"Does the harmony the human intelligence thinks it discovers in nature exist outside of this intelligence? No, beyond doubt, a reality completely independent of the mind which conceives it, sees or feels it, is an impossibility." (Henri Poincaré, "The Value of Science", 1905)
"No one can predict how far we shall be enabled by means of our limited intelligence to penetrate into the mysteries of a universe immeasurably vast and wonderful; nevertheless, each step in advance is certain to bring new blessings to humanity and new inspiration to greater endeavor." (Theodore W Richards, "The Fundamental Properties of the Elements", [Faraday lecture] 1911)
"The mathematical laws presuppose a very complex elaboration. They are not known exclusively either a priori or a posteriori, but are a creation of the mind; and this creation is not an arbitrary one, but, owing to the mind’s resources, takes place with reference to experience and in view of it. Sometimes the mind starts with intuitions which it freely creates; sometimes, by a process of elimination, it gathers up the axioms it regards as most suitable for producing a harmonious development, one that is both simple and fertile. The mathematics is a voluntary and intelligent adaptation of thought to things, it represents the forms that will allow of qualitative diversity being surmounted, the moulds into which reality must enter in order to become as intelligible as possible." (Émile Boutroux, "Natural Law in Science and Philosophy", 1914)
"It [science] involves an intelligent and persistent endeavor to revise current beliefs so as to weed out what is erroneous, to add to their accuracy, and, above all, to give them such shape that the dependencies of the various facts upon one another may be as obvious as possible." (John Dewey, "Democracy and Education", 1916)
"It may be impossible for human intelligence to comprehend absolute truth, but it is possible to observe Nature with an unbiased mind and to bear truthful testimony of things seen." (Sir Richard A Gregory, "Discovery, Or, The Spirit and Service of Science", 1916)
"Reason is experimental intelligence, conceived after the pattern of science, and used in the creation of social arts; it has something to do. It liberates man from the bondage of the past, due to ignorance and accident hardened into custom. It projects a better future and assists man in its realization. And its operation is always subject to test in experience. […] The principles which man projects as guides […] are not dogmas. They are hypotheses to be worked out in practice, and to be rejected, corrected and expanded as they fail or succeed in giving our present experience the guidance it requires. We may call them programmes of action, but since they are to be used in making our future acts less blind, more directed, they are flexible. Intelligence is not something possessed once for all. It is in constant process of forming, and its retention requires constant alertness in observing consequences, an open-minded will to learn and courage in re-adjustment." (John Dewey, "Reconstruction in Philosophy", 1920)
"For 'Natural Selection' has no moral significance: it deals with that part of evolution which has no purpose, no intelligence, and might more appropriately be called accidental selection, or better still, Unnatural Selection, since nothing is more unnatural than an accident. If it could be proved that the whole universe had been produced by such Selection, only fools and rascals could bear to live." (George B Shaw, "Back to Methuselah", 1921)
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