CHAPTER IX 



SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY 



At the very core of the logic of science lies the problem of 

 scientific discovery. The status of the problem today is well 

 indicated by its formulation as "the mystery of scientific 

 discovery." That the scientist makes important discoveries 

 and that these discoveries, in fact, constitute the essential 

 motivating factor in the scientific method are truths which 

 are well recognized. But the conditions of the occurrence of 

 the act, the "rules" according to which it takes place, the 

 factors in the scientific personality which are responsible 

 for it — all of these are either recognized to be insoluble 

 problems or else explained by reduction to something equally 

 mysterious, viz., scientific genius. 



Certain refinements in the formulation of the problem 

 may help to place it in the proper perspective. In the first 

 place, the discovery which is usually referred to in this con- 

 nection is of hypotheses rather than of data. This is not to 

 say that the scientist does not discover facts. But the dis- 

 covery of facts occurs in science in two important ways — 

 prior to the formulation of hypotheses, and after such 

 formulation. In the former type, the discovery is primarily 

 due to the data rather than to the scientist; the data impress 

 themselves upon his attention because of their obviousness, 

 or because of their intensity, or because of their unusual 

 character, or because of some other more or less accidental 

 factor. But in the latter type, the data are discovered 

 through the instrumentality of the theory; because the 

 scientist has, through freely creative activities of the imagi- 

 nation, devised a theory having certain definitely predictable 

 consequences, he is able to anticipate what nature will 

 reveal in certain definitely specified localities. He then 

 turns his observation to these areas and discovers what 



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