"We must therefore discover some method of investigation which allows the mind at every step to lay hold of a clear physical conception, without being committed to any theory founded on the physical science from which that conception is borrowed, so that it is neither drawn aside from the subject in pursuit of analytical subtleties, nor carried beyond the truth by a favourite hypothesis." (James C Maxwell, "On Faraday’s lines of force", 1855)
"The process of discovery is very simple. An unwearied and systematic application of known laws to nature, causes the unknown to reveal themselves. Almost any mode of observation will be successful at last, for what is most wanted is method." (Henry D Thoreau, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers", 1862)
"The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind. (Thomas H Huxley, "Our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature", 1863)
"As systematic unity is what first raises ordinary knowledge to the rank of science, that is, makes a system out of a mere aggregate of knowledge, architectonic is the doctrine of the scientific in our knowledge, and therefore necessarily forms part of the doctrine of method." (Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 1871)
"Hence, even in the domain of natural science the aid of the experimental method becomes indispensable whenever the problem set is the analysis of transient and impermanent phenomena, and not merely the observation of persistent and relatively constant objects." (Wilhelm Wundt, "Principles of Physiological Psychology", 1874)
"The true aim of the teacher must be to impart an appreciation of method and not a knowledge of facts." (Karl Pearson, "The Grammar of Science", 1892)
"The unity of all science consists alone in its method, not in its material." (Karl Pearson, "The Grammar of Science", 1892)
"There is no short cut to truth, no way to gain a knowledge of the universe except through the gateway of scientific method." (Karl Pearson, “The Grammar of Science”, 1892)
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