Quotes from book
The Grammar of Science

The Grammar of Science
Karl Pearson

The Grammar of Science, originally published in 1892, was considered an essential read by budding young scientists like Albert Einstein. Pearson's work contributed to Einstein's greatest discoveries by introducing him to the ideas of relativity of motion, equivalence between matter and energy, and the concept of antimatter. Pearson opens his book with a definition and discussion of science itself, detailing what is required for inquiries to be scientific in nature. He then moves on to discuss space and time, motion, matter, and the future of scientific progress. Professionals and students alike will be fascinated by Pearson's insight into the nature of reality. British professor KARL PEARSON (1857-1936) worked at University College in London. He invented mathematical statistics and formed the Department of Applied Statistics at the University of London. He wrote many books and papers, including a biography of Francis Galton, a proponent of eugenics, and studies on evolution.

Karl Pearson photo

“There are periods in the growth of science when it is well to turn our attention from its imposing superstructure and to carefully examine its foundations. The present book is primarily intended as a criticism of the fundamental concepts of modern science...”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Preface to the First Edition
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“If the reader questions whether there is still war between science and dogma, I must reply that there always will be as long as knowledge is opposed to ignorance. To know requires exertion, and it is intellectually easiest to shirk effort altogether by accepting phrases which cloak the unknown in the undefinable.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Preface to the Second Edition
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“That this change of view as to the basis of science cannot take place without misunderstanding, or without giving an opportunity to those who dislike science to decry its weaknesses, is only natural. To change the basis of operations during a campaign always gives a chance to the enemy, but the chance must be risked if thereby we place ourselves permanently in a position of greater strength...”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Preface to the Second Edition
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“Formerly men had belief as to the supersensuous and thought they had knowledge of the sensuous. The science of the future, while agnostic as to the supersensuous, will replace knowledge by belief in the perceptual sphere, and reserve the term knowledge for the conceptual sphere—the region of their own concepts and ideas...”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Preface to the Second Edition
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“That all science is description and not explanation, that the mystery of change in the inorganic world is just as great and just as omnipresent as in the organic world, are statements which will appear platitudes to the next generation.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Preface to the Second Edition
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“Step by step men of science are coming to recognise that mechanism is not at the bottom of phenomena, but is only the conceptual shorthand by aid of which they can briefly describe and resume phenomena.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Preface to the Second Edition
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“Step by step [aesthetic] judgment, restless under the growth of positive knowledge, has discarded creed after creed and philosophic system after philosophic system.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“[I]t is better to be content with the fraction of a right solution than to beguile ourselves with the whole of a wrong solution.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“[T]he laws of science are products of the human mind rather than factors of the external world.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“Does not the beauty of the artist's work lie for us in the accuracy with which his symbols resume innumerable facts of our past emotional experience? ... [A]esthetic judgment... how exactly parallel it is to the scientific judgment.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory. Pearson refers the reader to William Wordsworth's preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1815) "General View of Poetry".
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“[W]hen the law is reached... it must be tested and criticised by its discoverer in every conceivable way, till he is certain that the imagination has not played him false, and that his law is in real agreement with the whole group of phenomena...”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“Science can only answer to the great majority of "metaphysical" problems "I am ignorant."”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Meanwhile, it is idle to be impatient or to indulge in system-making.

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“[T]he universe is largely the construction of each individual mind.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“[T]he material of science is coextensive with the whole life, physical and mental, of the universe, and... the limits to our perception of the universe are only apparent, not real.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“[T]he task of science can never end till man ceases to be, till history is no longer made, and development itself ceases.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“[T]he state may be reasonably called upon to place instruction in pure science within the reach of all its citizens. ...The scientific habit of mind is one which may be acquired by all, and the readiest means of attaining to it ought to be placed within the reach of all.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“[T]he tribal conscience ought for the sake of social welfare to be stronger than private interest...”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“[P]rogress... enables me to define several... conceptions much more accurately than was possible in 1892, and to indicate, if only in vague outline, what a fascinating field is being here transferred from the synoptic to the precise division of science.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Preface to the Second Edition
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Karl Pearson photo

“For the present the Grammar may yet be of service. After an eight years' life and... 4000 copies, it reappears in a revised and enlarged form.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Preface to the Second Edition
The Grammar of Science (1900)