Secondary quality

“ Our method of acquiring "knowledge" is limited to a process of establishing quantities, but we can by no means help feeling the difference of quantity as differences of quality. Quality is merely a relative truth for us ”

“ Let us strive to realize that we influence more by what we are than by what we do or what we say; and that what we say and do derives its quality from our quality. And quality is felt in toto, while of quantity a census and appraisal must needs be made. ”

“ Under current conditions the only authentic standard must be based, not upon the social influence of the work, but upon its quality; and a standard of this kind, while it falls short of being complete, must always persist as one indispensable condition of final excellence. ”

“ Anything that is somewhat at all may be said to be or to have a quality. But on the other hand we may prefer to use quality specially of those diversities which are developed when wholes are analyzed into terms and relations. And, when we ask if there can be qualities without relations, this distinction becomes important. ”

“ Secondly, to perceive the height of any excellence, it is necessary to have the most exquisite sense of that kind of excellence through all its gradations: to perceive the want of any excellence, it is merely necessary to have a negative or abstract notion of the thing, or perhaps only of the name. Or, in other words, any the most crude and mechanical idea of a given quality is a measure of positive deficiency, whereas none but the most refined idea of the same quality can be a standard of superlative merit. ”

“ In the same manner, therefore, as a quality is an attribute grounded on the fact that a certain sensation or sensations are produced in us by the object, so an attribute grounded on some fact into which the object enters jointly with another object, is a relation between it and that other object. ”

“ Now what is common to all these three instances? It is obvious that the only thing that can be common to them all is the quality of order, the quality which is the result and creation of the ordering power of man. ”

“ A quality, whether psychical, physical, emotional, or quantitative, is always regarded as something distinct from its substratum; a thing which possesses any quality, consists, therefore, of that quality and a substratum, and should not be called one. ”

“ The first such issue is that of quality and how it is measured. Formal higher education has developed a set of quality measures based on a specific relationship between the education provider and the student. ”

“ Though quantity must count for something, even in the comparison of poet with poet, since quantity implies copiousness, and usually implies versatility, quality counts for much more, if the difference in quality be marked, and suffices to abolish the consideration of quantity altogether, if the superiority in respect of quality be sufficiently great. ”

“ This consideration calls us in our studies to strive more to attain to correct insight than to increase our learning, and to lay it to heart that the quality of knowledge is more important than its quantity. ”

“ We determine quality by a critical inspection of the general contour of the body, its relative size, the adaptation of its parts to each other, the color and grain of the skin, the relative harmony of the features, the relative brightness of the eyes, the color and texture of the hair, the movements of the body, the tone of the voice, and the rapidity of mental process. To determine quality accurately may sometimes require a series of experiments on the individual, and the success of the examiner will of course depend on his own acuteness of perception and judgment. ”

“ This system solves the problem of distribution with quantity as the determining factor. The factor of quality is far more subtle and would seem to involve the existence of a judging body who should determine the grade to which any given individual belonged. The exceptional man would then be rewarded according to the grade of excellence he had attained, which would be a rough method of recognising merit. ”

“ They exhibit a worthy conception of what is involved in qualification for judgment either about the quality of present industrial relations or about the directions in which or the means by which we should seek for change. ”

“ Output increases where records are kept. Under Traditional Management there is the danger that pressure for quantity will affect quality, especially if insufficient records of the resultant quality are kept. Under Transitory and Scientific Management, quality is maintained or improved, both because previous records set the standard, and because following records exhibit the quality.
Results to the Worker. — James says, "A man's social use is the recognition which he gets from his mates. ”

“ This work is also technical, requiring knowledge gained more or less from the sciences of psychology, penology, and sociology, and skill gained from experience in the application of scientific principles. Whether they do their work as employes of the state or as members of the domestic or of the ecclesiastical institutions is not at all a matter of concern, seeing that the quality of knowledge and skill for which they are employed is the same in either case. ”

“ It is true that what is commonly meant by difference of quality, in the strict sense, always is a difference of intrinsic nature: two things cannot differ in quality without differing in intrinsic nature ”

“ Empirical psychology has established the fact that we can know a quality only by means of its contrast with or similarity to another. By contrast and agreement a thing is referred to a correlate, if this term may be used in a wider sense than usual. The occasion of the introduction of the conception of reference to a ground is the reference to a correlate, and this is, therefore, the next conception in order. ”

“ In considering or designing any kind of work the first and most essential condition is the quality of material that has to be used. "You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." And what is true materially is true also mentally; the character of a people is the essential basis of all their institutions and government. ”

“ At this preliminary stage, however, though we concentrate our attention on the quality, we still remain aware of the whole fact in which the quality has its setting. Classification carries the work of limitation a stage further. “Things” are a stage further removed from actual fact than qualities are since, while qualities are classes of facts, “things” are only classes of qualities. ”

“ Scientific Management determines exactly what quality as well as what quantity of work is needed, and the method prescribed is that one not only of lower costs, but which fits the particular need of the particular occasion most accurately.
Workers are kept under pressure for quality, yet the pressure is not irksome, because the worker understands exactly what quality is desired, and what variations from exactness are permitted. ”

