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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.

Claude Bernard

We must alter theory to adapt it to nature, but not nature to adapt it to theory.‎
CLAUDE BERNARD

Adapt Nature Theory
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
Science rejects the indeterminate.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Determination Rejection 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
The goal of scientific physicians in their own science … is to reduce the indeterminate. Statistics therefore apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still indeterminate.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Determination Fact Goal Reason Reduce Science
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
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
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
The first requirement in using statistics is that the facts treated shall be reduced to comparable units.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Compare Requirement Statistics Treat
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
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
Effects vary with the conditions which bring them to pass, but laws do not vary. Physiological and pathological states are ruled by the same forces; they differ only because of the special conditions under which the vital laws manifest themselves.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Condition Force Law Manifestation State
Those who have an excessive faith in their theories or in their ideas are not only poorly disposed to make discoveries, but they also make very poor observations.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Excess Faith Ideas Observation Poor Theory
A fact in itself is nothing. It is valuable only for the idea attached to it, or for the proof which it furnishes.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Attachment Evidence Fact Ideas Value
Priestley said that each discovery we make shows us many others that should be made.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Discover Science Show
First causes are outside the realm of science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Reason Science

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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