IMAGINATION 



" The world little knows how many of the thoughts and 

 theories which have' passed through the mind of a scientific 

 investigator have been crushed in silence and secrecy by his own 

 severe criticism and adverse examinations; that in the most 

 successful instances not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, 

 the wishes, the preliminary conclusions have been realised." 



Every experienced research worker will confirm this statement. 

 Darwin went even further : 



" I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to 

 give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot 

 resist forming one on every subject) as soon as facts are shown 

 to be opposed to it. ... / cannot remember a single first formed 

 hypothesis which had not after a time to he given up or be 

 greatly modified." -^ (Italics mine.) 



T. H. Huxley said that the great tragedies of science are the 

 slaying of beautiful hypotheses by ugly facts. F. M. Burnet has 

 told me that most of the "bright ideas" that he gets prove 

 to be wrong. 



There is nothing reprehensible about making a mistake, 

 provided it is detected in time and corrected. The scientist who 

 is excessively cautious is not likely to make either errors or 

 discoveries. Whitehead has expressed this aptly : " panic of 

 error is the death of progress." Humphrey Davy said : " The 

 most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me 

 by my failures." The trained thinker shows to great advantage 

 over the untrained person in his reaction to finding his idea to 

 be wrong. The former profits from his mistakes as much as 

 from his successes. Dewey says : 



" What merely annoys and discourages a person not accus- 

 tomed to thinking ... is a stimulus and guide to the trained 

 enquirer. ... It either brings to light a new problem or helps to 

 define and clarify the problem." ^^ 



The productive research worker is usually one who is not 

 afraid to venture and risk going astray, but who makes a rigorous 

 test for error before reporting his findings. This is so not only 

 in the biological sciences but also in mathematics. Hadamard 

 states that good mathematicians often make errors but soon 

 perceive and correct them, and that he himself makes more 

 errors than his students. Commenting on this statement, Sir 



59 



