We need very much a name to describe a cultivator of science in general. I should incline to call him a scientist. [The first use of the word.]

Every failure is a step to success.

The catastrophist constructs theories, the uniformitarian demolishes them.

To discover the laws of operative power in material productions, whether formed by man or brought into being by Nature herself, is the work of a science, and is indeed what we more especially term Science.

Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error.

Geometry in every proposition speaks a language which experience never dares to utter; and indeed of which she but halfway comprehends the meaning.

The hypotheses we accept ought to explain phenomena which we have observed. But they ought to do more than this: our hypotheses ought to foretell phenomena which have not yet been observed.