ABSTRACT

This chapter develops a theory of the formal character of structure, which has been found throughout investigation to be fundamental to scientific discovery, empirical confirmation and experimental proof. It finds that the psychological demand, like the logical, is for necessity, and the psychological satisfaction is achieved through the discovery of structure. Accordingly, the discovery of structure, pattern or order in any manifold, will involve the discovery of identities related to differences in precise and determinate ways. The discovery of structure, moreover, has proved to be the main requirement and the central endeavour of scientific procedure. Psychologism is strictly the attempt to explain away logical connexions in terms of psychological causes, which is a pernicious and self-refuting practice. The relevant logical relations are either mathematical or inductive, and in either case the mathematical calculus of chances presumes indeterminacy among the events the probability of occurrence of which is to be calculated.