SECTION 20.- STUDIES PREPARATORY TO ALL INVESTIGATIONS. 211 



inapplicable, that they shall be verified when formed, and that 

 they shall be, as far as possible, extremely close to the truth. 1 



Since all the Conclusions represent to a certain degree attempts 

 to satisfy the standard formulated in the foregoing sentence, 

 and whereas the problem is incidentally treated in some detail 

 in many of the Conclusions, besides having a special Section 

 allotted to it in Part II, it does not appear necessary to enter 

 into particulars in this place, but just to state the need of 

 habitually and methodically framing hypotheses. 



Recapitulating the subject, we may say that the investigator 

 should systematically devise the most extensive hypotheses 

 consistent with the stage of an enquiry, whether it be in the 

 matter of observation, generalisation, deduction, definition, etc.; 

 that he should systematically verify, improve, and extend his 

 hypotheses; and that he should be aware that where a mo- 

 dicum is known, the hypotheses formulated are almost certain 

 to be substantially erroneous and that the time spent on veri- 

 fying them is likely to prove worse than wasted. Only this 

 need be added that the common practice of accumulating con- 

 jectures regardless of adequate preliminary observation and 

 subsequent adequate verification is a token of the absence, 

 rather than of the presence, of scientific proficiency. 



Conclusions dealing somewhat circumstantially with the matter 

 of this Conclusion are 5, 6, 25, 28, and 29, and most especi- 

 ally 25 d. 



CONCLUSION 12. 

 Need of Co-operation in Scientific Work. 



91. Science knows no barriers of nationality, and contri- 

 butions receive fair consideration whether they emanate from 

 London or Paris, Tokio or Teheran. A moment's reflection will 

 convince any one that but for this frank national and interna- 

 tional co-operation, science would be yet embryonic in form, 

 and its text-books be mostly filled with hearsay. Indeed, but 

 for the fact of civilisation, with its open door, replacing bar- 

 barism, with its closed gates, there would be practically no 

 intercommunication between peoples, and without this it is diffi- 

 cult to conceive the existence of many sciences, inasmuch as 

 these are almost invariably dependent on data culled from every 

 region of the globe. 



However, unpremeditated co-operation between peoples is 

 traceable down to the remotest antiquity. An illustration of 



1 "Hypotheses have often an eminent use: and a facility in framing them, 

 if attended with an equal facility in laying them aside when they have served 

 their turn, is one of the most valuable qualities a philosopher can possess: 

 while, on the other hand, a bigoted adherence to them, or indeed to peculiar 

 views of any kind, in opposition to the tenor of facts as they arise, is the 

 bane of all philosophy." (Herschel, Discourse, [217.].) 



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