CREATIVE SCIENCE 321 



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liefs still unchallenged, progress will seem to result from successful 

 challenges hurled by scepticism at once-authoritative beliefs now 

 rejected. 



Second: Much "literature" is comparatively routine hackwork that 

 might not implausibly be thought produced by some formula of 

 Literary Method. The vast bulk of scientific work— the necessary but 

 generally uninspired exploitation of established conceptual systems 

 —similarly gives color to a conception of Method. Here orderliness 

 characterizes scientific advance, which simply fills out a theoretic 

 pattern that directs the work of all. Here empiricism may seem domi- 

 nant, for the primary concepts and hypotheses are already taken for 

 granted. Here logic will seem self-sufficient: the great imaginative 

 creation of basic views is already complete. Here detachment rules 

 supreme: we can afford detachment when the points at issue are only 

 details within a theoretic structure to which our commitment is so 

 uniformly deep and pervasive as wholly to escape notice. 



Third: Chronometric considerations may well suggest a concept of 

 Method that makes no reference to hypotheses and imagination. 

 Much the greater part of the scientist's time is devoted to prepara- 

 tions (the empirical collection of facts and the logical analysis of 

 them ) and to appraisals ( logical analyses and the empirical confirma- 

 tion of deductions drawn from them ) . Preparations for what, analyses 

 of what? Nothing but the hypotheses and theories born of scientific 

 imagination! However, a new idea may come in an apparently in- 

 stantaneous flash, and the function of the scientific imagination may 

 seem wholly spontaneous. The scientist may then quite understand- 

 ably identify the essence of his practice with that at which he labors: 

 the determinations of facts and the analyses of logic. 



Fourth: To recommend his ideas to sceptical colleagues, the scien- 

 tist must argue in terms of evidence— isicts and logic. He may even 

 suggest that his findings derive from, and depend on, nothing but 

 facts and logic. Thus Newton, saying hypotheses non fingo, presents 

 his theory as the fruit of logical induction; thus Darwin dons the 

 mantle of the Baconian empiricist in expounding his theory of evolu- 

 tion. If any deceit is here involved, it is in no small part self-deceit. 

 The scientist misidentifies the mode of exposition he finds most effec- 

 tive with the mode of discovery he used, or could ( or should ) have 

 used. Another factor strongly promoting such misidentification is 

 noted by Einstein: 



