JAMES CLERK MAXWELL QUOTES

Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science. It is of great advantage to the student of any subject to read the original memoirs on that subject, for science is always most completely assimilated when it is in the nascent state. Very few of us can now place ourselves in the mental condition in which even such philosophers as the great Descartes were involved in the days before Newton had announced the true laws of the motion of bodies. Statistical laws are not necessarily used as a result of our ignorance. Statistical laws can reflect how things really are. There are matters that can only be treated statistically. By the study of Boltzmann I have been unable to understand him. He could not understand me on account of my shortness, and his length was and is an equal stumbling block to me. It is a good thing to have two ways of looking at a subject, and to admit that there are two ways of looking at it. These transient facts, these fugitive impressions, must be transformed by mental acts, to permanent possessions. Then summon up your grasp of mind, your fancy scientific, till sights and sounds with thought combined become of truth prolific.