294 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Oct. 



nation; he has, as Tyndall so well put it, made a scien- 

 tific use of the imagination and created for himself what 

 is known as the 'working hypothesis.' It must be con- 

 fessed that for some investigators the 'hypothesis' 

 becomes so dear that if the facts of nature do not conform 

 to the hypothesis, ' so much the wors^e for the facts.' 

 But for the truly scientific man, the hypothesis is des- 

 tined solely to enable him to get facts of nature in some 

 definite order, an order which shall make apparent their 

 connection with the great order and harmony which is 

 believed to be present in the universe. 



If the working hypothesis fails in any essential par- 

 ticular he is ready to modify or discard it. For the 

 truly inspired investigator, one undoubted fact weighs 

 more in balance than a thousand theories. 



At the very threshold of any working hypothesis for 

 the biologist, the question as to the nature of the energy 

 we call life must be considered. The great problem 

 must receive some kind of a hypothetical solution. 

 What is its relation to the energies of light, electricity, 

 chemism and the other forms discussed by the physicist? 

 Are its complex manifestations due only to these or does 

 it have a character and individuality of its own? If we 

 accept the ordinarily received view of the evolution of 

 our solar system, the original fiery nebula in which heat 

 reigned supreme slowly dissipated part of its heat, and 

 hurled into space the planets, themselves fiaming vapors, 

 only the protons of the solid planets. As the heat be- 

 came further dissipated there appeared in the cooling 

 mass manifestations of chemical attraction, compounds 

 at first gases, then liquids, and finally, on the cooling 

 planets, solids appeared. Lastly, upon our own planet, 

 the earth, when the solid crust was formed and the tem- 

 perature had fallen below the boiling point of water, the 

 seas were formed and then life appeared. Who could 

 see, in the incandescent nebula, the liquids and solids of 



