In Science, all tends to stir, to change, to form fresh …

In Science, all tends to stir, to change, to form fresh surfaces. All denies, destroys, creates, replaces all. What was ground yesterday is put into the hopper again today. The colossal machine, Science, never rests. It is never satisfied; it is insatiable for improvement, of which the absolute knows nothing. Vaccination is called in question, the lightning-rod is called in question. Jenner may have erred, Franklin may have been mistaken; let us search again. This agitation is noble. Science is restless around man; she has her own reasons. Science plays in progress the part of utility. Let us reverence this superb handmaiden.

William Shakespeare by Victor Hugo 

Progress is the motive …

Progress is the motive-power of Science; the ideal is the generator of Art. 

William Shakespeare by Victor Hugo

The mission of Science is …

The mission of Science is to study and sound everything. All of us, according to our degree, are the creditors of investigation; We are its debtors also. It is due to us, and we owe it to others. To evade a phenomenon, to refuse to pay it that attention to which it has a right, to bow it out, to show it the door, to turn our back on it laughing, is to make truth a bankrupt, and to leave the Signature of Science to be protested. The phenomenon of the tripod of old, and of the table of today, is entitled, like anything else, to investigation. Psychic science will gain by it, without doubt. Let us add, that to abandon phenomena to credulity, is to commit treason against human reason. 

William Shakespeare by Victor Hugo 

Science is ignorant, and has no right to …

Science is ignorant, and has no right to laugh: a savant who laughs at the possible, is very near being an idiot. The unexpected ought always to be expected by Science. Her duty is to stop it in its course and search it, rejecting the chimerical, establishing the real. Science has but the right to put a visa on facts; she should verify and distinguish. All human knowledge is but picking and culling. The circumstance that the false is mingled with the true, furnishes no excuse for rejecting the whole mass. When was the tare an excuse for refusing the corn ? Hoe out the weed error, but reap the fact, and place it beside others. Science is the sheaf of facts.

William Shakespare by Victor Hugo