[Claude Bernard, the experimental method, and the Société de Biologie]

Claude Bernard was one of the founder of the Société de Biologie created in 1849. He actively took part to it from its very beginning by presenting various communications and several important memoirs. Epistemological thoughts found in these memoirs lead to the methodological chapters introducing the volumes of his edited lessons given at the Collège de France. In 1865, these texts formed the basis to his Introduction à l'étude de la Médecine expérimentale, in which Bernard claims the experimental method should rely on the principle of determinism of the phenomena of Life. He was a dutiful President of the Société from 1867 until his death. He nevertheless was not often involved in debates, but agreed on the defense of the scientific principles he had claimed. He remained influential until his death, as noted in 1899 by the report Engène Gley wrote on the Société de Biologie during its fifty first years. Gley points regularly to Bernard's axioms which remained the true scientific credo of French biologists.