ABSTRACT

As the outcome of the discussions in previous Chapters of this Part, I suggest that the postulates required to validate scientific method may be reduced to five. It is highly probable that they can be further reduced, but I have not myself succeeded in doing so. The five postulates to which previous analyses have led us may be called:

The postulate of quasi-permanence

The postulate of separable causal lines.

The postulate of spatio-temporal continuity in causal lines.

The postulate of the common causal origin of similar structures ranged about a centre, or, more simply, the structural postulate.

The postulate of analogy.