The accidental causes of science are only accidents relatively to the intelligence of a man.

If they are, then the only ultimate truths are the particulars of concrete experience, and no postulate or general assumption is inherent in science until its proceedings become systematic, or the truths already reached give direction to further research.

By what criterion... can we distinguish among the numberless effects, that are also causes, and among the causes that may, for aught we can know, be also effects, - how can we distinguish which are the means and which are the ends?

Accidents, try to change them - it's impossible. The accidental reveals man.

We receive the truths of science by compulsion. Nothing but ignorance is able to resist them.

When I was in college, a professor said there are three causes of accidents -- the car, the roadway or the nut behind the wheel.