366 THE REAL WORLD 



The often cited principle of economy of thought explains, at the most, 

 why we look for simple laws, but not why we find them. . . . We 

 penetrate deeper when we think, at Kant's instance, that order in 

 accord with law is the condition of the possibility of experience; that 

 without the existence of natural laws we could not even form the con- 

 cepts in terms of which we look for them. 



Successful in framing scientific laws, I discover that elements of my 

 experience are orderable. Such a discovery is only to be expected on 

 my postulates— according to which laws will be, in some degree, 

 descriptive of a world sufficiently orderly to be humanly compre- 

 hensible. I find in phenomenalist doctrine no explanation whatever 

 of this discovery, the significance of which is not infrequently de- 

 nied. Thus it may be alleged that my experience is actually com- 

 pletely chaotic but so rich that I can always find in it some elements 

 conformable with some order. James, for example, implies that in 

 framing our constructs we proceed with the same freedom we exer- 

 cise when we group stars in constellations. But this pretty metaphor 

 is inadequate in the present context. When I form constellations it 

 makes no difference whether I construct a dipper or a bear: I can- 

 not get milk from the one or a pelt from the other, nor do I expect to. 

 The constructs that figure in my laws cannot thus freely be formed, 

 however, for I demand that these laws supply confirmable predic- 

 tions. A law yielding predictions that are confirmed cannot be re- 

 duced to a wholly invented order, like constellations. On the con- 

 trary, such a law testifies to an intrinsic orderability of certain ele- 

 ments of experience— precisely that discovery the significance of 

 which I have insisted on. 



Science and prediction. Prediction once made, its confirmation 

 depends often on events over which the scientist can exercise no 

 vestige of control. If Thales predicts an eclipse of the sun, Thales' 

 expectation cannot produce the darkness experienced by thousands 

 who did not even know of his expectation. Though I tolerate, and 

 explain away, some failures of prediction, I cannot go on indefinitely 

 "saving" laws that just don't work. The failures of prediction are 

 themselves important; they show our capacity for recognition of such 

 failure. Today we recognize a whole class of (individual microcos- 

 mic) events to which the principle of determinism is itself inap- 

 plicable. But even here, where our "failure" has been most conspicu- 

 ous, we can still predict the outcome of statistically large numbers of 



