[bowman] fundamental PROCESSES IN HISTORICAL SCIENCE 491 



and their principal uses, and also the rights of probable conclusions, 

 in the ordinary sense, to publicity in scientific investigation. 



The experimental test is based on cases drawn, as the name 

 implies, from actual experience. It occupies more than a third of the 

 paper, but further reference to it need not be made here. The re- 

 sults must speak for themselves. 



The term "theoretical test" is employed in the higher sense of 

 the word "theory," signifying the general or abstract principles of 

 any branch of science, or of science as a whole. The principles espe- 

 cially involved here are the fundamental and methodic principles of 

 science, of which the fundamental are defined in Section II of Part I 

 of this paper, and the methodic in Section I of the present part. 

 The central point of these principles is found in the necessity and the 

 results of employing, in scientific activity, only correct processes, 

 i.e., processes that, rightly followed, lead necessarily to correct con- 

 clusions. The four fundamental principles state this necessity and 

 these results, and the four methodic give the rules by which the correct- 

 ness of scientific processes are tested and maintained. These eight prin- 

 ciples together constitute general and ordinary requirements of 

 science, which every branch, including history, must fulfil, in order to 

 qualify as one of the sciences. 



Mathematical science affords the simplest and most thorough 

 illustrations of correct processes. Any mathematical process, e.g., 

 that of addition or any other of the four rules of arithmetic, rightly 

 followed leads necessarily to a correct result, and only by inadvertent 

 or other deviation from a requirement of the process can the operator 

 introduce an error into the result, because in the process itself, apart 

 from such deviation, there is no room for error. 



The same principle is true fundamentally of all other branches of 

 real science. Thus in chemistry the fundamental correct process is 

 actual experimentation : its opposite, the fantastic extravagances of 

 the visionary section of the later alchemists. In astronomy the cor- 

 rect process is systematic astronomical observation and the mathe- 

 matical digestion of its results: its opposite, the crude speculations 

 of ancient astrology. Modern medical science rests fundamentally 

 on a correct process in diagnosing disease according to the symptoms 

 and applying a remedy adapted as nearly as possible to the condition 

 found. If the physician can apply this process rightly, i.e., if he can 

 make a perfect diagnosis, and has a remedy perfectly adapted to the 

 condition, a correct result must follow. A contrary process in this 

 case in the practice of charming, or the methods of treatment followed 

 by medicine men in barbaric and savage trives. These processes, 



