28 COMMON SENSE (aND SCIENCE) 



gether" and "to speak distinctly"; to comprehend, both "to include or 

 contain" and "to understand"; coherence, "sticking together" and 

 "consistency in reasoning." 



There is explanation even in common sense. The tumbling of a 

 mountain stream is for me "explained" by the simple colligative rela- 

 tion: water seeks its own level. Accepting the relation, I see the phe- 

 nomenon as a necessary consequence of an existent initial state. In 

 the same way, if in science I accept Boyle's law, I "understand" the 

 change of volume consequent to the change of pressure on a gas. 

 But now, in that fourth stage of organization characteristic of sci- 

 ence, the myriad colligative relations and laws are themselves 

 brought within a framework of explanation. Accepting the postulates 

 of the kinetic theory, I find that they entail Boyle's law, and many 

 others of its kind. The postulates so explain the relations, and the 

 relations explain the phenomena. Rooted as it is in "vulgar common 

 sense," science takes on the shape sketched by Einstein: 



Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense- 

 experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought. In 

 this system single experiences must be correlated with the theoretic 

 structure in such a way that the resulting coordination is unique and 

 convincing. 



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