89. II. Method of the Positive Sciences. Its Object. -- The positive or experimental sciences begin from concrete facts and end by formulating laws. They go from the complex to the simple, from the particular to the general -- the analytical method.

Though the happenings of nature are variable, the most superficial observation shows that this variability is dominated by certain constant and general laws: to determine the laws of these happenings and the nature of things known by experience is the object of the sciences of observation. They begin from the observation of complex and variable facts in order to separate from them the simple element and the permanent law: this process of de-composition (analysis), considered as a whole, is called induction. Hence the expresion, inductive sciences, as opposed to the deductive, or rational, sciences.