THE METHOD OF ARGUMENT

The Method of Argument ~ 84 ~ chaotic. But the perceived facts and the inferred facts together make up a definite pattern. A fact is said to be ‘explained’ when we are able to show how it fits into a system of facts; when we are able to recognize it as part of a regular, orderly, inter-related whole (p. 51). Further to this he says: Another way of saying that we have explained a fact is to say that we have discovered its meaning. Or we may say we explain it by discovering the cause and conditions of its existence. All this comes to the same thing: we have fitted that fact into a definite pattern of facts; we have recognized its necessary relationship to other facts; and we have ascertained that this particular fact is only an instance of some universal law, or part of the universal order (p. 52). In the above examples, the law of gravitation, in spite of being an accepted scientific fact, is in no way observable. What scientists have observed with