–Thomas Jefferson (letter to James Smith, 1822. ME 15:409)
Source: Wikipedia entry on Hillel the Elder.
Update (9:37 AM): This is a quote we should all take to heart. We should be principled and fundamentally independent in our thinking and in our pursuit of happiness, material prosperity, and life. Because life and reason are worth it. And we should take it serious now, not put it all off for some imaginary future time.
Attributed to Francis Bacon. However, I could not find this quote in a search of:
From In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, as quoted by Michael Gerber in The E Myth Revisited (ISBN 0-88730-728-0), p. 118.
In the Introduction to A Treatise on Political Economy the author, Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832), makes some insightful comments on all science:
I.1
A SCIENCE only advances with certainty, when the plan of inquiry and the object of our researches have been clearly defined; otherwise a small number of truths are loosely laid hold of, without their connexion being perceived, and numerous errors, without being enabled to detect their fallacy.
…I.5
The wide range taken into the field of pure politics, whilst investigating the subject of political economy, seemed to furnish a much stronger reason for including in the same inquiry agriculture, commerce and the arts, the true sources of wealth, and upon which laws have but an accidental and indirect influence. Thence what interminable digressions! If, for example, commerce constitutes a branch of political economy, all the various kinds of commerce form a part; and as a consequence, maritime commerce, navigation, geography—where shall we stop? All human knowledge is connected. Accordingly, it is necessary to ascertain the points of contact, or the articulations by which the different branches are united; by this means, a more exact knowledge will be obtained of whatever is peculiar to each, and where they run into one another.
I.6
In the science of political economy, agriculture, commerce and manufactures are considered only in relation to the increase or diminution of wealth, and not in reference to their processes of execution. This science indicates the cases in which commerce is truly productive, where whatever is gained by one is lost by another, and where it is profitable to all; it also teaches us to appreciate its several processes, but simply in their results, at which it stops. Besides this knowledge, the merchant must also understand the processes of his art. He must be acquainted with the commodities in which he deals, their qualities and defects, the countries from which they are derived, their markets, the means of their transportation, the values to be given for them in exchange, and the method of keeping accounts.
I.7
The same remark is applicable to the agriculturist, to the manufacturer, and to the practical man of business; to acquire a thorough knowledge of the causes and consequences of each phenomenon, the study of political economy is essentially necessary to them all; and to become expert in his particular pursuit, each one must add thereto a knowledge of its processes. These different subjects of investigation were not, however, confounded by Dr. Smith; but neither he, nor the writers who succeeded him, have guarded themselves against another source of confusion, here important to be noticed, inasmuch as the developments resulting from it, may not be altogether unuseful in the progress of knowledge in general, as well as in the prosecution of our own particular inquiry.I.8
In political economy, as in natural philosophy, and in every other study, systems have been formed before facts have been established; the place of the latter being supplied by purely gratuitous assertions. More recently, the inductive method of philosophizing, which, since the time of Bacon, has so much contributed to the advancement of every other science, has been applied to the conduct of our researches in this. The excellence of this method consists in only admitting facts carefully observed, and the consequences rigorously deduced from them; thereby effectually excluding those prejudices and authorities which, in every department of literature and science, have so often been interposed between man and truth. But, is the whole extent of the meaning of the term, facts, so often made use of, perfectly understood?
I.9
It appears to me, that this word at once designates objects that exist, and events that take place; thus presenting two classes of facts: it is, for example, one fact, that such an object exists; another fact, that such an event takes place in such a manner. Objects that exist, in order to serve as the basis of certain reasoning, must be seen exactly as they are, under every point of view, with all their qualities. Otherwise, whilst supposing ourselves to be reasoning respecting the same thing, we may, under the same name, be treating of two different things.
I.10
The second class of facts, namely, events that take place, consists of the phenomena exhibited, when we observe the manner in which things take place. It is, for instance, a fact, that metals, when exposed to a certain degree of heat, become fluid.
I.11
The manner in which things exist and take place, constitutes what is called the nature of things; and a careful observation of the nature of things is the sole foundation of all truth.
