DESCRIPTIVE SCIENCE 143 



is "contained' in a subject because there are no logical 

 relations of the kind which would be described in this way. 

 The only way to determine whether a predicate is contained 

 in a subject is to examine the referent of the subject and 

 the referent of the predicate and decide whether they have 

 the required relation. Since no proposition of descriptive 

 science is analytic, any proposition may prove to be false, 

 since it may assert a state of affairs which is found not to 

 be the case. Analytic propositions cannot be shown to be 

 false, since they prescribe the way in which symbols are 

 to be united, and no state of affairs can contradict such a 

 prescription. But in descriptive science no such legislative 

 action can be taken, for it presumes more empirical knowl- 

 edge than can be justified. To legislate over events supposes 

 that one is able to predict the behavior of events, and this 

 is just what descriptive science is not entitled to do. The 

 structure of events determines the interrelation of symbols, 

 the interrelation of symbols does not prescribe the structure 

 of events. 



Still another formulation of the same feature is the as- 

 sertion that a descriptive science is relatively insensitive to 

 shocks from the outside. Any science must permit the pos- 

 sibility of its own falsity; new discoveries may at any time 

 require the revision of an established science. Descriptive 

 science is especially favored in this respect. Being loosely 

 integrated, its symbolic scheme permits a change at any 

 one point without necessitating a change at another. Hence 

 the discovery that any proposition is false requires only 

 the substitution of a true proposition for the false one, but 

 no modification in other propositions. On the other hand, 

 the discovery of a false proposition in a highly integrated 

 science constitutes a crisis, for the proposition is both de- 

 termined by and determinative of other propositions, and 

 the substitution of an alternative proposition requires a 

 revision of all related propositions. It is not to be expected 

 today that any discovery, say, in biological or sociological 

 science would constitute a crisis for these sciences; the 



