[bowman] fundamental PROCESSES IN HISTORICAL SCIENCE 559 



reputation for minor errors, yet it is on the whole the best work that 

 has been produced in its field, and continental historians wish only that 

 they had its like in the national literatures of their own countries. 



(d). Rights of Probable Conclusions to Publicity, 



Probable conclusions (conclusions not scientifically necessary, 

 or not free of reasonable doubt) have no right to publicity looking to 

 acceptance, more or less conditional, on the mere ground of their 

 probability, but they are entitled, along with the improbable, to what- 

 ever publicity is necessary for their thorough investigation. The 

 general principle is, therefore, that the scientist or scholar ought to di- 

 vulge probable conclusions only to those who are better able than 

 himself, or at least as able as himself, to make further investigation, 

 because only from such persons can he expect to receive assistance on 

 a point which he cannot determine for himself. This principle debars 

 a scientist or scholar from printing probable conclusions in books or 

 periodicals and from stating them in college lectures or elsewhere on 

 the public platform. The readers and hearers are ordinarily less able 

 than he to investigate the probability further; such publicity, there- 

 fore, is at bottom an effort, by his mere reputation or academic pres- 

 tige, to affect their opinions in points which he cannot prove. In 

 seminar instruction, on the contrary, the instructor may properly 

 bring probable conclusions before the class, because there the students 

 join with him in the investigation both of probable and improbable 

 conclusions; in the final results, however, the instructor should coun- 

 tenance the adoption only of those conclusions shown to be necessary 

 by the exclusion of reasonable doubt. It is proper also for a scientist 

 or instructor to suggest to a pupil or other competent person, for exam- 

 ination, a probability which has occurred to him, and the solution of 

 which would be of interest. The scientist or instructor may have 

 greater skill in investigation; but if he be otherwise engaged, and espe- 

 cially he be engaged on more difficult problems, a pupil or other suit- 

 able person who has the necessary time is in that sense better able to 

 make the investigation, if it be otherwise within his powers, either 

 under the supervision of the suggester or independently. The case is 

 not so clear for a scholar or scientist bring an hypothesis before a public 

 conference of fellow investigators and inviting their assistance towards 

 its solution. In an important problem he may attract their interest, 

 but the publicity and influence of such a convention in the scientific 

 and newspaper press will give the hypothesis a vogue in the wider pub- 

 lic, while its correctness is still under investigation and in doubt and 

 may prove in the end to be not definitely ascertainable at all. Even 

 with respect to problems of the first rank, such a course is of doubtful 



