362 



PART V. WORKING STAGE. 



"The Specific Characteristics of Vitality", in Science Progress, 

 April, 1916.) 



The search for plurality of causes falls under this heading. 

 In all genuine scientific research supplementary classes of facts 

 and factors are hence continually being searched for and dis- 

 covered. 



186. (0 ALTERNATIVES. We must equally allow for 

 alternatives ; a certain gas may be a new element with atomic 

 weight 3, or it may be an unsuspected allotropic form of hydro- 

 gen, Hs ; the accessory food factors may prove to be essential 

 structural components of living tissues, or act as necessary 

 catalysts; in weak light an organism may be positively helio- 

 tropic, in stronger light indifferent, and in strong light nega- 

 tively heliotropic; the ground of punishment may be expiation, 

 retribution, deterrence, or reformation; or a person convicted 

 may have the option between imprisonment and paying a fine. 

 Alternatives repeatedly remain unsuspected: "There were two 

 hypotheses to account for the existence of the great terraces 

 called benches, or parallel roads, of Glen Roy, in Scotland". 

 Of the two hypotheses marine or lake origin Darwin decided 

 for the former ; but the later and real explanation proved them 

 to be of glacial origin. "My error [Darwin said] has been a 

 good lesson to me never to trust in science to the principle of 

 exclusion." (Frank Cramer, op. czY., pp. 43, 45.) 



187. (y) COMPLEMENTARY. We should endeavour to 

 ascertain whether a conclusion does not suggest an opposite 

 conclusion, and then discover whether the two conclusions are 

 not complementary. This will be found to be the case wherever 

 there is interdependence and interaction, as in the relation 

 of neighbouring plants, animals, social groups, ideational com- 

 plexes, and inanimate substances, or in the universal instance 

 of action and reaction. 



188. (K) RELATIVE. Formal logic deals with extremes, 

 and we should also, in a sense, aim at extremes, that is, at 

 rounded and definite statements. At the same time relative 

 results or particular propositions should be welcomed. "Some 

 men are, or have been, to some extent, born partly good and 

 partly depraved", "some men will be born very good ", and all 

 possible intermediate stages should be conceived as alternatives, 

 between no exception at all to no order at all. Herbert Spencer 

 reasoned in his First Principles that since there was a likeli- 

 hood that the religion of the past embodied a verity, there- 

 fore religions will always remain. In arguing thus he in- 

 advertently overlooked the logical fact that religion might have 

 served a useful and even noble object in the past, but may in 

 the course of time lose its value, as is abundantly true of many 

 ancient and present social institutions. Absolute statements 

 should be only aimed at in the final conclusion. Besides, if 

 the application of this elevenfold Conclusion brings to light 



