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
