Great Throughts Treasury

"In a word, I consider hospitals only as the entrance to scientific medicine; they are the first field of observation which a physician enters; but the true sanctuary of medical science is a laboratory; only there can he seek explanations of life in the normal and pathological states by means of experimental analysis."

"In experimentation, it is always necessary to start from a particular fact and proceed to the generalization....but above all, one must observe. (+)"

"In every enterprise... the mind is always reasoning, and, even when we seem to act without a motive, an instinctive logic still directs the mind. Only we are not aware of it, because we begin by reasoning before we know or say that we are reasoning, just as we begin by speaking before we observe that we are speaking, and just as we begin by seeing and hearing before we know what we see or what we hear."

"In science the important thing is to modify and change one's ideas as science advances."

"In teaching man, experimental science results in lessening his pride more and more by proving to him every day that primary causes, like the objective reality of things, will be hidden from him forever and that he can only know relations."

"In science, the best precept is to alter and exchange our ideas as fast as science moves ahead."

"In the organism, physiology is the executive branch; but the legislative branch is creation."

"In the patient who succumbed, the cause of death was evidently something which was not found in the patient who recovered; this something we must determine, and then we can act on the phenomena or recognize and foresee them accurately. But not by statistics shall we succeed in this; never have statistics taught anything, and never can they teach anything about the nature of the phenomenon."

"In the sciences, there is doubtless a very close connection between observation and experimentation. Nevertheless, it is necessary to distinguish them because (otherwise) everything would become confused."

"In the philosophic sense, observation shows and experiment teaches."

"In these researches I followed the principles of the experimental method that we have established, i.e., that, in presence of a well-noted, new fact which contradicts a theory, instead of keeping the theory and abandoning the fact, I should keep and study the fact, and I hastened to give up the theory."

"Indeed, proof that a given condition always precedes or accompanies a phenomenon does not warrant concluding with certainty that a given condition is the immediate cause of that phenomenon. It must still be established that when this condition is removed, the phenomen will no longer appear."

"It has often been said that, to make discoveries, one must be ignorant. This opinion, mistaken in itself, nevertheless conceals a truth. It means that it is better to know nothing than to keep in mind fixed ideas based on theories whose confirmation we constantly seek, neglecting meanwhile everything that fails to agree with them."

"It is generally agreed that synthesis re-unites what analysis has divided, and that synthesis therefore verifies analysis, of which it is merely the counterproof or necessary complement."

"It is impossible to devise an experiment without a preconceived idea; devising an experiment, we said, is putting a question; we never conceive a question without an idea which invites an answer. I consider it, therefore, an absolute principle that experiments must always be devised in view of a preconceived idea, no matter if the idea be not very clear nor very well defined."

"It is of the greatest importance to consider the influence of the nervous system on the chemical phenomena of the organs, for it is by this influence that the living being is in contact with everything, and everything can then act upon it. There is the true terrain of the influence of mind over matter."

"It is that which we do know which is a great hindrance to our learning that which we do not know."

"It is said: medicine is the art of healing. Rather, one should say that medicine is the science of healing. The aim of medicine is to arrive at a cure scientifically and not empirically. The problem that medical practice must resolve is thus immense, for it is necessary to embrace both physiology and pathology before one can achieve a scientifically valid treatment."

"It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning."

"It's what we think we know that keeps us from learning."

"Laplace considers astronomy a science of observation, because we can only observe the movements of the planets; we cannot reach them, indeed, to alter their course and to experiment with them. On earth, said Laplace, we make phenomena vary by experiments; in the sky, we carefully define all the phenomena presented to us by celestial motion. Certain physicians call medicine a science of observations, because they wrongly think that experimentation is inapplicable to it."

"Man does not limit himself to seeing; he thinks and insists on learning the meaning of phenomena whose existence has been revealed to him by observation. So he reasons, compares facts, puts questions to them, and by the answers which he extracts, tests one by another. This sort of control, by means of reasoning and facts, is what constitutes experiment, properly speaking; and it is the only process that we have for teaching ourselves about the nature of things outside us."

"Man can learn nothing unless he proceeds from the known to the unknown."

"Man is forced to be free for this reason alone; that he has a conscience and judgement. His liberty flows from this. He is free to do good or bad; but when he has done bad, remorse proves to him that he was free, and that he could have done otherwise, had he so wished."

"Men who believe too firmly in their theories, do not believe enough in the theories of others. So ... these despisers of their fellows ... make experiments only to destroy a theory, instead of to seek the truth."

"Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge"

"Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge. It is in the darker. It is in the darker regions of science that great men are recognized; they are marked by ideas which light up phenomena hitherto obscure and carry science forward."

"Now, a living organism is nothing but a wonderful machine endowed with the most marvellous properties and set going by means of the most complex and delicate mechanism."

"Observation, then, is what shows facts; experiment is what teaches about facts and gives experience in relation to anything."

"One enlarges science in two ways: by adding new facts and by simplifying what already exists."

"Men who have excessive faith in their theories or ideas are not only ill prepared for making discoveries; they also make very poor observations. Of necessity, they observe with a preconceived idea, and when they devise an experiment, they can see, in its results, only a confirmation of their theory. In this way they distort observation and often neglect very important facts because they do not further their aim."

"Observation is a passive science, experimentation is an active science."

"One carries out an observation or experiment, but once the observation or experiment is carried out and confirmed, one reasons, and it is then that all the explanations can present themeselves, as they are coloured by each one's own mind."

"Our feelings lead us at first to believe that absolute truth must lie within our realm; but study takes from us, little by little, these chimerical conceits."

"Our ideas are only intellectual instruments which we use to break into phenomena; we must change them when they have served their purpose, as we change a blunt lancet that we have used long enough."

"Particular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science."

"Philosophy concerns itself with the beginning and the end of things. It is those extremes which challenge us. Science does not concern itself with either the beginning or the end: it deals with the present."

"Progress is achieved by exchanging our theories for new ones which go further than the old, until we find one based on a larger number of facts. ... Theories are only hypotheses, verified by more or less numerous facts. Those verified by the most facts are the best, but even then they are never final, never to be absolutely believed."

"Put off your imagination, as you put off your overcoat, when you enter the laboratory. Put it on again, as you put on your overcoat, when you leave."

"Proof that a given condition always precedes or accompanies a phenomenon does not warrant concluding with certainty that a given condition is the immediate cause of that phenomenon. It must still be established that when this condition is removed, the phenomena will no longer appear."

"Priestley [said] that each discovery we make shows us many others that should be made."

"Science does not permit exceptions."

"Science proceeds by revolution, and not by addition, pure and simple. This holds for theories, which are always successive."

"Science admits no exceptions; otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science."

"Real science exists, then, only from the moment when a phenomenon is accurately defined as to its nature and rigorously determined in relation to its material conditions, that is, when its law is known. Before that, we have only groping and empiricism."

"Science increases our understanding in proportion as it lowers our pride."

"Science rejects the indeterminate."

"Speaking concretely, when we say ?making experiments or making observations,? we mean that we devote ourselves to investigation and to research, that we make attempts and trials in order to gain facts from which the mind, through reasoning, may draw knowledge or instruction."

"Science repulses the indefinite."

"Speaking in the abstract, when we say ?relying on observation and gaining experience,? we mean that observation is the mind's support in reasoning, and experience the mind's support in deciding, or still better, the fruit of exact reasoning applied to the interpretation of facts. It follows from this that we can gain experience without making experiments, solely by reasoning appropriately about well- established facts, just as we can make experiments and observations without gaining experience, if we limit ourselves to noting facts."