Searching

“ "What should I possibly have to tell you, oh venerable one? Perhaps that you're searching far too much? That in all that searching, you don't find the time for finding?" ”

“ there was no clue to what he looked for, but he looked for something, with a most intent and searching gaze. ”

“ As we shall see later, the most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquiring the attitude of suspended conclusion, and in mastering the various methods of searching for new materials to corroborate or to refute the first suggestions that occur. To maintain the state of doubt and to carry on systematic and protracted inquiry—these are the essentials of thinking. ”

“ But such ephemeral discoveries are simply indicative of an unhappily general tendency among modern scientists—that of hastening to announce discoveries, and to attach one's name to something new, before the supposed discovery has been submitted to the test of searching experiment. ”

“ These search mechanisms work well if one is searching for something very precise, such as information on a person who has an unusual name, but they produce a confusing number of references if one is searching for a topic which can be quite broad. ”

“ There is one who understands their intent to be that the preferred practice is to search at night (Magen Avraham, comment 3) . This explanation does not suffice, since we already have seen established that searching by sunlight is for those who did not search at night [and why then the repetition?] ”

“ For similar reasons it is a great aid in looking for an object to know what to look for; to be readily found, the object, though lost to sight, should be to memory clear. Searching is a mental process similar to the matching of a piece of fabric in texture or color, when one has forgotten the sample and must rely upon the remembrance of its appearance. If the recollection is clear and distinct, recognition takes place when the judgment decides that what the physical eye sees corresponds to the image in the mind's eye; with an indistinct mental image the recognition becomes doubtful or faulty. ”

“ The Spirit searcheth all things; yea, the deep things of God. To search, indeed, is a word used in condescension to our common mode of speaking, as we arrive to the knowledge of things by searching, or enquiry, though this idea is to be abstracted from the word, when applied to God; for him to search, is to know all things; and, in this sense, it is used, in Psal. ”

“ Such questions, which lie at the very threshold of the temple of inquiry, show us how hard is our task of getting below our labels, our names of things, and pursuing investigation more than a single remove from appearance. ”

“ The more cautious searcher often follows with uncertain mind, and doubtless in his backward glances sees many fairer and heavier sheaves than those he bears with full arms, from the fruitful harvest. If, then, you do not find here dwelt on such geographical phases as you judge most important, attribute the fact I pray you, not to neglect, but to lack of observation, or to the exercise of an undiscriminating judgment. ”

“ And consider the joy of finding things you don't hope to find. You, sir, sitting at your spotless desk, with your ordered and labelled shelves about you, and your files and your letter-racks, and your card indexes and your cross references, and your this, that, and the other—what do you know of the delights of which I speak? You do not come suddenly and ecstatically upon the thing you seek. You do not know the shock of delighted discovery. ”

“ Some, parching with the thirst of knowledge, seek to slake the fever of their minds with most laborious research; explore the utmost regions of the globe to find a shorter marine passage; or pierce into its depths to seek for treasures which only exist in their heated fancies. ”

“ I meditate and inquire into the mystery of the universe unceasingly; 155 but in the background of my inquiry, from time to time a solution appears, a discovery which urges my exploring mind onward. Mystery itself is not mystery unless it be known as such, and then it becomes knowledge. Inquiry is therefore at once a research and a discovery. ”

“ In such an extensive and distant survey, numerous subjects of inquiry, though not strictly nautical, will suggest themselves to your active mind; and though, from your transient stay at any other place, you will often experience the mortification of leaving them incomplete, yet that should not discourage you in the collection of every useful fact within your reach. ”

“ 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. ”

“ First of all, what is all the search and seeking for? It is your search that takes you away from the natural state you always are in. All your seeking is in the wrong direction. Wouldn't you remain in your natural state forever if your search stopped? ”

“ The search after truth is like the search after perpetual motion or the attempt to square the circle. All we should aim at is the most convenient way of looking at a thing—the way that most sensible people are likely to find give them least trouble for some time to come. ”

“ Those months of unavailing search stood always out luridly in his memory, and because his search was a thing that could accommodate itself to no rule except to follow faint trails into all sorts of places, he grew to an astonishing familiarity with parts at least of the town whose boast it is that no man knows it. ”

“ At the same time the thoroughly unpractical searcher, who allows his attention to be distracted and does not confine himself to the strict object of his search, is constantly rewarded by the discovery of entries, quaint, amusing, or grimly significant, throwing a light upon the lives of men and women whose very names perished out of memory centuries ago. ”

“ Hitherto Power had come to men by chance, but now there were these seekers seeking, seeking among rare and curious and perplexing objects, sometimes finding some odd utilisable thing, sometimes deceiving themselves with fancied discovery, sometimes pretending to find. ”

“ In like manner as the field of investigation is somewhat shifted in the second petition, so the manner of investigation is correspondingly different. 'Search' is the divine scrutiny of the inner man by the eye; 'test' is the trial as metals are tried and proved by the fiery furnace. ”

“ We gratify our curiosity at times at no little cost. In the search after strange manners, the traveler may have to adopt them; in inspecting the various conditions under which men can live, we must often subject ourselves to these conditions, and thus acquire practical experience in place of theoretical knowledge. ”

