Behold... the only... [rule] we can follow: when a phenomenon appears... as the cause of another, we regard it as anterior. ...[T]herefore by cause..… - Henri Poincaré

The task of the educator is to make the child's spirit pass again where its forefathers have gone, moving rapidly through certain stages but suppressing none of them. In this regard, the history of science must be our guide.

If... it be supposed that another way of measuring time is adopted... enunciation of the law would be... translated into another language... much less simple. So that the definition implicitly adopted by the astronomers may be summed up..: Time should be so defined that the equations of mechanics may be as simple as possible... [i.e.,] there is not one way of measuring time more true... only more convenient.

Why is it that showers and even storms seem to come by chance, so that many people think it quite natural to pray for rain or fine weather, though they would consider it ridiculous to ask for an eclipse by prayer?