METHOD OF DISCOVERY. 65 



established this hypothesis to your own satisfaction, 

 •will very likely be to go off for the police, and set 

 them on the track of the burglar, with the view to the 

 recovery of your property. But just as you are starting 

 with this object, some person comes in, and on learning 

 what you are about, says, " My good friend, you are 

 going on a great deal too fast. How do you know that 

 the man who really made the marks took the spoons ? 

 It might have been a monkey that took them, and the 

 man may have merely looked in afterwards." You 

 would probably reply, " Well, that is all very well, 

 but you see it is contrary to all experience of the way 

 tea-pots and spoons are abstracted ; so that, at any 

 rate, your hypothesis is less probable than mine." 

 "While you are talking the thing over in this way, 

 another friend arrives, one of that good kind of people 

 that I was talking of a little while ago. And he might 

 say, " Oh, my dear sir, you are certainly going on a 

 great deal too fast. You are most presumptuous. You 

 admit that all these occurrences took place when you 

 were fast asleep, at a time when you could not possibly 

 have known anything about what was taking place. 

 How do you know that the laws of Nature are not 

 suspended during the night ? It may be that there has 

 been some kind of supernatural interference in this 

 case." In point of fact, he declares that your hypothesis 

 is one of which you cannot at all demonstrate the 

 truth, and that you are by no means sure that the 

 laws of Nature are the same when you are asleep as 

 when you are awake. 



Well, now, you cannot at the moment answer that 



