On Truth (1900-1909)

"It would be an error to suppose that the great discoverer seizes at once upon the truth, or has any unerring method of divining it. In all probability the errors of the great mind exceed in number those of the less vigorous one. Fertility of imagination and abundance of guesses at truth are among the first requisites of discovery; but the erroneous guesses must be many times as numerous as those that prove well founded. The weakest analogies, the most whimsical notations, the most apparently absurd theories, may pass through the teeming brain, and no record remain of more than the hundredth part. (William S Jevons, "The Principles of Science" 2nd Ed., 1900)

"The mathematician, carried along on his flood of symbols, dealing apparently with purely formal truths, may still reach results of endless importance for our description of the physical universe." (Karl Pearson, “The Grammar of Science”, 1900)

“Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new; it alone can give us certainty.” (Henri Poincaré, “Science and Hypothesis”, 1902) 

“Logic, then, is not necessarily an instrument for finding truth; on the contrary, truth is necessarily an instrument for using logic - for using it, that is, for the discovery of further truth and for the profit of humanity. Briefly, you can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.” (Gilbert K Chesterton, Daily News, 1905)

"The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it." (Herbert G Wells, "Scepticism of the Instrument: A Modern Utopia", 1905)

“The motive for the study of mathematics is insight into the nature of the universe. Stars and strata, heat and electricity, the laws and processes of becoming and being, incorporate mathematical truths. If language imitates the voice of the Creator, revealing His heart, mathematics discloses His intellect, repeating the story of how things came into being. And the value of mathematics, appealing as it does to our energy and to our honor, to our desire to know the truth and thereby to live as of right in the household of God, is that it establishes us in larger and larger certainties. As literature develops emotion, understanding, and sympathy, so mathematics develops observation, imagination, and reason.” (William E Chancellor, “A Theory of Motives, Ideals and Values in Education” 1907)

“The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its verification. Its validity is the process of its validation.” (William James, “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking”, 1907)

"Every definition implies an axiom, since it asserts the existence of the object defined. The definition then will not be justified, from the purely logical point of view, until we have proved that it involves no contradiction either in its terms or with the truths previously admitted." (Henri Poincaré," Science and Method", 1908)

"The world of ideas which it [mathematics] discloses or illuminates, the contemplation of divine beauty and order which it induces, the harmonious connection of its parts, the infinite hierarchy and absolute evidence of the truths with which mathematical science is concerned, these, and such like, are the surest groimds of its title of human regard, and would remain unimpaired were the plan of the universe unrolled like a map at our feet, and the mind of man qualified to take in the whole scheme of creation at a glance.” (James J Sylvester, "A Plea for the Mathematician", Nature, 1908)

“Truth is on a curve whose asymptote our spirit follows eternally.” (Léo Errera, “Recueil d'Œuvres de Léo Errera: Botanique Générale”, 1908) 

“Science is not the monopoly of the naturalist or the scholar, nor is it anything mysterious or esoteric. Science is the search for truth, and truth is the adequacy of a description of facts.” (Paul Carus, “Philosophy as a Science”, 1909)

"Science is the only truth and it is the great lie. It knows nothing, and people think it knows everything. It is misrepresented. People think that science is electricity, automobilism, and dirigible balloons. It is something very different. It is life devouring itself. It is the sensibility transformed into intelligence. It is the need to know stifling the need to live. It is the genius of knowledge vivisecting the vital genius." (Rémy de Gourmont, "Art and Science", cca. 1905-1909)