In “The Median Isn’t the Message,” Stephen Jay Gould (evolutionary biologist who taught at Harvard University) wrote:
My life has recently intersected, in a most personal way, two of Mark Twain’s famous quips. One I shall defer to the end of this essay. The other (sometimes attributed to Disraeli), identifies three species of mendacity, each worse than the one before – lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Many people make an unfortunate and invalid separation between heart and mind, or feeling and intellect. In some contemporary traditions, abetted by attitudes stereotypically centered on Southern California, feelings are exalted as more “real” and the only proper basis for action – if it feels good, do it – while intellect gets short shrift as a hang-up of outmoded elitism. Statistics, in this absurd dichotomy, often become the symbol of the enemy. As Hilaire Belloc wrote, “Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death.”
This is a personal story of statistics, properly interpreted, as profoundly nurturant and life-giving. It declares holy war on the downgrading of intellect by telling a small story about the utility of dry, academic knowledge about science. Heart and head are focal points of one body, one personality.
Mr. Gould also goes on to discuss how the Platonic view that the type or kind is (most) real is false; what is true is the Aristotelian view that the individual (”variation”) is real. He says:
We still carry the historical baggage of a Platonic heritage that seeks sharp essences and definite boundaries. (Thus we hope to find an unambiguous “beginning of life” or “definition of death,” although nature often comes to us as irreducible continua.) This Platonic heritage, with its emphasis in clear distinctions and separated immutable entities, leads us to view statistical measures of central tendency wrongly, indeed opposite to the appropriate interpretation in our actual world of variation, shadings, and continua. In short, we view means and medians as the hard “realities,” and the variation that permits their calculation as a set of transient and imperfect measurements of this hidden essence. If the median is the reality and variation around the median just a device for its calculation, the “I will probably be dead in eight months” may pass as a reasonable interpretation.
But all evolutionary biologists know that variation itself is nature’s only irreducible essence. Variation is the hard reality, not a set of imperfect measures for a central tendency. Means and medians are the abstractions.
Notice how Mr. Gould is talking about kinds of things as being separate from variation, shadings, and continua. I don’t know if he’d say everything was like that, even individuals, but if so, I’d have to disagree: individuals are distinct and separate; this is given clearly (by real, immutable cause-effect relationships) in perception. Kinds of things, conceptual categories, come about only by recognizing things in their reality- and perceptually-given background of variation: tables grasped as related to but contrasted with furniture and other items in a house; trees grasped as related to but contrasted with grass and bushes; people grasped as related to but contrasted with other animals; engineers grasped as related to but contrasted with other human professions.
Concepts are only ways of categorizing individuals based on cause-effect and explanatory relationships. Individuals are most real; types or kinds are real, but have a “secondary, dependent existence” to individuals.
Someone wrote on the Internet — see a post on the Moomin Light blog and EDUCAUSE’s Edupage of 28 February 1999:
As for Fred Astaire’s dancing, both George Balanchine and Mikhail Baryshnikov called him the greatest, most original dancer of all time. A perfectionist, Astaire was uninterested in the advice of others, and wrote in his autobiography: “I believe that if you have something in mind in the way of creation, you are certain to come up with inaccurate criticism and damaging if you go around asking for opinions. It is the easiest thing in the world to become discouraged by a well-meant suggestions which may throw you off your original train of thought.” The perfectionism paid off. Movie director Rouben Mamoulian said, “Fred Astaire makes it look easy by only taking the greatest of pains. He works harder than any newcomer. He never lets up. You’d think his entire life and future depended on the outcome of each dance. He keeps at the top because he does the impossible — he improves on perfection.”
Read the rest of the post on Moomin Light. Good stuff.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance, and Ginger Rogers sings, in a clip from “Roberta”. I love how, at about the 5 minute mark, they talk and fight through dance and their feet, and I love the little slide they do when they are done fighting and they go back into closed hold.
HT: Henry S
Quote from a poem in “The Elephant’s Child” by Rudyard Kipling.
“A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.”
Quote from Yahoo! Education, which gives the attribution for this quote as: “William Blake (1757–1827), British poet, painter, engraver. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, plate 7, “Proverbs of Hell,” (c. 1793), repr. In Complete Writings, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (1957).”
I’d add that the same relationship applies between a poor or mediocre teacher and a good teacher — even if the former is not a fool! The wisdom of the latter is well worth the money…
“Man is not weak. … Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength.”
Quote from Samuel Johnson.com, which gives the attribution for this quote as “Johnson: Rasselas [Imlac] Note: If you haven’t read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from Rasselas.”
I’d add that mechanics relies on mathematics...
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