There Is No History Of Mankind, There

Science Is Not A System Of Certain, Or -established, Statements; Nor Is It A System Which Steadily Advances Towards A State Of Finality... And Our Guesses Are Guided By The Unscientific, The Metaphysical (though Biologically Explicable) Faith In Laws, In Regularities Which We Can Uncover-discover. Like Bacon, We Might Describe Our Own Contemporary Science-'the Method Of Reasoning Which Men Now Ordinarily Apply To Nature'-as Consisting Of 'anticipations, Rash And Premature' And As 'prejudices'.

There Will Be Well-testable Theories, Hardly Testable Theories, And Non-testable Theories. Those Which Are Non-testable Are Of No Interest To Empirical Scientists. They May Be Described As Metaphysical.

Science Is The Century-old Endeavour To Bring Together By Means Of Systematic Thought The Perceptible Phenomena Of This World Into As Thorough-going An Association As Possible. To Put It Boldly, It Is The Attempt At A Posterior Reconstruction Of Existence By The Process Of Conceptualization. Science Can Only Ascertain What Is, But Not What Should Be, And Outside Of Its Domain Value Judgements Of All Kinds Remain Necessary.

A Theory Which Is Not Refutable By Any Conceivable Event Is Non-scientific. Irrefutability Is Not A Virtue Of A Theory (as People Often Think) But A Vice.

The Genuine Rationalist Does Not Think That He Or Anyone Else Is In Possession Of The Truth; Nor Does He Think That Mere Criticism As Such Helps Us Achieve New Ideas. But He Does Think That, In The Sphere Of Ideas, Only Critical Discussion Can Help Us Sort The Wheat From The Chaff.