienced investigators when he says:
'Methods run with the manners and customs of the ages. In science there is no one method that can be considered indispensable. Attributes are indispensable; observation, industry, accuracy are indispensable ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These sciences are essentially sciences concerning organisms. During the epoch in question, and indeed also at the present moment, the prestige of the more perfect scientific form belongs to the physical sciences. ”

“ According to the notions of scientific order and completeness in the present day, a full course of the primary sciences would comprise mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, physiology or biology, and mental philosophy. ”

“ Science: the Knowledge of the Laws of Nature obtained by Observation, Experiment, and Reasoning. No line can be drawn between common knowledge of things and scientific knowledge; nor between common reasoning and scientific reasoning. In strictness all accurate knowledge is Science; and all exact reasoning is scientific reasoning. The method of observation and experiment by which such great results are obtained in science, is identically the same as that which is employed by every one, every day of his life, but refined and rendered precise. ”

“ Natural history has to describe and class bodies as they are. All which cannot be perceived by the senses, belongs not to its domain, as molecules, atoms, elements.
Natural history50 may have recourse to physics or chemistry in order to recognize those properties of bodies which serve as characters; but natural history is not, on that account, physics or chemistry. Classification is the essential business of the natural historian51, to which task chemistry and physics are only instrumental, and the further account of properties only complementary. ”

“ At first it is probable that our principal experimental work must be the illustration of particular branches of science, but as we go on we must add to this the study of scientific methods, the same method being sometimes illustrated by its application to researches belonging to different branches of 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We must here therefore be considerably involved in questions affecting theories which have gained wide favor in scientific circles, as well as with clearly recorded and certain results. Some general questions, such as that affecting the classification of animals, must be regarded as peculiarly scientific. ”

“ Here, as in all other branches of knowledge, the meaning of words is to be sought in the progress of thought; the history of science is our 258 dictionary; the steps of scientific induction are our definitions. It is only by going back through the successful researches of men respecting the composition and elements of bodies, that we can learn in what sense such terms must be understood, so as to convey real knowledge. ”

“ Whether we examine the course of the planets or the world of the animalculæ; to whatever field of physical nature our research is turned, the uniform, invariable result of scientific enquiry is to show that even the most apparently irregular and surprising phenomena are governed by natural antecedents, and are parts of one great connected system. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is true that the laws which result from experiments of this class, owing to the fact that the very complex organism—the human being—is being experimented with, are subject to a larger number of exceptions than is the case with laws relating to material things. ”

“ These two great instances of the reform of scientific language, in Botany and in Chemistry, are much the most important and instructive events of this kind which the history of science offers. It is not necessary to pursue our historical survey further. Our remaining Aphorisms respecting the Language of Science will be collected and illustrated indiscriminately, from the precepts and the examples of preceding philosophers of all periods16. ”

“ It is only the empirical arrangement into series of plants and animals that has been modified from time to time, in accordance with the scientific elevation of their several departments, or just as discoveries and anatomical investigations have increased, and rendered some other position of the objects a matter of necessity. ”

“ This scientific conception of causation has been developed and rendered definite by the investigations of those physical sciences that can avail themselves of exact experiments and mathematical calculation; and it is there, in Chemistry and Physics, that it is most at home. The conception can indeed be carried into the Biological and Social Sciences, even in its quantitative form, by making the proper allowances. For the limbs of animals are levers, and act upon mechanical principles ”

“ 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. ”

“ We recognise this when we divide science into that which is experimental, or depends on apparatus, and that which is observational and classificatory—distinctions these which relate not so much to the objects of science as to our methods of pursuing them. ”

“ I shall thus have to trace some of the most remarkable branches of human knowledge, from their first germ to their growth into a vast and varied assemblage of undisputed truths; from the acute, but fruitless, essays of the early Greek Philosophy, to the comprehensive systems, and demonstrated generalizations, which compose such sciences as the Mechanics, Astronomy, and Chemistry, of modern times. ”

“ By sciences the various kinds of experimental knowledge are meant, such as physics, astronomy, chemistry, mechanics, geometry, anatomy, psychology, philosophy, the history of kingdoms and of the literary world, criticism, and languages. ”

“ Indeed, if at the present moment we run over the names distinguished in the several sciences into which Natural Knowledge may be divided—in Physics, in Chemistry, in Botany, in Zoology—we find but few investigators who can be said to have thoroughly mastered the whole range of any one of them. ”

“ 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. ”