g 8 Life and Matter [chap. v. 



altogether, or else a tentative scheme or working 

 hypothesis, to be held undogmatically, in an 

 attitude of constant receptiveness for further light, 

 and in full readiness for modification in the 

 direction of the truth. 



So far concerning the ascertainment of truth 

 alone, in intangible regions of inquiry. The 

 further hypothesis that such truth when found 

 will be most satisfactory, or in other words higher 

 and better than any alternative plan, the con- 

 viction that faith in the exceeding grandeur of 

 reality shall not be confounded, requires further 

 justification ; and its grounds are not so easy to 

 formulate. Perhaps the feeling is merely human 

 and instinctive ; but it is existent and customary 

 I believe among physicists, possibly among men 

 of Science in general, though I cannot speak for 

 all ; and it must be based upon familiarity with a 

 mass of experience in which, after long groping 

 and guess-work, the truth has ultimately been 

 discovered, and been recognised as c very good.' 

 It is illustrated, for instance, by the words in 

 which Tyndall closes the first edition of his 

 book on Sound, wherein, after explaining 

 Helmholtz's brilliant theory of Corti's organ 

 and the musical mechanism of the ear, a 

 theory which, amid the difficulties of actual 

 observation, was necessarily at first saturated with 



