On Data (-1849)

"With a true view all the data harmonize, but with a false one the facts soon clash." (Aristotle, "The Nicomachean Ethics", Book I, cca. 349 BC)

"[...] one day the precision of the data might be brought to such perfection that the mathematician in his study would be able to calculate any phenomenon of chemical combination in the same way…as he calculates the movement of the heavenly bodies." (Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, "Memories de l’Académie Royale des Sciences", 1782 [Published 1785])

"[...] to reason without data is nothing but delusion." (James Hutton, "The Theory of the Earth" Vol. 1, 1788)

"[...] mathematicians obtain the solution of a problem by the mere arrangement of data, and by reducing their reasoning to such simple steps, to conclusions so very obvious, as never to lose sight of the evidence which guides them." (Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, "Elements of Chemistry In a New Systematic Order", 1790)

"The modern age has a false sense of superiority because of the great mass of data at its disposal. But the valid criterion of distinction is rather the extent to which man knows how to form and master the material at his command." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "On Theory of Color", 1810)

"We ought then to consider the present state of the universe as the effect of its previous state and as the cause of that which is to follow. An intelligence that, at a given instant, could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings that make it up, if moreover it were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, would encompass in the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the lightest atoms. For such an intelligence nothing would be uncertain, and the future, like the past, would be open to its eyes." (Pierre-Simon de Laplace, "Essai philosophique sur les probabilités", 1814)

"Knowledge signifies things known. Where there are no things known, there is no knowledge. Where there are no things to be known, there can be no knowledge. We have observed that every science, that is, every branch of knowledge, is compounded of certain facts, of which our sensations furnish the evidence. Where no such evidence is supplied, we are without data; we are without first premises; and when, without these, we attempt to build up a science, we do as those who raise edifices without foundations. And what do such builders construct? Castles in the air." (Frances Wright, "Course of Popular Lectures", 1820)