56 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



SUMMARY. The aim of Science is to describe 

 the impersonal facts of experience in verifiable 

 terms as exactly as possible, as simply as possible, 

 and as completely as possible. It is an intellectual 

 construction, a working thought-model of the world. 

 In its "universe of discourse" it keeps always to 

 experiential terms, or verifiable derivatives of these. 

 It is as far on one side of common-sense as poetry 

 is on the other. It deals with "facts" which have 

 no dependence on man's will, which must be com- 

 municable and verifiable. It is descriptive formu- 

 lation, not interpretative explanation. The causes 

 that Science seeks after are secondary causes, not 

 ultimate causes; effective causes, not final causes. 

 Indeed, its causes and effects are simply earlier 

 and later stages of the same continuous process. 

 Science always seeks to reduce things to a common 

 denominator and to reduce the number of categories 

 or necessary concepts. The "Laws of Nature" 

 are descriptive formulae in "conceptual shorthand" 

 of the routine of our perceptions. Each science has 

 its distinctive questions and concepts of its own. 

 The end of Science is not reached in the formula- 

 tion of things as they are, it has also to describe 

 how they have come to be. 



