1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Parsimony, Law of

PARSIMONY, LAW OF (Lat. parsimonia, from parcere, to save), the name given to William of Occam’s principle “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem,” i.e. that it is scientifically unsound to set up more than one hypothesis at once to explain a phenomenon. This principle is known as “Occam’s razor” (see Occam, William of).