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[4] Scientific Knowledge, therefore, is the quality whereby we demonstrate,1 with the further qualifications included in our definition of it in the Analytics,2 namely, that a man knows a thing scientifically when he possesses a conviction arrived at in a certain way, and when the first principles on which that conviction rests are known to him with certainty—for unless he is more certain of his first principles than of the conclusion drawn from them he will only possess the knowledge in question accidentally.3 Let this stand as our definition of Scientific Knowledge.

1 Demonstration in Aristotle means proof by deduction.

2 See Aristot. Post. Anal. 1, 71b 9 ff.

3 i.e., the conviction may happen to be true, but he will not hold it as Scientific Knowledge in the proper sense of the term.

Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.

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