METHODS OF TEE EARTH-SCIENCES. 75 



they should do so. The most serious source of error in the development 

 of the earth-sciences, in my judgment, is our relative neglect to probe 

 fundamental conceptions and to recognize the extent to which they 

 influence the most common observations and interpretations. We need 

 a method of thought that shall keep us alive to these basal considera- 

 tions. To this end I believe it to be conducive to soundness of intel- 

 lectual procedure to regard our whole system of interpretation as but 

 an effort to develop a consistent system of workable hypotheses. I 

 think we should do well to abandon all claims that we are reaching 

 absolute truth, in the severest sense of that phrase, and content our- 

 selves with the more modest effort to work out a system of interpreta- 

 tion which shall approve itself in practise under such tests as human 

 powers can devise. Wherein lie 



The Basal Criteria of Our Sciences? 



I believe they lie essentially in the working quality. Whatever 

 conforms thoroughly to the working requirements of nature probably 

 corresponds essentially to the absolute truth, though it may be much 

 short of the full truth. That may be accepted, for the time being, 

 as true which duly approves itself under all tests, as though it were 

 true. Whenever it seems to fail under test in any degree, confidence 

 is to be withdrawn in equal degree, and a rectification of conceptions 

 sought. This may well hold for all conceptions, however fundamental, 

 whether they relate to the physical, the vital, or the mental phenomena 

 which the earth presents. Let us entirely abandon the historic effort 

 of the metaphysicians to build an inverted pyramid on an apex of 

 axioms assumed to be incontestable truth, and let us rear our super- 

 structure on the results of working trials applied as widely and as 

 severely as possible. Let us seek our foundation in the broadest pos- 

 sible contact with phenomena. I hold that the working test when 

 brought to bear in its fullest, most intimate and severest forms is 

 the supreme criterion of that which should stand to us for truth. 

 Our interpretative effort should, therefore, be to organize a complete set 

 of working hypotheses for all phenomena, physical, vital and mental, 

 so far as appropriate to our sphere of research. These should be at 

 once the basis of our philosophy and of our science. These hypotheses 

 should be constantly revised, extended and elaborated by all available 

 means, and should be tested continually by every new relation which 

 comes into view, until the crucial trials shall become as the sands of the 

 sea for multitude and their severity shall have no bounds but the limits 

 of human capacity. That which under this prolonged ordeal shall 

 give the highest grounds of assurance may stand to us for science, that 

 which shall rest more upon inference than upon the firmer modes of 

 determination may stand to us for our philosophy, while that which 

 lies beyond these, as something doubtless always will, may stand to us 

 for the working material of the future. 



