ABSTRACT
The ground-plan of scientific method in the so-called natural sciences since the days of Bacon has been observation of data, leading to the perception of likenesses and differences, sequences and relationships among them, i.e. classification or grouping. While the principles of scientific methodology remain the same in all sciences, their mode of application necessarily varies with the subject-matter under investigation, and it is essential that every branch of science should develop sound techniques for dealing with its own special problems. Scientific developments tend to raise the predictive quality of a hypothesis, especially if the hypothesis be consistent with the rest of knowledge, to a rank equalling in methodological value that of experimental confirmation, a point of primary importance in the consideration of non-metrical phenomena. The deductive method, reasoning from the general to the particular, from an established law to its consequences, the essential method of mathematics, is used in the natural sciences chiefly in connection with the evaluation of hypotheses.
