METHOD OF MULTIPLE WORKING HYPOTHESES 845 
on the other hand it is demonstrable that these basins were 
occupied by great lobes of ice and were important channels of 
glacial movement. The leeward drift shows much material 
derived from their bottoms. We cannot therefore refuse assent to 
the doctrine that the basins owe something to glacial excavation. 
Still again it has been urged that the earth’s crust beneath these 
basins was flexed downward by the weight of the ice load and 
contracted by its low temperature and that the basins owe some- 
thing to crustal deformation. This third cause tallies with cer- 
tain features not readily explained by the others. And still it is 
doubtful whether all these combined constitute an adequate 
explanation of the phenomena. Certain it is, at least, that the 
measure of participation of each must be determined before a 
satisfactory elucidation can be reached. The full solution there- 
fore involves not only the recognition of multiple participation 
but an estimate of the measure and mode of each participation. 
For this the simultaneous use of a full staff of working hypoth- 
esesis demanded. The method of the single working hypothesis 
or the predominant working hypothesis is incompetent. 
In practice it is not always possible to give all hypotheses 
like places nor does the method contemplate precisely equable 
treatment. In forming specific plans for field, office or laboratory 
work it may often be necessary to follow the lines of inquiry 
suggested by some one hypothesis, rather than those of another. 
The favored hypothesis may derive some advantage therefrom 
or go to an earlier death as the case may be, but this is rather a 
matter of executive detail than of principle. 
A special merit of the use of a full staff of hypotheses coérdi- 
nately is that in the very nature of the case it invites thorough- 
ness. The value of a working hypothesis lies largely in the 
significance it gives to phenomena which might otherwise be 
meaningless and in the new lines of inquiry which spring from 
the suggestions called forth by the significance thus disclosed. 
Facts that are trivial in themselves are brought forth into impor- 
tance by the revelation of their bearings upon the hypothesis 
and the elucidation sought through the hypothesis. The phe- 
