Shouldn't that be principles and not principals?
Ignoring spelling, or possible cultural differences, you could argue for both options.
Context is important. If you know the full context of a set of facts, then they can stand alone. (Of course, knowing the full context means that they aren't standing alone...)
If you don't know the context, you can still use facts to illustrate principles. A set of facts could show that there is a predictable cause-effect chain in a system that you don't know much about. If there are similar facts tied to similar systems, you can argue that there are common principles involved.
The General Theory of Systems works on this. For example, the chaos of air flow around a newly lit match tends to resemble the chaos of gas flow around a newly formed star.