“ It will search every place of possible concealment for food, examine critically any object of interest, will rifle a pocket, stand upright and watch every motion of man or animal, and indeed show a marked desire for all sorts of knowledge. ”

“ Your discovery may be, for that matter, renewed every week; the only essential is the good luck—which a fair amount of practice has taught you to count upon-of not finding, for the particular occasion, other discoverers in the field. ”

“ In sorting out the confused data of our experience it has generally been assumed that the object of the quest is to find out all that really exists. There is another quest not less appropriate to the nature of our experience—to find out all that really becomes. ”

“ In these studies the field of investigation has been greatly extended beyond that examined by the old philosophers and physiologists. Beyond the usual activities in which we constantly see the mind engaged—observation of surroundings made by the senses, memory of them, reasoning about [Pg 317] them, and putting them in new combinations in science, literature, or art—new activities have been observed, activities lying entirely outside the old lines, in new and hitherto unexplored fields. ”

“ The diligence with which you endeavour to cultivate the knowledge of nature, manners, and life, will perhaps incline you to pay some regard to the observations of one who has been taught to know mankind by unwelcome information, and whose opinions are the result, not of solitary conjectures, but of practice and experience. ”

“ The prime object of the nineteenth century investigator was to accumulate observed facts about the material universe, to find theories to interpret those facts, and perhaps ultimately to lay bare the innermost secrets of Nature. ”

“ Here I may remark that the requirement to concentrate the mind on the locality and direction sought for all the time the search is being made is one that few, if any, can perfectly fulfill. Any number of distracting thoughts will go through the best-trained mind of one who, in company with a blindfolded operator, is being led furiously up and down aisles, halls, streets, and stairways, fearful each moment of stumbling or striking his head, and followed, it may be, by astonished and eager investigators. ”

“ You must search for all kinds of truth,—historical, political, scientific, and religious,—with much reading, much observation, and much reflection. And those who have searched longest and dug deepest will always be found to be the most temperate, patient, and forbearing with those who have not yet found the truth. ”

“ The value of the discovery will, in most cases, be commensurate with the difficulty of the search, and the difficulty itself, the healthful exercise of your mental powers, will form not a small portion of the pleasure. ”

“ The best mode of exciting the love of observation is by teaching 'How to Observe.' With this end it was originally intended to produce, in one or two volumes, a series of hints for travellers and students, calling their attention to the points necessary for inquiry or observation in the different branches of Geology, Natural History, Agriculture, the Fine Arts, General Statistics, and Social Manners. ”

“ Given an investigating spirit, it follows that every investigator must work with singleness of purpose, in his search for facts, that is, for truth; and that this truth, when found, is to be held, not as a personal acquisition, but as a good to be shared with all. ”

“ In such noble and sublime studies as these, 'tis a glory to arrive at probability, and the search itself rewards the pains. But there are many degrees of probable, some nearer to the truth than others, in the determining of which lies the chief exercise of our judgment. ”

“ When people search in that way, unless they get discouraged, their search is apt to come to something; unless, indeed, they are going after a mirage, and it was no mirage that hovered before Esther,—no vision of anything, indeed ”

“ If the object of search prove a phantom, in the wild scenes of a new and unexplored country there are other objects of interest; but if real, besides the glorious excitement of such a novelty, they will have something to look back upon through life. ”

“ It is the curious property of well-directed inquiry into any branch of natural knowledge, that the thirst for such investigations generally goes on increasing with the indulgence; and what is equally or more to the purpose, the motives to perseverance are proportionably augmented. ”

“ We find that now, as in the days of the earliest physical speculations, all physical researches appear to converge toward the same point, and every inquirer, as he looks forward into the dim region toward which the path of discovery is leading him, sees, each according to his sight, the vision of the same quest. ”

“ With the same suggestion of investigation and discovery, the same phrase is employed in other places; as, for instance, when the Apostle Paul speaks about being 'found naked,' or as when he speaks about being 'found in Him, not having mine own righteousness.' So, then, there is some process of examination or investigation, resulting in the discovery, possibly for the first time, of what a man really is. ”

“ We find that the scope and character of the observations change at once when the investigator sets about gathering as much of the material as he can secure, and changes constantly as he formulates tentative hypotheses for the solution of the problem, which, moreover, generally changes its form during the investigation. ”

“ It is this group, of course, which gives high importance to the whole inquiry; which makes the study of inward vision no mere curiosity, but rather the opening of an inlet into forms of knowledge to which we can assign no bound. ”

“ But if the trained investigator turns his attention specially to any one scene, or wishes to call it up before him, an extraordinary change at once takes place, for this is the plane of thought, and to think of anything is to bring it instantaneously before you. ”

“ But our opponents must remember that when inquiry is entered upon amid the blinding mists of philosophic preconception and historic prejudice the best instruments of investigation will fail to overcome the condition of "low visibility" which confronts the seeker. The searchlight is of little use in a fog. ”

“ It is fundamental that the search include the most logical source of information—those persons with immediate access to necessary facts who are willing to cooperate in the interest of the common good. ”

“ Before completing the circle of inquiry by a return with fuller knowledge to the point from which we started, it is necessary to discuss a seventh way of dealing with the problem, which professes to be alone the truly scientific method. ”