Mandate of the Refinement Society

Nature does nothing in vain, but is simple and delights not in superfluous causes of things. As we have no safe method of investigating any cause but by its known effects; it is therefore unphilosophical and henceforth unlawful, to assume the liberty of imagining that there really does exist more than one cause of an effect. In experimental philosophy, propositions collected from phenomena by induction, are to be deemed either exactly or very nearly true. More causes of natural things are not to be admitted than those acknowledged by the Refinement Society to be both true and sufficient to explain the phenomena.