We must remain, in a word, in an intellectual disposition which seems paradoxical, but which, in my opinion, represents the true mind of the investigator. We must have a robust faith and yet not believe.
The stability of the internal medium is a primary condition for the freedom and independence of certain living bodies in relation to the environment surrounding them.
The better educated we are and the more acquired information we have, the better prepared shall we find our minds for making great and fruitful discoveries.
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.
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.
A contemporary poet has characterized this sense of the personality of art and of the impersonality of science in these words,-‘Art is myself; science is ourselves. ‘
Well-observed facts, though brought to light by passing theories, will never die; they are the material on which alone the house of science will at last be built.
