Observation, then, is what shows facts; experiment is what teaches about facts and gives experience in relation to anything. But as this teaching can come through comparison and judgment only, i.e., by sequence of reasoning, it follows that man alone is capable of gaining experience and perfecting himself by it.

"Experience," says Goethe, "disciplines man every day." But this is because man reasons accurately and experimentally about what he observes; otherwise he could not correct himself. The [38] insane, who have lost their reason, no longer learn from experience; they no longer reason experimentally. Experience, then, is the privilege of reason. "Only man may verify his thoughts and set them in order; only man may correct, rectify, improve, perfect and so make himself every day more skillful, wise and fortunate. Finally for man alone does the art exist, that supreme art of which most vaunted arts are mere tools and raw material: the art of reason, reasoning."¹

In experimental medicine, we shall use the word experience in the same general sense in which it is still everywhere used. Men of science learn every day from experience; by experience they constantly correct their scientific ideas, their theories; rectify them, bring them into harmony with more and more facts, and so come nearer and nearer to the truth.

- Claude Bernard

(Integrity, to me, entails aligning my actions with the purpose of all of existence. I am Choice. I collect information, perceive events through senses; I use reason to decide what information is relevant to my chosen purpose. And I act in accordance with what I deem useful, important, valuable, enjoyable, alive. What is most like me, I like.)