HYrOTHESES. 205 



sition, even a false one, to see what consequences will follow from it ; 

 and by observing how these differ from the real phenomena, we learn 

 what corrections to make in our assumption. The simplest supposition 

 which accords with any of the most obvious facts, is the best to begin 

 •with ; because its conseciuences are the most easily traced. This rude 

 hypothesis is then rudely corrected, and the operation repeated ; and 

 the comparison of the consequences deducible from the corrected hypo- 

 thesis, with the observed facts, sugge^sts still further correction, until 

 the deductive results, are at last made to tally with the phenomena. 

 "Some fact," says M. Comte,* "is as yet little understood, or some 

 law is unknown : we frame on the subject an hypothesis as accordant 

 a.s possible with the whole of the data already possessed; and the 

 science, being thus enabled to move forward freely, always ends by 

 leading to new comsequences capable of observation, which either- con^ 

 firm or reflite, unequivocally, the first supposition." Neither indiiction 

 nor deduction, he justly remarks, would enable us to understand even 

 the simplest phenomena, "if we did not often conimcnce by a.nticipa-^ 

 ting on the results ; by making a provisional supposition, at first essen- 

 tially conjectural, as to some of the very notions which constitute the 

 final object of the inquiry. "t Let any one watch the manner in which 

 he himself unravels any complicated mass of evidence ; let him observe 

 how, for instance, he elicits the true history of any occurrence from 

 the involved statements of one or of many witnesses : he will find that 

 he does not take all the items of evidence into his mind at once, and 

 attempt to weave them together : the human faculties are not equal to 

 such an undertaking : he extemporizes, from a few of the particulars, 

 a first rude theory of the rhode in which the facts took place, and then 

 looks at the other statements one by one, to try whether they can be 

 reconciled ^vith that provisional theory, or what corrections or additions 

 it requires to make it square with tliem. In this Avay, which, as M. 

 Comte remarks, has some resemblance to the Methods of Approxima- 

 tion of mathematicians, we arrive, by means of hypotheses at cojiclu- 

 sions not hypothetical.! • 



Cours de Philosophic Positive, ii., p. 437 t Ibid, p. 434. 



X As an example of a legititnate hypotnesis according to ihe. test here laid down, M. 

 Comte cites that of Broussais, who, proceeding on tht^ very rational principle that every 

 disease must originate in some definite part or other of the organism, boldly assumed that 

 certain fevers, which not being known to bo local were called constitutional, had their 

 origin in the. mucous membrane of the alimentary canal. The supposition was indeed, as 

 there is strong ground to believe, erroneous ; but he was justified jn making it, since by 

 deducing the consequences of the supposition; and comparing them with the facts of those 

 maladies, he might be certain of disproving his hypothesis in case.itwas ill founded, and 

 might expect that the comparison would materially aid him in framing another more con- 

 formable to the phenomena. 



The doctrine, now ontversally received, that the earth is a. great natural magnet with 

 two poles, was originally an hypothesis of the celebrated Gilbert. 



Another hypothesis, to the legitimacy of which no objection can lie, and one which is 

 well calculated to light the path of scientific inquiry, is that spggested both by Dr. Arnott 

 and Sir John Herschel, that the brain is a voltaic pile, and that each of its pulsations is a 

 discharge of electricity through the system. It has been remarked that the scnsatinn felt 

 by the hand from the beating of a brain, or even of the great arteries, bears a strong resem- 

 blance to a. voltaic shock. And the. hypothesis, if followed to its consequen<ies,. might 

 afford a plausible explanation of many physiological facts, while there is nothing to dis- 

 courage the hope that we may in time sufficiently understand the conditions of voltaic 

 phenomena to render the truth of the hypothesis amenable to observation and experiment. 



The attempt to localize, iri different regions of the brain, the physical organs of our dif- 

 ferent mental faculties and propensities, was, on the part of its original author, a strictly 

 legitimate example of a scientific hypothesis ; arid we ought not, therefore, to blame him 

 for the extremely slight grounds on which he often proceeded, in an operation which 



