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The New Physics and Its Evolution by Lucien Poincare
page 29 of 282 (10%)
by deduction, lead to very varied discoveries.

The principles which govern physical science are few in number, and
their very general form gives them a philosophical appearance, while
we cannot long resist the temptation of regarding them as metaphysical
dogmas. It thus happens that the least bold physicists, those who have
wanted to show themselves the most reserved, are themselves led to
forget the experimental character of the laws they have propounded,
and to see in them imperious beings whose authority, placed above all
verification, can no longer be discussed.

Others, on the contrary, carry prudence to the extent of timidity.
They desire to grievously limit the field of scientific investigation,
and they assign to science a too restricted domain. They content
themselves with representing phenomena by equations, and think that
they ought to submit to calculation magnitudes experimentally
determined, without asking themselves whether these calculations
retain a physical meaning. They are thus led to reconstruct a physics
in which there again appears the idea of quality, understood, of
course, not in the scholastic sense, since from this quality we can
argue with some precision by representing it under numerical symbols,
but still constituting an element of differentiation and of
heterogeneity.

Notwithstanding the errors they may lead to if carried to excess, both
these doctrines render, as a whole, most important service. It is no
bad thing that these contradictory tendencies should subsist, for this
variety in the conception of phenomena gives to actual science a
character of intense life and of veritable youth, capable of
impassioned efforts towards the truth. Spectators who see such moving
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