There is no national science just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.

Chekhov’s aphorism argues that genuine science is, by nature, universal: its claims must be testable and valid regardless of language, borders, or political identity—just as arithmetic is the same everywhere. By contrasting “science” with a “national multiplication table,” he ridicules the idea that truth can be partitioned into patriotic versions without ceasing to be truth. The second clause—“what is national is no longer science”—warns that when inquiry is subordinated to national pride, ideology, or state interest, it turns into propaganda or parochial belief. The line remains a pointed defense of intellectual cosmopolitanism and methodological objectivity against politicized knowledge.