Chapter XX 



SOME SPECULATIONS CONCERNING 

 REGULATIONS 



§ 164. In previous chapters I have tried to limit the account 

 of regulations to data, to relations, and to inductions from them. 

 The conclusions are drawn, I hope, in such a manner that they 

 need not be accepted without examination of their foundations. 

 Still more general statements may be possible, and undoubtedly 

 relations have unwittingly been established that in the future can 

 be recognized as inductions. 



Here and there statements have been introduced, as sugges- 

 tions, that are not regarded as rigorous inductions; these have 

 been labelled as possibilities or beliefs or opinions, wherever I was 

 conscious of their nature. Further, every statement contains un- 

 certainties ; if in nothing else, then in its being general, or incom- 

 pletely delimited. Induction Y derived from four instances and 

 no exceptions may be some day found to have more exceptions than 

 instances; ideally the general statement would not overreach the 

 instances. In practice that is cumbersome; and for convenience, 

 but later often by oversight, the qualifications are omitted. Hence 

 it is always possible that what seems to one person a well-founded 

 induction seems to another person mere extrapolation ; agreement 

 between them might be reached by common assent to some one 

 criterion of probability. 



Having enough facts and relations to furnish an account of 

 regulations without resort to speculations, does not mean that I 

 have no products of imagination, nor that I do not enjoy speculat- 

 ing. Most of my speculating was done before this investigation 

 began to materialize. A preference for recording hypotheses cor- 

 responds to a scientific taste that probably owes a considerable 

 portion of its vogue to lack of desired information. Those whose 

 tastes are ruined by the strong flavoring of conclusions by hypothe- 

 ses, may on that account not enjoy the absence from this inquiry 

 of hypotheses of a usual sort. Those who revel in relations among 

 detailed and numerical facts may feel quite otherwise. Exercise 

 in description is just as fascinating as stretching toward imagery^ 

 if one tries it and likes it. 



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