ABSTRACT
A discussion of the scientific point of view which avowedly proceeds from this point of view itself has necessarily the appearance of an argument in a circle; and such in great part is the character of what here follows.1 It is in large part an attempt to explain the scientific point of view in terms of itself, but not altogether. This inquiry does not presume to deal with the origin or the legitimation of the postulates of science, but only with the growth of the habitual use of these postulates, and the manner of using them. The point of inquiry is the changes which have taken place in the secondary postulates involved in the scientific point of view – in great part a question of the progressive redistribution of emphasis among the preconceptions under whose guidance successive generations of scientists have gone to their work.
