128 THE METHOD OF DARWIN. 



greatest oversights of my work that I did not 

 experimentize on such flowers, owing to the 

 difficulty of fertilizing them and to my not 

 having seen the importance of the subject." 



Although it is clear that the possession of a 

 theory is no guaranty that all its consequences 

 will be foreseen, or, if foreseen, observed, or 

 even that, if they are both deductively foreseen 

 and empirically observed, they will be brought 

 into connection with the theory; nevertheless, 

 the importance of theory for accurate observa- 

 tion cannot be overestimated. However cau- 

 tious Darwin was about committing himself 

 unreservedly to a hypothesis, he never really 

 dispensed with one if he could find one. 

 Though he subdued his tendency to speculation 

 in the interest of observation, he did not dis- 

 pense with at least provisional hypotheses, even 

 in accumulating his facts. He felt the want 

 when he could not find one, and made it his 

 first task to establish some degree of probability 

 in favor of one. 



One of his early experiences is a good illus- 

 tration of how even trained observers could not, 

 without the help of a theory, observe phenom- 

 ena on which they actually walked, and which 

 obstructed their progress. 1 He has said, "I 



1 Life and Letters, Vol. I. pp. 48, 49. 



