ch. xi.] THE QUESTION STATED. 267 



verification. Such a hypothesis, in short, is admissible only 

 when it contains no unverifiable element. And of hypotheses 

 framed in accordance with these rigorous requirements, the 

 surest mark of genuineness is usually that they are not only 

 uniformly verified by the phenomena which first suggested 

 them, but also help us to the detection of other relations 

 among phenomena which would otherwise have remained 

 hidden from us. 



In conformity, then, to these requirements of scientific 

 method, our course is clearly marked out for us. We have 

 first to search, among truths already indisputably established, 

 for that ultimate truth which must underlie our Synthesis of 

 scientific truths. We have next to show how the widest 

 generalization which has yet been reached concerning the 

 concrete universe as a whole, may be proved to follow, as an 

 inevitable corollary, from this ultimate truth. This widest 

 generalization will thus appear, in the light of our demonstra- 

 tion, as a legitimate hypothesis, which we may verify by 

 showing that the widest generalizations severally obtainable 

 in the concrete sciences are included in it and receive their 

 common interpretation from it. Throughout the earlier part 

 of this special verification, in which we shall be called upon 

 to survey the truths furnished respectively by astronomy, 

 geology, biology, and psychology, I shall follow closely in the 

 footsteps of Mr. Spencer, who has already elaborately 

 illustrated these truths in the light of the Doctrine of 

 Evolution. When we arrive at sociology — still following 

 Mr. Spencer's guidance, but venturing into a region which he 

 has as yet but cursorily and fragmentarily surveyed for us — 

 I shall endeavour to show that our main hypothesis presents 

 the strongest indications of its genuineness by affording a 

 brilliant interpretation of sundry social phenomena never 

 before grouped together under a general law. This interpreta- 

 tion I shall then seek further to verify by showing how it 

 includes and justifies whatever is defensible, in the generaliza- 



