The principles of science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method

About this book

The work is a scholarly treatise that seeks to unite formal logic with the practice of scientific inquiry. In its opening pages the author, William Stanley Jevons, observes that the rapid advances of the physical sciences have outpaced the development of a corresponding theory of reasoning, and he sets out to remedy this gap by tracing the “Fundamental Laws of Thought” and the principle of substitution that underlie both deduction and induction. The preface outlines a broad program: from the basics of logical notation and the construction of a “Logical Alphabet,” through the theory of probability as the inverse of deduction, to detailed discussions of measurement, error analysis, hypothesis testing, and the limits of scientific knowledge. Jevons promises illustrative examples drawn from physics, chemistry, and engineering, while acknowledging occasional factual slips that do not undermine the overarching arguments.

Written in the formal, didactic style of late‑Victorian scholarship, the book reflects the language and conventions of an 1883 scientific audience. Its dense, argument‑driven prose, frequent references to contemporary figures such as Boole, Venn, and Maxwell, and its systematic layout will appeal to readers who relish historical philosophy of science, students of logic, or anyone interested in the intellectual foundations of the scientific method as articulated in the nineteenth century.

Opening lines

The text of this book has been preserved as closely as practicable to its original form. However, the author used some unusual symbols, and I have taken the liberty of using Unicode characters with similar appearance (ꖌ ᔕ) as substitutes, disregarding their official meaning and aware that they might not display on all devices. An archaic symbol used by the author to indicate the mathematical ‘factorial’ function has been replaced by the modern equivalent, viz. ! Unusual placements of various sub- and superscripted symbols remain as in the original text. …

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