DARWIN'S VIEWS OF METHOD. 41 



should be used. 1 The principle of multiple 

 hypotheses is urged, because in the sciences 

 it is not generally possible to hit at once upon 

 a cause from a study of the facts. As many 

 hypotheses as possible should be invented to 

 explain the facts under investigation, and as 

 fast as possible, as new light comes, other 

 hypotheses should be added, in order that the 

 mind may, as far as possible, put itself in 

 possession of all the possible causes of the 

 phenomena. By keeping them all constantly 

 before it, it can consider every fact from many 

 points of view; and each hypothesis will fur- 

 nish its own clews to further evidence. In 

 this way, also, the mind can more easily keep 

 itself in a judicial attitude. With the increase 

 of knowledge some of the hypotheses are shown 

 to be inadequate, and by the process of exclu- 

 sion their number is reduced until the inves- 

 tigation ends in the establishment of the true 

 theory of the cause of the facts under inves- 

 tigation. 



In actual practice a good many difficulties 

 are connected with this method of using 

 hypotheses. Among a number of hypotheses 

 one will almost invariably have a somewhat 

 higher degree of probability than the rest; the 



1 T. C. Chamberlain, in Science, Feb. 7, 1890. 



