The Method of Scientific Investigation科学研究的方法
2011-04-18 21:31阅读：
The Method of Scientific Investigation科学研究的方法
The method of scientific investigation is nothing
but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human
mind; it is simply the mode by which all phenomena are reasoned
about and given precise and exact explanation.
科学研究的方法不过是人类思维活动的必要方式的表达，也就是对一切现象进行思索并给以精确而严谨解释的方式。There is no more
difference, but there is just the same kind of difference, between
the mental operations of a man of science and those of an ordinary
person, 科学家的思维运作与普通人的没有太大的不同，但也会有些差异，as there is between the
operations and methods of a baker or of a butcher weighing out his
goods in common scales, 正如面包师和屠夫以相同的标准称量他们物品的方法和操作and the
operations of a chemist in performing a difficult and complex
analysis by means of his balance and finely graded weights.
以及化学家在通过天平和精细的分级砝码执行一项困难且复杂的分析所进行的操作一样It is not that the scales in
the one case, and the balance in the other, differ in the
principles of their construction or manner of working; but tha
t the latter is a much finer apparatus and of course much more
accurate in its measurement than the former.
这并不是说面包师或卖肉者所用的磅秤和化学家所用的天平在构造原理或工作方式上存在差别，而是说与前者相比，后者是一种更精密得多的仪器，因而在计量上必然更准确得多。
You will understand this better, perhaps,
if I give you some familiar examples.看了我下面给你的这些例子，可能你会对此理解的更好You
have all heard it repeated that men of science work by means of
induction and deduction, that by the help of these operations,
they, in a sort of sense, manage to extract from Nature certain
natural laws, and that out of these, by some special skill of their
own, they build up their theories.
你们都多次听说过，科学家是用归纳法和演绎法工作的；在某种意义上说，他们用这些方法力求从自然界找出某些自然规律；然后他们根据这些规律，用自己的一些特殊的本领，建立起他们的理论。And
it is imagined by many that the operations of the common mind can
be by no means compared with these processes, and that they have to
be acquired by a sort of special training.
许多人以为普通人的思维活动根本无法与科学家的思维过程相比，还认为这些思维过程必须经过某种专门训练才能掌握。To hear all
these large words, you would think that the mind of a man of
science must be constituted differently from that of his fellow
men; 听了这些虚幻的话语，你可能会认为科学家与其他人的思维一定不一样but if you will not be
frightened by terms, 但如果这些术语没把你吓到的话you will discover that you are
quite wrong, 你会发现你错了and that all these terrible apparatus are being
used by yourselves every day and every hour of your lives.
因为这些糟糕的仪器在你的生活中每时每分的由你支配使用着There is a well-known incident in one of
Moliere’s plays, 莫里哀的剧中有一个著名的事件where the author makes the hero
express unbounded delight on being told that he had been talking
prose during the whole of his
life.在被告知他在谈论整个生活中的平凡时，作者让男主人公表达出了无比的高兴In the same way, I trust
that you will take comfort, and be delighted with yourselves,
同样，我相信你也会很舒服，也会为你高兴on the discovery that you have been acting on
the principles of inductive and deductive philosophy during the
same period.同时，如果你发现你正在运用归纳和演绎哲学理论原则的时候，你也会很高兴
Probably there is not one here who has not
in the course of the day had occasion to set in motion a complex
train of reasoning, of the very same kind, though differing in
degree, as that which a scientific man goes through in tracing the
causes of natural phenomena.
大概不会有人一整天都没有机会进行一连串复杂的思考活动，这些思考活动与科学家在探索自然现象原因时所经历的思考活动，尽管复杂程度不同，但在性质上是完全一样的。
