Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1037

Verbatim note by Spencer MacCallum from conversation with Heath regarding a statement by F.A. Harper about simplicity and principles

June 20, 1957

“It is impossible to oversimplify a principle. Departures from principles can become very complex (and so can be oversimplified). This is what has happened to a great extent, and has largely resulted in our losing sight of principles — so that we can no longer use them as tools.”

A principle is the simplification itself; when you are simplifying, you are getting closer to principle, finding the axiom and so on. Oversimplification is disregarding of significant data, attempting to determine some matter on the basis of only part of the available data.

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