Let one persuade many, and he becomes confirmed and convinced, and cares for no better evidence.

What a fearful object a long-neglected duty gets to be

The accidental causes of science are only accidents relatively to the intelligence of a man.

The pains of disconcerted or frustrated habits, and the inherent pleasure there is in following them, are motives which nature has put into our wills without generally caring to inform us why; and she sometimes decrees, indeed, that her reasons shall not be ours.

Let one persuade many, and he becomes confirmed and convinced, and cares for no better evidence.

Science asks no questions about the ontological pedigree or a priori character of a theory, but is content to judge it by its performance; and it is thus that a knowledge of nature, having all the certainty which the senses are competent to inspire, has been attained--a knowledge which maintains a strict neutrality toward all philosophical systems and concerns itself not with the genesis or a priori grounds of ideas.

And we owe science to the combined energies of individual men of genius, rather than to any tendency to progress inherent in civilization.