The Investigator Should Have A Robust Faith

All The Vital Mechanisms, Varied As They Are, Have Only One Object, That Of Preserving Constant The Conditions Of Life In The Internal Environment.

Ardent Desire For Knowledge, In Fact, Is The One Motive Attracting And Supporting Investigators In Their Efforts; And Just This Knowledge, Really Grasped And Yet Always Flying Before Them, Becomes At Once Their Sole Torment And Their Sole Happiness. Those Who Do Not Know The Torment Of The Unknown Cannot Have The Joy Of Discovery Which Is Certainly The Liveliest That The Mind Of Man Can Ever Feel.

Progress Is Achieved By Exchanging Our Theories For New Ones Which Go Further Than The Old, Until We Find One Based On A Larger Number Of Facts. ... Theories Are Only Hypotheses, Verified By More Or Less Numerous Facts. Those Verified By The Most Facts Are The Best, But Even Then They Are Never Final, Never To Be Absolutely Believed.

Real Science Exists, Then, Only From The Moment When A Phenomenon Is Accurately Defined As To Its Nature And Rigorously Determined In Relation To Its Material Conditions, That Is, When Its Law Is Known. Before That, We Have Only Groping And Empiricism.

True Science Teaches Us To Doubt And, In Ignorance, To Refrain.