PROCEEDINQS 



WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Vol. II, pp. I-I2. March 14, 1900. 



CARDINAL PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE.^ 



By W J McGee. 



Science may be defined as consciously organized knowledge. 

 It rises far above that unconsciously integrated experience called 

 instinct in animals and intuition in men ; it passes beyond that 

 semi-conscious summation of experience called common-sense ; 

 it even transcends that consciously integrated but only half- 

 formulated experience called wisdom, which grows with the 

 years and ends with the life of the sage ; yet it spans all these 

 and other grades of actual knowledge, and seeks to reduce them 



to simple order. 



As the general definition implies, Science involves (i) methods 

 of acquiring knowledge, (2) methods of formulating or organ- 

 izing knowledge, and (3) the sum of knowledge (including 

 knowledge of methods) acquired and formulated in accordance 

 with experience. There are several branches of Science, each 

 defined by the phenomena with which it directly deals ; yet the 

 methods are alike, and all, from eldest-born Astronomy to 

 youngest-born Anthropology, have contributed to the methods 

 as well as to the sum of consciously organized knowledge. ^ 



Reduced to simple terms, the scientific methods of acquiring 

 knowledge maybe defined as (i) observation, (2) generalization, 

 and (3) inference ; though the three processes overlap to the ex- 

 tent that practically there is no observation without some gener- 

 alization, no generalization apart from observation and unaided 



» Address as President of the Anthropological Society of Washington ; deliv- 

 ered before the Washington Academy of Sciences and the Affiliated Societies, 

 February 13, 1900. 



Proc. Wash. Acad. Sci., March 1900. ^ 



