Abstract

The device of setting forth an argument in the form of a postulate set, while not unknown to jurisprudence, is nevertheless sufficiently novel to justify a brief account of the process. At one time human thought took axioms and postulates for avowals of unalterable truth, but the nineteenth century made common the practice of speculating with alternative presuppositional systems, so that deeper insight into the nature of this scientific device revealed it as merely a method among many for clarifying and fecundating thought.