The Grammar of Science (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Grammar of Science

During the eight years which have elapsed since this Grammar was first published, the views expounded in it have undoubtedly met with wider acceptance than the author in the least anticipated. There are many signs that a sound idealism is surely replacing, as a basis for natural philosophy, the crude materialism of the older physicists. More than one professor of metaphysics has actually discovered that he can best attack "modern" science by criticising ancient statements as to mechanism from a standpoint remarkably similar to that of the Grammar. Step by step men of science are coming to recognise that mechanism is not at the bottom of phenomena, but is only the conceptual shorthand by aid of which they can briefly describe and resume phenomena. That all science is description and not explanation, that the mystery of change in the inorganic world is just as great and just as omnipresent as in the organic world, are statements which will appear platitudes to the next generation. Formerly men had belief as to the super-sensuous, and thought they had knowledge of the sensuous.

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This 1892 publication by the mathematician Karl Pearson (1857-1936) presents a positivist account of the nature of science. Pearson claims that 'the scientific method is the sole gateway to the whole region of knowledge'. Exploring concepts such as matter, energy, space and time, the work also includes chapter summaries.