HYPOTHESIS 147 



Huxley, as also Kant and his followers. 1 &quot; Briefly stated [writes Father 

 Rickaby], the whole proof of the present thesis will consist in showing that 

 the experienced facts of sensation are confessedly alike with our adversaries 

 and ourselves, and that only our way oj accounting for them is adequate.&quot; a 

 It will likewise be found that this same method is really, though perhaps only 

 implicitly, involved in the traditional lines of reasoning by which the philosophy 

 of theism has always been supported. And it is very desirable that in placing 

 this philosophy before the modern world, in comparing its claims to acceptance 

 with those of other current systems, its supporters should make more explicit 

 use of this method ; that is, that they should proceed explicitly by way of 

 hypothesis and -verification ; comparing their hypothesis with the facts of 

 human experience, and establishing it by showing its &quot; relative success in ex 

 plaining them,&quot; 3 as compared with the relative failure of all competing 

 alternatives. This would involve no real change of method on the part of 

 Scholastic philosophers, who are the main upholders of theism ; but only 

 that they should develop more fully the analytical side of the Scholastic 

 method (202) by meeting, discussing, and removing the more recently formu 

 lated difficulties against the general principles which they utilize in the de 

 ductive, synthetic stage of their systematic reasonings. 4 



1 C/. RICKABY, First Principles of Knowledge, pp. 270-290. 



2 ibid., p. 268 (italics ours). 3 JOSEPH, op. cit., p. 477. 



4 This would remove even all apparent grounds for the really groundless re 

 proach of non-scholastic thinkers that &quot; our arguments are too a priori . . . abstract 

 . . . technical &quot; ; that our &quot; principles are far from evident, and appear to be 

 gratuitously assumed,&quot; and so forth. See IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD, April, 

 1911, article on The Pragmatic Value of Theism, by LESLIE J. WALKER, S.J. 

 (pp. 338, 339). The article is an earnest plea for the wider use of the method re 

 ferred to in the text, for the defence of the philosophy of theism : because, on the one 

 hand, it would be understood and appreciated by modern thinkers whose &quot; modes of 

 thought are almost all of one type,&quot; namely, that they &quot; start with a hypothesis 

 which they proceed to verify by showing that its consequences harmonize with the 

 data of human experience &quot; (p. 340) ; &quot; nor,&quot; on the other hand, &quot; would any of the 

 old arguments have to be given up, for all are essential to the completeness of the 

 methods. At most, traditional arguments would have to be stated in a somewhat 

 different form. Axioms and principles would not be asserted merely on the ground 

 of their self-evidence; but we should first of all formulate all principles and all 

 doctrines provisionally as hypotheses, not of course in the sense that we should 

 lor a moment doubt their truth, any more than St. Thomas doubts the truth of God s 

 existence when he asks: An Deus sit? but merely as provisional positions shortly 

 to be proved. We should then proceed to verify our hypotheses ...&quot; (pp. 352, 

 353). He applies the method himself in subsequent articles in the IRISH ECCLESI 

 ASTICAL RECORD (May, pp. 465-80). We are in no way detracting from the value 

 of this method by observing that it, too, must accept some &quot; principles &quot; or &quot; axioms &quot; 

 or &quot;intuitions&quot; on self-evidence alone, as starting points for rational interpreta 

 tion of experience, and reasoning therefrom ; for even though &quot; the philosopher of 

 this twentieth century, having grown familiar with inductive or scientific methods 

 of proof, is no longer content with a priori reasoning from self-evident principles &quot; 

 (p. 340), it is none the less true that &quot;intuition is ... involved in [his own 

 * inductive ] process, and many statements are made [by himself] which cannot be 

 proved, but which are none the less axiomatic or evident &quot; (ibid.). When is it law 

 ful, and when unlawful, to assume a judgment as a self-evident axiom (203) ? This 

 is a very grave question, which divides philosophers, and which logic is unable to 

 answer. Cf. infra, 275, A, c. 



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