Having already given a comprehensive account of an axiomatization of the theory of relativity, I would now like to expand upon those consequences which are especially important for physics. While this was originally intended to be a work of epistemology, and its real significance is primarily in that field, it does, however, provide some important results for the experimental foundation of the theory of relativity.

There are two approaches to physical axiomatization. In formulating a deductive axiomatization, the most general principle possible, perhaps a variational principle, is placed at the top and all other details are derived from it; only these derived details are testable, and if they are verified we may consider the abstract axiom to be more or less probable. Constructive axiomatization, on the other hand, proceeds differently. Here we take as axioms only those statements that are themselves direct experimental results; from them we derive the entire theory by integrating some additional conceptual elements, viz., definitions. The definitions are arbitrary and therefore can never introduce error into the theory. This form of axiomatization has the great advantage for physics that the implications of each experimental result can be immediately recognized.