Constructive Thought 97 



results exhibited by nature. By then using this 

 as a working hypothesis, and pressing it into 

 extremes, it can be gradually amended until it 

 shows no sign of discordance or failure anywhere, 

 and even serves as a guide to new and previously 

 unsuspected phenomena. When that stage is 

 reached, it is provisionally accepted and tentatively 

 held as a step in the direction of the truth ; though 

 the mind is always kept ready to improve and 

 modify and enlarge it, in accordance with the 

 needs of more thorough investigation and fresh 

 discovery. It was so, for instance, with Maxwell's 

 electromagnetic theory of light ; and there are a 

 multitude of other instances. 



In the transcendental or ultra-mundane or 

 supersensual region there is the further difficulty 

 to be encountered, that we are not acquainted with 

 anything like all the c boundary conditions/ so to 

 speak ; we only know our little bit of the bound- 

 ary, and we may err egregiously in inferring or 

 attempting to infer the remainder. We may even 

 make a mistake as to the form of function adapted 

 to the case. Nevertheless there is no better clue, 

 and the human mind is impelled to do the best it 

 can with the confessedly imperfect data which it 

 finds at its disposal. The result, therefore, in this 

 region, is no system of definite and certain truth, 

 as in Physics, but is either suspense of judgment 



