To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
All our science is just a cookery book, with an orthodox theory of cooking that nobody's allowed to question, and a list of recipes that mustn't be added to except by special permission from the head cook.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Huxley criticizes the limitations placed on scientific inquiry, suggesting that it resembles a rigid cookbook with unchangeable rules.
In this quote, Aldous Huxley draws a parallel between science and a cookery book, criticizing the rigid and dogmatic nature often associated with scientific theories. He suggests that just as a cookery book prescribes fixed recipes and discourages deviation, the scientific community may impose strict guidelines that inhibit creativity and innovation, ultimately questioning the very essence and evolution of scientific knowledge.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on the philosophy of science, this quote can be used to illustrate the importance of questioning established theories.
More from Aldous Huxley
All quotes →Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
In the course of history many more people have died for their drink and their dope than have died for their religion or their country.
On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.
No man ever dared to manifest his boredom so insolently as does a Siamese tomcat when he yawns in the face of his amorously importunate wife.
The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace, The prurient ape's defiling touch: And do you like the human race? No, not much.
Similar quotes
The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence. It is a bit like a rich person living in a wealthy neighborhood not seeing any poverty.
Do not become archivists of facts. Try to penetrate to the secret of their occurrence, persistently search for the laws which govern them.
If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.
I think that the future of the human race is to spread through the universe, and now is the time that we should be laying the foundations for that.
Let's not spend resources that we don't need to be sending astronauts back to the moon. Let's not spend expensive resources on bringing people who have reached Mars back again. Prepare them to become a growing colony.
The more statistically improbable a thing is, the less we can believe that it just happened by blind chance. Superficially, the obvious alternative to chance is an intelligent Designer.