“ He may possess a well-balanced organization as to temperament and cerebral development, but without the element of delicate quality he will be utterly incapable of those mental processes requiring delicate shades of thought.
Sol Smith Russell—Quality Responsive.
The individual who unites the elements of strong and delicate quality will exhibit both power and fineness. He will be able to display more versatility of talent than the individual possessing the element of strength or delicacy alone. ”

“ All this process of classification is natural and nearly unconscious, and results in a better understanding and interpretation of the things around him.
Observe next the work of an educated adult, and how he increases and arranges his knowledge. If he is an incipient dry-goods merchant he learns by sight and touch to detect the quality of goods. ”

“ As his faculties unfold she adds quality after quality to his list: progressing from hardness and softness to roughness and smoothness, from colour to polish, from simple bodies to composite ones—thus constantly complicating the problem as he gains competence, constantly taxing his attention and memory to a greater extent, constantly maintaining his interest by supplying him with new impressions such as his mind can assimilate, and constantly gratifying him by conquests over such small difficulties as he can master. ”

“ Our present contention is that the mind shall be filled up with the best quality of raw stuff, otherwise there will be defect and deficiency in its later products. The stuff out of which concepts are built is drawn from the varied experiences of life. On account of this intimate relation between the realities of life and school studies they cannot be separated. Every branch, especially in elementary studies, must be treated concretely and be built up out of sense materials. Every study has its concrete side, its illustrative materials, its colors of individual things taken from life. ”

“ The quality appears, in nature, as a modification of the substance, and as it is thus expressed, in language, by a modification of the noun substantive, which denotes that substance, the quality and the subject are, in this case, blended together, if I may say so, in the expression, in the same manner as they appear to be in the object and in the idea. ”

“ The first determination of Pure Being comes we when notice some property of the thing which is relatively persistent or stable, a quality; we also notice other qualities, and Being comes to us as a series of properties passing one after another. Further determination shows that a certain quality is in greater or lesser quantity; our representation is deepened by quality differentiated quantitatively within itself. ”

“ Sometimes the superior quality of these products is contemplated: and sometimes the new or improved appliances by which they are produced. When, again, we speak of moral or intellectual progress, we refer to the state of the individual or people exhibiting it; while, when the progress of Knowledge, of Science, of Art, is commented upon, we have in view certain abstract results of human thought and action. Not only, however, is the current conception of Progress more or less vague, but it is in great measure erroneous. ”

“ The quality of skilled work depends mainly on the standard required of the workman. If his judges and patrons belong to the discerning few who, knowing what is excellent, are intolerant of everything which falls short of excellence, the standard required will necessarily be a high one, and the standard required will be the standard attained. ”

“ We can therefore merely form the general notion of ‘quality’ in such a way as to lead us to seek further for the universal factor of all sensible qualities. Now since the classes of these qualities are altogether disparate,—warm and sweet, for example, having no common element in their content,—such universal factor lies solely in the form which our representation gives to them all. ”

“ Science has long since demonstrated the fact that every part of the human organization is susceptible to educational development. Quality, like every other modifying condition, is susceptible to development in either direction, and the success attending an effort to develop either strength, delicacy or responsiveness of quality in any given individual, will in all cases be commensurate with the intelligence and vigor of the efforts expended to that end. ”

“ Those who insist that the substrate of things is a quality common to all elements are bound to explain first the nature of this quality; then, how a quality could serve as substrate; how an unextended, immaterial (?) quality could be perceived in something that lacked extension; further, how, if this quality be determinate, it can be matter; for if it be something indeterminate, it is no longer a quality, but matter itself that we seek. ”

“ When we ascribe a quality to an object, we intend to assert that the object affects us in a manner similar to that in which we are affected by a known class of objects. A quality, indeed, in the custom of language, does not admit of individuality: it is supposed to be one thing common to many; which, being explained, means that it is the name of a resemblance among our sensations, and not a name of the individual sensations which resemble. ”

“ The moment a quality has been distinguished in a fact that fact has been fitted into a class, the class which consists of all the facts in which that quality can be distinguished. Thus, in our original illustration, when you first distinguished warmth, etc., you were beginning to fit your fact into classes: when you perceived warmth you fitted it into the class of warm objects, and it was the same with the other qualities of roughness, size and smell. ”

“ We have had to reject the idea that a standard of excellence can either be extracted by critical analysis from the practice of accepted models, or that it can be based on the consensus of experts, or upon universal suffrage. ”

“ This additional quality arises under the choices and action of men, just as the ordinary qualities constituting [379] anything a valuable arise under the choices and action of men. But it is an additional quality, distinctly conferred, and vastly important. The valuable chosen as Money was a Service to start with, was constantly rendered as such then and there, and was consequently fitted by qualities already possessed to assume a further and a unique quality, namely, the capacity to measure and express relatively to itself all other valuable Services whatever. ”

“ The latter method puts a premium upon accumulating information in the form of symbols. Quantity rather than quality of knowledge is emphasized; results that may be exhibited when asked for rather than personal attitude and method are demanded. ”

“ The objects themselves, which the mind can organize into a class, because they are identified as possessing common characteristics. When, however, a single abstracted quality is taken as a symbol of a class of objects, for example, when the quality bitterness becomes the symbol for the class of bitter things, there can be no real distinction between the abstracted quality and the class concept. ”