Chapter VI: The Logical Character of Descriptive Science

§ 1. Scientific _description_ may be contrasted with
philosophical or teleological _interpretation_, but the
contrast is not absolute. § 2. The primary end of all
scientific description is intercommunication with a view
to active co-operation. Hence all such description is
necessarily restricted to objects capable of being
experienced in the same way by a plurality of
individuals. § 3. A second end of scientific description
is the _economising_ of intellectual labour by the
creation of _general_ rules for dealing with typical
situations in the environment. In the course of
evolution this object becomes partially independent of
the former. § 4. From the interest in formulating
_general_ rules arise the three fundamental postulates
of physical science, the postulates of _Uniformity_,
_Mechanical Law_, and _Causal Determination_. § 5. The
mechanical view of physical Nature determined by these
three postulates is systematically carried out only in
the abstract science of _Mechanics_; hence the logical
completion of the descriptive process would mean the
reduction of all descriptive science to Mechanics. That
the chemical, biological, and psychological sciences
contain elements which cannot be reduced to mechanical
terms, is due to the fact that their descriptions are
inspired by æsthetic and historical as well as by
primarily “scientific” interests. § 6. The analysis of
such leading concepts of mechanical Physics as the
Conservation of Mass and of Energy shows them to have
only _relative_ validity 279

BOOK IV

RATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY—THE INTERPRETATION OF LIFE