Si toutes les parties de l’univers sont solidaires dans une certaine mesure, un phénomène quelconque ne sera pas l’effet d’une cause unique, mais la … - Henri Poincaré

[A]stronomers... define duration in the following way: time... so defined that Newton's law and that of vis viva [or of the ] may be verified. Newton's law is an experimental truth... only approximate... [W]e still have only a definition by approximation.

Now what is science? ...it is before all a classification, a manner of bringing together facts which appearances separate, though they are bound together by some natural and hidden kinship. Science, in other words, is a system of relations. ...it is in relations alone that objectivity must be sought. ...it is relations alone which can be regarded as objective.
External objects... are really objects and not fleeting and fugitive appearances, because they are not only groups of sensations, but groups cemented by a constant bond. It is this bond, and this bond alone, which is the object in itself, and this bond is a relation.

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?