72 THE AIM AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 



property of the hypothesis is that which above all makes it 

 valuable. The portion of the Objective under investigation 

 must be the seat of other relations than those " apperceived ' r 

 by the concept, and it is already probable that the original 

 analogy will extend to the other properties of the concept 

 whose correspondence with properties of the Objective under 

 examination has not yet been established. Thus " a descriptive 

 theory of this kind does more than serve as a vehicle for the 

 clear expression of well-known results, it often renders 

 important services by suggesting the possibility of the existence 

 of new phenomena/'* 



In the second place, physicists are so sensible of the aid 

 they receive from such a descriptive hypothesis, that they da 

 not discard it even when it is recognised as containing elements- 

 actually inconsistent with known Objective determinations. 

 The conception of the ether as a Motionless fluid passing among 

 the molecules of matter " more freely than the wind through a 

 grove of trees," has been none the less useful because incom- 

 patible with the rigidity which the facts also seem to demand. 

 Ultimately, of course, such incompatibility will not be tolerated, 

 but its very presence sets a further problem the replacement 

 of the inconsistent hypotheses, both having reference to the 

 same province of Objective fact, by another which shall do- 

 justice at -once to all its elements. Such a complete corre- 

 spondence between the elements of the descriptive hypothesis 

 and of the province of the Objective is, of coivifee, the ideal 

 of the scientific process to which the successive concepts by 

 which it is sought to render the facts intelligible approach, as 

 Mach says, " asymptotically.''! Were it attained the " picture " 

 and the " object " would coincide^ and we should have " a 



* Prof. J. J. Thomson, introducing his conception of the " Faraday 

 tube " as an alternative to Maxwell's " displacement." Recent Researches 

 in Electricity and Magnetism, 1893, p. 1. 



t Mach, Principien der Warmelehre, 1900, p. 461. 



t "Wenn Bild und Gegenstand in alien Stucken uberemstinimten, so- 



