SEMAINE D'ÉTUDE SUR LE ROLE DE L'ANALYSE ECONOMETRIQUE ETC, 
108; 
to be accepted not because such a decision is necessarily right, 
but because it is the decision of a superior authority (*). Society 
must accept this authority principle for stability and orderly 
progress, even in organised revolutionary activities. 
3-3. This very authority principle must, however, be absol- 
ately and completely rejected in the field of science. Modern 
science is based on a patient accumulation of facts, on the study 
of processes and their interrelations or interactions and a 
stability or uniformity of nature (*) which can be discovered by 
‘he human mind. The findings of the most eminent scientists 
are subject to critical check by their professional colleagues and 
by the youngest scientific workers, and must be rejected if there 
is no satisfactory corroboration. Science can advance only 
through free criticism on a completely democratic basis, with 
every research worker of competence enjoying equal status. 
The theoretical or conceptual framework of science must be 
(’) It is possible, indeed, that this decision itself would have been 
reversed if there had been a still higher court to which the case could be 
referred. If a decision of a higher court of appeal is considered to be like 
the turning up « heads » (in tossing an unbiased coin) when the decision 
upholds the verdict of the lower court, and is considered to be like the 
turning up of « tails » when the verdict of the lower court is reversed, 
then the successive decision of the higher court would look like the 
results of the tossing of a coin. This would be the real guarantee that the 
system of law is functioning properly. 
{} The phrase « uniformity of nature » must be, of course, inter- 
oreted to include chance events and random processes. Although games of 
chance were known and were widely prevalent in ancient times in Chira, 
[ndia and other countries, it is important to note that the concept of 
probability did not arise until the 16th and the 17th centuries, that is, 
not until the emergence of modern science. This in easy to understand. 
Before the emergence of the modern scientific view of an obiective world 
of physical reality, all chance events would have to be necessarily ascribed 
to the whims of gods, demons, or supernatural forces. After the emergence 
of the scientific view of an objective world of physical reality, it became 
necessary, both logically and psychologically, for the human mind to acco- 
mmodate the occurrence of chance event as an integral part of the unif- 
ormity of nature. This could be accomplished only on the basis of the 
theory of probability, or rather, as I should prefer to put it, only through 
a statistical view of the world. It seems to me, therefore, that the con- 
-ept of probability, of the statistical view of the world did arise at the 
same time as the emergence of modern science onlv because it could not 
possibly have arisen earlier. 
Mahalanobis I - pag. 
x Ly