vi INQUIRY AND INTERPRETATION 161 



The point on which we wish to insist is that men of 

 science do not regard theories as dogmas to be held at 

 all costs, and in face of all contradictory evidence, but 

 as ways in which phenomena can be explained. Often 

 the theory or the rule is wrong ; and it should only be 

 accepted as an approach to truth when it can be put to 

 the test. There must be theories and hypotheses, but it 

 is necessary to distinguish them from the results of 

 careful and accurate observation. The road along which 

 the progress of science has been accomplished is strewn 

 with the remains of hypotheses and theories broken 

 upon the Procrustean bed of facts of observation. A 

 hypothesis is merely a provisional or working explanation 

 of phenomena faithfully observed and recorded, and it 

 must be discarded when further observations prove it 

 to be untenable. In the acceptance of this principle, 

 the scientific type of mind differs from that which is 

 content to accept medieval scholastic philosophy as a 

 final court of appeal for new knowledge. 



The poet perceives in Nature resemblances and 

 meanings which are hidden to the ordinary mind. The 

 truly great man of science likewise uses imaginative 

 insight in his theoretical conceptions, and it enables him 

 to project known facts into unknown regions and see the 

 picture produced upon the new mental plane. Many 

 great discoveries have been made by this scientific use 

 of the imagination ; but in all cases they have depended 

 upon a basis of fact revealed by observation or experi- 

 ment. There must be knowledge before any useful 

 hypothesis or assumption can be formed as to what 

 should follow from it. The hypothesis which represents 

 an effort of imaginative power not founded upon a wide 

 range of facts may pass as fiction, but it has no place in 

 science. 



G.D. L 



