ABSTRACT
Many people think of the work of science as the production of general propositions stating the relation between two or more variables under a specified set of conditions. Such propositions take, in the simplest case, this form: if A, then B-provided that conditions D, E, and F obtain. These kinds of propositions avoid taking account of the unique characteristics of any given case and attempt to abstract from the particular case only those variables contained in the proposition, while controlling all others. Students of small groups, for instance, work with propositions relating such variables as cohesion, communication and deviance in ways that are purposely independent of those qualities unique to the groups on which their studies are done.
