Claude Bernard

1813–1878 · French physiologist

Topics: scientific method, biology, learning

• [T]heories 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.

  — Claude Bernard

• Men who have excessive faith in their theories or ideas are not only ill prepared for making discoveries; they also make very poor observations.

  — Claude Bernard

• When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.

  — Claude Bernard

• The stability of the internal medium is a primary condition for the freedom and independence of certain living bodies in relation to the environment surrounding them.

  — Claude Bernard

• [T]he 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

• [P]articular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.

  — Claude Bernard

• Science admits no exceptions; otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science.

  — Claude Bernard

• Considered in itself, the experimental method is nothing but reasoning by whose help we methodically submit our ideas to experience,—the experience of facts.

  — Claude Bernard

• [A] living organism is nothing but a wonderful machine.

  — Claude Bernard

• [S]cience, in humbling our pride, proportionately increases our power.

  — Claude Bernard