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The terrain is everything; the germ is nothing.

Claude Bernard

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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Forever Man Reality Relation Science Teaching
A man of science rises ever, in seeking truth; and if he never finds it in its wholeness, he discovers nevertheless very significant fragments; and these fragments of universal truth are precisely what constitutes science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Fragment Man Rise Science Seek Truth
The investigator should have a robust faith – and yet not believe.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Believe Faith Investigate
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Break Change Enough Ideas Instrument Intellectual Purpose
With the aid of these active experimental sciences man becomes an inventor of phenomena, a real foreman of creation; and under this head we cannot set limits to the power that he may gain over nature through future progress of the experimental sciences.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Active Creation Experiment Head Limitation Nature Progress Science
Theories are like a stairway; by climbing, science widens its horizon more and more, because theories embody and necessarily include proportionately more facts as they advance.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Climb Horizon Necessary Proportion Science Theory
Science admits no exceptions; otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Admit Determination Exception Science
Science increases our power in proportion as it lowers our pride.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Lower Ourselves Power Pride Science
The doubter is a true man of science: he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Believe Doubt Man Science True
We must keep our freedom of mind, and must believe that in nature what is absurd, according to our theories, is not always impossible.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Absurd Believe Freedom Impossible Mindset Nature
The mental never influences the physical. It is always the physical that modifies the mental, and when we think that the mind is diseased, it is always an illusion.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Illusion Influence Mental Mindset Thinking
But while I accept specialization in the practice, I reject it utterly in the theory of science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Acceptance Myself Practice Science Theory
The fact that knowledge endlessly recedes as the investigator is about to grasp it is what constitutes at the same time his torment and happiness.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Constitute End Fact Happiness Hard Time Knowledge
Particular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Establishment Fact General Science
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Believe Faith Intellectual Opinion Word
The first requirement in using statistics is that the facts treated shall be reduced to comparable units.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Compare Requirement Statistics Treat

The terrain is everything; the germ is nothing.

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The terrain is everything; the germ is nothing.

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