There is no human experience that can be termed true science unless it can be mathematically demonstrated. And if thou sayest that the sciences which begin and end in the mind are true, this cannot be conceded, but must be denied for many reasons, and firstly because in such mental discourses experience is eliminated, and without experience there can be no certainty.
来自经验的知识是机械性的。始终存在脑里的知识，是科学。应用于实践的科学知识是半机械的。然而，这种科学知识并非来于经验，便是说，并非来于各种感官的体悟。经验使科学得以确定，因此，不以经验为源的科学，破绽百出，又毫无意义。既然我们可以对感受到的事物提出质疑，那对于感受不到的，不是更应该怀疑吗？譬如上帝与灵魂，又譬如那些引发无尽争执的事物。理性缺席时，争议因而增加。若某物得以确定，争执自然消逝。如此说来，凡有争执的地方，必有谎言与伪科学的存在。如若真理来临，必经由经验，使感官感知，而后平息一切争执。在梦境里证实，总是寻求不到真理的身影。必要在既定事实与原理之上，他才会显现。
Knowledge which is the issue of experience is termed mechanical; that which is born and ends in the mind is termed scientific; that which issues from science and ends in manual work is termed semi-mechanical. But I consider vain and full of error that science which is not the offspring of experience, mother of all certitude, and which does not result in established experience, that is to say, whose origin, middle and end do not pass through any of the five senses. And if we doubt of everything we perceive by the senses, should we not doubt much more of what is contrary to the senses, such as the existence of God and of the soul, and similar matters constantly under dispute and contention?
And it is truly the case that where reason is lacking it is supplemented by noise, which never happens in matters of certainty. On account of this we will say that where there is noise there is no true science, because truth has one end only, which, when it is made known, eternally silences controversy, and should controversy come to life again, it is lying and confused knowledge which is reborn, and not certainty. But true science is that which has penetrated into the senses through experience and silenced the tongue of the disputers, and which does not feed those who investigate it with dreams, but proceeds from the basis of primary truths and established principles successively and by true sequence to the end;
经验是最诚实的导师
因为经历，所以大智。经验是一盏光明的灯，点亮了创造之路。
Wisdom is the daughter of experience. Experience is indispensable for the making of any instrument.
我不是文人墨客，因此那群自命清高者便对我群起而攻之。当年马略对罗马民众的的指再这样回应：既然你们可以窃取他人成果来炫耀，为何我便不能展现自己的成果呢？如今我借这话回击我的质疑者们。你们认为，我没有生花妙笔，也就难以准确表达我所属意的事物。然而，表意之于我，首重者唯经验。它是世间最诚实的导师，胜过无数文字。经验指导着许多大师。无论何时，无论何地，我都追随“她”的脚步，踏上行程。
有的人在写作时顺手一拈，便是典故。我独信赖经验。这位大师的导师，高尚而伟大。我辛勤开垦的土地，他们不屑一顾，只愿意窃取他人的成果，来装饰自己那荒芜的庭院。他们轻视创造者，却不知，真正该被唾弃的，正是他们这群不学无术的傲慢的伪君子。
我的反对者们，总认为他们需要的，仅是对自然的描摹技法，太多的知识之于他们，意义不大。如此固执己见，对他人的意见置若罔闻，真是莫大错误。这就如同那群愚蠢的炼金术师和术士等人，将经验视为死敌。这点，每一个时代都可以证明。
I am well aware that not being a literary man the presumptuous will think that they have the right to blame me on the ground that I am not a man of letters.
Vainglorious people! Know they not that I could make answer as Marius did to the Roman people, and say: They who make a display with the labours of others will not allow me mine?
They will say that being unskilled in letters I cannot find true expression for the matters of which I desire to treat; they do not know that in my subjects experience is a truer guide than the words of others, for experience was the teacher of all great writers, and therefore I take her for guide, and I will cite her in all cases
Although I may not be able to quote other authors, as they do, I can quote from a greater and more worthy source, namely, experience,--the teacher of their masters. They go about swelled with pride and pomposity, dressed up and bedight, not with their own labour, but with that of others; and they will not concede me mine. And if they despise me, who am a creator, far more are they, who do not create but trumpet abroad and exploit the works of other men, to be blamed.
愚蠢和欲望令经验蒙冤
人们总在喋喋不休，哭诉经验的欺骗。请安静点吧！是你的愚蠢和欲望，带来了太多经验所难以满足的要求，因此使你质疑经验的真诚。须知，你们正在指责的经验，正承受着六月飞雪般的冤屈。
你指责经验，实则，经验永不生错。错在于，你期盼的结果，是经验所到达不了的。因为，原理如若一帆风顺，必然结出属于它的真实之果。然而，如阻碍重重，它的果实也将沦为挡路石。道路越坎坷，这块挡路石也就越大。
Wrongly men complain of experience, which {13} with great railing they accuse of falsehood. Leave experience alone, and turn your lamentation to your ignorance, which leads you, with your vain and foolish desires, to promise yourselves those things which are not in her power to confer, and to accuse her of falsehood. Wrongly men complain of innocent experience, when they accuse her not seldom of false and lying demonstrations.
Experience never errs; it is only your judgements that err, ye who look to her for effects which our experiments cannot produce. Because given a principle, that which ensues from it is necessarily the true consequence of that principle, unless it be impeded. Should there, however, be any obstacle, the effect which should ensue from the aforesaid principle will participate in the impediment as much or as little as the impediment is operative in regard to the aforesaid principle.
经验囊括一切
经验在富有巧思的自然与人类间，架起通途。天之道，蕴含在经验之中：因天道规律，经验必与理论同行，它的前进离不开理论的指引。
Experience, the interpreter between creative nature and the human race, teaches the action of nature among mortals: how under the constraint of necessity she cannot act otherwise than as reason, who steers her helm, teaches her to act.
以经验下定义
古代哲人对灵魂和生命的真谛苦苦求索。然而，我们对之能信任几分呢？我们无法揭开灵魂与生命的帷幕。那些得以被经验明证的事物，却从未获得关注和正解。眼睛的效用显而易见，然而时至今日，尚被无数权威禁锢于唯一的定义中。唯有我，凭借经验将它重新定义。
