A Theory In Its Day Helps To

Revolutions Are Not Made By Fate But By Men.

Progress Is The Exploration Of Our Own Error. Evolution Is A Consolidation Of What Have Always Begun As Errors. And Errors Are Of Two Kinds: Errors That Turn Out To Be True And Errors That Turn Out To Be False (which Are Most Of Them). But They Both Have The Same Character Of Being An Imaginative Speculation. I Say All This Because I Want Very Much To Talk About The Human Side Of Discovery And Progress, And It Seems To Me Terribly Important To Say This In An Age In Which Most Non-scientists Are Feeling A Kind Of Loss Of Nerve.

Man Masters Nature Not By Force But By Understanding. This Is Why Science Has Succeeded Where Magic Failed: Because It Has Looked For No Spell To Cast Over Nature.

It Is Very Much Easier To Divide Your Outlook On The World Into Two Halves, To Say That You Know This Belongs To The Daily Half And This Belongs To The Sunday Half.

The Idea That The Universe Is Running Down Comes From A Simple Observation About Machines. Every Machine Consumes More Energy Than It Renders.