Isaac Newton — "The best way to understand is by examples."
The best way to understand is by examples.
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More from Isaac Newton
"I built my first telescope with my own hands."
"The greatest challenges to the truth of the Holy Scriptures are not the work of infidels, but of professing Christians."
"We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances."
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Abstract ideas become truly comprehensible only when grounded in concrete cases. Definitions and theories alone leave gaps that examples close — they let the mind recognize patterns rather than merely memorize rules. Understanding is active: seeing a principle applied transforms it from an abstract statement into something a person can reason with, recall, and extend to new situations. Examples are not illustrations of understanding; they are the mechanism that produces it.
Relevance to Isaac Newton
Newton's greatest work, the Principia Mathematica, demonstrated universal laws through geometric propositions paired with specific worked cases — orbits, pendulums, tides. His optical experiments used prisms and measured angles rather than pure theory. Shaped by Baconian inductive method, Newton trusted observation over authority. He derived gravity's inverse-square law from Kepler's planetary data, always anchoring abstract mathematics in physical, demonstrable examples — mirroring exactly what this quote prescribes as the path to genuine understanding.
The era
Newton worked during the Scientific Revolution, when European thinkers were rejecting Aristotelian scholasticism — which prized logical argument and textual authority — in favor of empirical demonstration. The Royal Society, founded in 1660, adopted the motto Nullius in verba, demanding experimental proof over inherited doctrine. In this climate, examples weren't merely pedagogical aids; they were the epistemological gold standard by which natural philosophers established credibility and separated genuine knowledge from speculation.
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