But the scientific importance of a change in knowledge of fact consists precisely in j its having consequences for a system of theory.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It is that of increasing knowledge of empirical fact, intimately combined with changing interpretations of this body of fact - hence changing general statements about it - and, not least, a changing a structure of the theoretical system.
The hypothesis may be put forward, to be tested by the s subsequent investigation, that this development has been in large part a matter of the reciprocal interaction of new factual insights and knowledge on the one hand with changes in the theoretical system on the other.
From all this it follows what the general character of the problem of the development of a body of scientific knowledge is, in so far as it depends on elements internal to science itself.
In the history of science, we often find that the study of some natural phenomenon has been the starting point in the development of a new branch of knowledge.
The importance of certain problems concerning the facts will be inherent in the structure of the system.
A theory must be tempered with reality.
The true method of knowledge is experiment.
Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials.
Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of facts.
The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes.