24 MAR 2012 by ideonexus

 Experiments Were Sacred to Darwin

Although [Charles Darwin] would patiently go on repeating experiments where there was any good to be gained, he could not endure having to repeat an experiment which ought, if complete care had been taken, to have told its story at first—and this gave him a continual anxiety that the experiment should not be wasted ; he felt the experiment to be sacred, however slight a one it was. He wished to learn as much as possible from an experiment, so that he did not confine himself to observing the...
  1  notes

He hated to repeat them if he felt he had gained all the knowledge there was to gain from one, so he paid very close attention when performing one.