Order and reason, beauty and benevolence, are characteristics and conceptions which we find solely associated with the mind of man.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that qualities like order, reason, beauty, and kindness are unique to human thought.
Karl Pearson emphasizes in this quote that the attributes of order, reason, beauty, and benevolence are not found in nature or the animal kingdom, but are distinctively human traits. This assertion points to the belief that these qualities stem from the complexity of human cognition and are central to what makes us uniquely human, potentially elevating our existence above that of other beings.
In practice
During a philosophical debate on the nature of humanity, one could use this quote to illustrate the uniqueness of human qualities.
If I have put the case of science at all correctly, the reader will have recognised that modern science does much more than demand that it shall be left in undisturbed possession of what the theologian and metaphysician please to term its 'legitimate field'. It claims that the whole range of phenomena, mental as well as physical-the entire universe-is its field. It asserts that the scientific method is the sole gateway to the whole region of knowledge.
All great scientists have, in a certain sense, been great artists; the man with no imagination may collect facts, but he cannot make great discoveries.
The classification of facts and the formation of absolute judgments upon the basis of this classification-judgments independent of the idiosyncrasies of the individual mind-essentially sum up the aim and method of modern science. The scientific man has above all things to strive at self-elimination in his judgments, to provide an argument which is as true for each individual mind as for his own.
Statistics is the grammar of science.
That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.
The scientific method of examining facts is not peculiar to one class of phenomena and to one class of workers; it is applicable to social as well as to physical problems, and we must carefully guard ourselves against supposing that the scientific frame of mind is a peculiarity of the professional scientist.
When you have worn out your shoes, the strength of the show fiber has passed into your body.
It seems to me a worthy goal: try to create a representation of consciousness that's durable and truthful, i.e., that accounts, somewhat, for all the strange, tiny, hard-to-articulate, instantaneous, unwilled things that actually go on in our minds in the course of a given day, or even a given moment.
When you go into the space of nothingness, everything becomes known.
I sense the world might be more dreamlike, metaphorical, and poetic than we currently believe--but just as irrational as sympathetic magic when looked at in a typically scientific way. I wouldn't be surprised if poetry--poetry in the broadest sense, in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes, and designs--is how the world works. The world isn't logical, it's a song.
You cannot slander human nature; it is worse than words can paint it.
In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.