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First causes are outside the realm of science.

Claude Bernard

When entering on new ground we must not be afraid to express even risky ideas so as to stimulate research in all directions. As Priestley put it, we must not remain inactive through false modesty based on fear of being mistaken.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Afraid Direction Fear Ground Ideas Mistake Modesty Risk
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
The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Himself Philosophy Research Understand
Experiment is fundamentally only induced observation.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Fundamental Observation
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
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
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
The first requirement in using statistics is that the facts treated shall be reduced to comparable units.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Compare Requirement Statistics Treat
Science rejects the indeterminate.
CLAUDE BERNARD

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

Lower Ourselves Power Pride Science
We must alter theory to adapt it to nature, but not nature to adapt it to theory.‎
CLAUDE BERNARD

Adapt Nature Theory
We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Confirm Control Experiment Simplicity
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
Man can learn nothing unless he proceeds from the known to the unknown.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Learning Man Unknown
Everything is poisonous, nothing is poisonous, it is all a matter of dose.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Amount Poison Portion
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Average Darkness Greatness Knowledge Man Recognition Science
In the philosophic sense, observation shows and experiment teaches.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Observation Philosophy Teaching
True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Doubt Ignorance Science Teaching True
If I had to define life in a single phrase, I should clearly express my thought of throwing into relief one characteristic which, in my opinion, sharply differentiates biological science. I should say: life is creation.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Character Clear Creation Expression Life Science
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
First causes are outside the realm of science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Reason Science
Science does not permit exceptions.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Exception One Liner Science
But while I accept specialization in the practice, I reject it utterly in the theory of science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Acceptance Myself Practice Science Theory
Particular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Establishment Fact General 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

First causes are outside the realm of science.

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First causes are outside the realm of science.

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