SECTION 12. HYPOTHESES. 97 



that average members of perhaps all races of men are able 

 to graduate at universities. Here the habit of tentatively 

 generalising important statements ( 172) is mainly responsible 

 for the hypothesis. Or, striving to think of improvements, 

 I follow as regards a particular object, the rule of recollecting 

 acknowledged defects and clamoured-for perfections, and con- 

 ceive them as objects to be realised according to admitted prin- 

 ciples. (See 171.) Or, finally, we may develop our special 

 illustration of the mode of forming a hypothesis by extending 

 our generalisation thus: my friend sometimes, frequently, gene- 

 rally, always, keeps manuscripts in envelopes; he stores every 

 kind of manuscript, engraving, extracts from newspapers, 

 classes of letters, etc., in envelopes; he makes parcels of 

 everything. This last case implies that we often seek only for 

 a bare explanation of a single fact, and that it is indifferent 

 circumstances which frequently decide in our unmethodological 

 age how extensive or how reasoned a hypothesis will be. 



Of course, certain distinctions should be presupposed. Where 

 much of a scientific character is known, as in certain portions 

 of physics, a cursory scrutiny of facts may suffice for forming 

 a legitimate and sweeping hypothesis. In such an instance, 

 however, we rely on the observations of previous investigators. 

 For this specific reason, i.e., the different developmental stages 

 of a science, years of indefatigable observation may issue in 

 no valid hypothesis, whilst in another department immediate 

 observation may play an inconspicuous part and yet an impos- 

 ing and true hypothesis readily emerges. 1 Naturally, too, some 

 individuals are better trained than others to appreciate con- 

 nections of objects and energies, or are more fitted by cir- 

 cumstances for investigating one science than another. 



Mill claims that the deductive process consists of an induction, 

 followed by ratiocination and completed by verification. He, 

 however, recognises also a hypothetical method. "The hypo- 

 thetical method suppresses the first of the three steps, the in- 

 duction to ascertain the law, and contents itself with the other 

 two operations, ratiocination and verification, the law which is 

 reasoned from being assumed instead of proved." (Logic, bk. 3, 

 ch. 14, 4.) This method, Mill considers, is specially applicable 

 to social problems, and he judges that not until it is adopted, 

 shall we chronicle any noteworthy progress in social science. 

 This exemplifies Mill's extraordinary belief that by a species 

 of spontaneous generation the most far-reaching hypotheses can 



1 The opposite contention, that hypotheses are necessary to observation, 

 is, of course, also true, since alertness involves readiness to be guided by 

 the merest hint. According to his son, Darwin "often said that no one 

 could be a good observer unless he was an active theoriser" (Charles Darwin, 

 p. 95); but this only refers to the lowliest grade of hypotheses, and to such 

 as are of methodological importance, as, for instance, the suggestions con- 

 tained in the Table of Categories. 



