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When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.

Claude Bernard

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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Delicate Live Mechanism Organism Property Wonderful
Obervation is a passive science, experimentation is an active science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Active Experiment Observation Passive 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
We must alter theory to adapt it to nature, but not nature to adapt it to theory.‎
CLAUDE BERNARD

Adapt Nature Theory
The science of life is a superb and dazzlingly lighted hall which may be reached only by passing through a long and ghastly kitchen.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Kitchen Life Light Reach Science
The eloquence of a scientist is clarity; scientific truth is always more luminous when its beauty is unadorned than when it is tricked out in the embellishments with which our imagination would seek to clothe it.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Beautiful Imagination Ourselves Science Truth
In the philosophic sense, observation shows and experiment teaches.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Observation Philosophy Teaching
In science, the best precept is to alter and exchange our ideas as fast as science moves ahead.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Ahead exchange Fast Ideas Move Science
The first requirement in using statistics is that the facts treated shall be reduced to comparable units.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Compare Requirement Statistics Treat
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
We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Confirm Control Experiment Ideas Simplicity
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Better Discover Education Information Mindset
The true worth of an experimenter consists in his pursuing not only what he seeks in his experiment, but also what he did not seek.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Himself Seek True Worth
A great discovery is a fact whose appearance in science gives rise to shining ideas, whose light dispels many obscurities and shows us new paths.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Appearance Discovery Greatness Light Path Rise Shift
The investigator should have a robust faith – and yet not believe.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Believe Faith Investigate
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
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Imagination Leaving Science Yourself
Science increases our power in proportion as it lowers our pride.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Lower Ourselves Power Pride Science
Particular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Establishment Fact General Science
We achieve more than we know. We know more than we understand. We understand more than we can explain.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Achievement Explanation Team Work Understand
Science rejects the indeterminate.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Determination Rejection Science
When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Abandonment Acceptance Believe Conflict Fact Intuition Support Theory
The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Himself Philosophy Research Understand
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
Science does not permit exceptions.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Exception One Liner Science
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Body Environment Freedom Independence Live Medium Stability
The terrain is everything; the germ is nothing.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Germs Insect Land Terrain

When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.

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When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.

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