ND
 JMC : Elements of Logic / by Cardinal Mercier

Article III.

Scientific Systematization.

PRELIMINARY.

79. Science is a System. -- The organic growth of science is gradual. Concepts take their places in judgments; judgments, in reasoning. Demonstrative reasoning produces a fragment of science. Reasonings are co-ordinated and subordinated, and the orderly whole forms a science.

A science is an assemblage of propositions which form a sustêma -- a whole which stands up by itself.

It is its formal object that gives a science its unity.

The definition of the essence of a thing gives rise to certain simple and general initial propositions -- the principles of the science -- from which reason deduces certain conclusions. These first conclusions lead to others, dependent on them, and, through them. subordinate to the principles; so that the whole scientific structure is based upon principles furnished by the analysis of the subject.

The systematization of science is the supreme intrinsic purpose of logic.


<< ======= >>