set out for the goal which science still follows. These early thinkers 

 were all interested in certain phenomena, or, to use a less ambiguous 

 word, in certain given data. They tried to understand these facts, 

 and in so doing first, endeavoured to give to themselves and gener- 

 ally to others a description in simple and clear language of the rela- 

 tion of the facts which they had observed; and secondly, posited 

 that which they considered necessary for the facts to be what they 

 were. 



For example, the early astronomer observed the heavens 

 night after night and day after day. Thus, he obtained the material, 

 which it became his work to describe, but his task did not end with 

 a description of the observed data; he formed certain theories, and 

 assumed that by which the observed facts were regarded as 

 explained. In the assumptions, he transcended the originally 

 given data, for that which he posited as explanatory of the observed 

 facts was not at all perceived to be connected therewith. It follows, 

 then, that the definition of science, which will result from a con- 

 sideration of the facts of this early period, must include first of all, 

 and as part though not the whole of its content some such state- 

 ment as the following, science is a description of facts in clear and 

 simple language. A word or two is necessary, perhaps, in order to 

 show more fully the meaning of this statement. 



The description, given in science, must be in clear and simple 

 language. When Archimedes sought to understand the principle 

 of the lever, he did so by describing the complex facts, which he 

 was investigating, in terms of phenomena which he regarded as 

 better known. As men, in their study of the movements of the 

 heavenly bodies, advanced conclusion after conclusion, there was 

 present, always, the aim to condense their conclusions into unam- 

 biguous, non-contradictory, clear and simple language, and the 

 history of astronomy is the history of that attempt. So with other 

 sciences. Any other method would have been an ignotum per 

 ignotiu^. It may, of course, be necessary to use technical terms in 

 the descriptions advanced; indeed, such become coined in these 

 very descriptions but part of the aim of every science is to describe 

 in less complex terms the more complex facts which it investigates. 

 What else, indeed, was the geometrical method of Euclid and his 

 predecessors, in its analytical aspect, than just such an attempt? 



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