Particular Facts Are Never Scientific; Only Generalization

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.

Descriptive Anatomy Is To Physiology What Geography Is To History, And Just As It Is Not Enough To Know The Typography Of A Country To Understand Its History, So Also It Is Not Enough To Know The Anatomy Of Organs To Understand Their Functions.

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.

The Minds That Rise And Become Really Great Are Never Self-satisfied, But Still Continue To Strive.

I Do Not ... Reject The Use Of Statistics In Medicine, But I Condemn Not Trying To Get Beyond Them And Believing In Statistics As The Foundation Of Medical Science. ... Statistics ... Apply Only To Cases In Which The Cause Of The Facts Observed Is Still [uncertain Or] Indeterminate. ... There Will Always Be Some Indeterminism ... In All The Sciences, And More In Medicine Than In Any Other. But Man's Intellectual Conquest Consists In Lessening And Driving Back Indeterminism In Proportion As He Gains Ground For Determinism By The Help Of The Experimental Method.