It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning. Claude Bernard More Quotes by Claude Bernard More Quotes From Claude Bernard Obervation is a passive science, experimentation is an active science. Claude Bernard observation passive science We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them. Claude Bernard experiments science ideas It is impossible to devise an experiment without a preconceived idea; devising an experiment, we said, is putting a question; we never conceive a question without an idea which invites an answer. I consider it, therefore, an absolute principle that experiments must always be devised in view of a preconceived idea, no matter if the idea be not very clear nor very well defined. Claude Bernard views science ideas The great experimental principle, then, is doubt, that philosophic doubt which leaves to the mind its freedom and initiative, and from which the virtues most valuable to investigators in physiology and medicine are derived. Claude Bernard medicine freedom science Il ne fallait jamais faire des expériences pour confirmer ses idées, mais simplement pour les contrôler. Claude Bernard experiments ideas In a word, I consider hospitals only as the entrance to scientific medicine; they are the first field of observation which a physician enters; but the true sanctuary of medical science is a laboratory; only there can he seek explanations of life in the normal and pathological states by means of experimental analysis. Claude Bernard life science mean 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 relief life science The constancy of the internal environment is the condition for free and independent life: the mechanism that makes it possible is that which assured the maintenance, with the internal environment, of all the conditions necessary for the life of the elements. Claude Bernard independent life science To be worthy of the name, an experimenter must be at once theorist and practitioner. While he must completely master the art of establishing experimental facts, which are the materials of science, he must also clearly understand the scientific principles which guide his reasoning through the varied experimental study of natural phenomena. We cannot separate these two things: head and hand. An able hand, without a head to direct it, is a blind tool; the head is powerless without its executive hand. Claude Bernard two science art A discovery is generally an unforeseen relation not included in theory. Claude Bernard theory discovery science 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 nature science believe 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 men science knowledge As soon as the circumstances of an experiment are well known, we stop gathering statistics. ... The effect will occur always without exception, because the cause of the phenomena is accurately defined. Only when a phenomenon includes conditions as yet undefined,Only when a phenomenon includes conditions as yet undefined, can we compile statistics. ... we must learn therefore that we compile statistics only when we cannot possibly help it; for in my opinion, statistics can never yield scientific truth. Claude Bernard learning science knowledge In these researches I followed the principles of the experimental method that we have established, i.e., that, in presence of a well-noted, new fact which contradicts a theory, instead of keeping the theory and abandoning the fact, I should keep and study the fact, and I hastened to give up the theory. Claude Bernard giving-up principles science When a physician is called to a patient, he should decide on the diagnosis, then the prognosis, and then the treatment. ... Physicians must know the evolution of the disease, its duration and gravity in order to predict its course and outcome. Here statistics intervene to guide physicians, by teaching them the proportion of mortal cases, and if observation has also shown that the successful and unsuccessful cases can be recognized by certain signs, then the prognosis is more certain. Claude Bernard successful teaching 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. Claude Bernard light science death 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 horizon climbing science Science does not permit exceptions. Claude Bernard permit exception doe Laplace considers astronomy a science of observation, because we can only observe the movements of the planets; we cannot reach them, indeed, to alter their course and to experiment with them. "On earth," said Laplace, "we make phenomena vary by experiments; in the sky, we carefully define all the phenomena presented to us by celestial motion." Certain physicians call medicine a science of observations, because they wrongly think that experimentation is inapplicable to it. Claude Bernard sky science thinking 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 rising men science
