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In the first place, Mr. Reddie and our Chairman have, I think, entirely mis- 
understood the sense in which I used the word “ credible.” Allow me to 
quote my own words again — and really almost the whole of my reply will consist 
in turning back to my original words, and showing the difference between 
what I really said and the sense put upon it by subsequent speakers. — What, 
then, do I mean by the credibility of a hypothesis ? Do I mean its being true ? 
I have over and over again put the two things in as clear antithesis as it is 
possible to put them, and yet the Chairman says to-night that a hypothesis 
can only be credible if true. (No, no.) But I say a hypothesis may be 
credible even though not proved to be true. Having used the word in that 
sense, it is unfair to have another sense put upon it, in order to make it 
appear as if I had not proved what I professed. What I said was this : 
“ Before any hypothesis can be admitted as certainly true, it must satisfy 
all these four requirements. Until it does so, it can only be accounted as 
more or less credible.” I therefore distinctly use the term as applicable to 
a hypothesis before it is proved to be true — 
The Chairman. — I have argued against the credibility of Darwinism. But 
I no more felt bound to accept your definition of credibility than of species. 
Mr. Warington. — Precisely so ; I am only disputing your right of taking 
away my meaning from what I wrote, and putting your own in its place. 
Let us read what Mr. Reddie says about this matter. I have said at the end of 
my paper that it would be very rash to come to any definite conclusion until 
the facts of the case are better known ; but in the meanwhile I submit that 
the hypothesis is “ certainly credible.” This Mr. Reddie censures as “jump- 
ing to a conclusion.” Surely he must give me credit for a little more sense 
than to suppose I should thus contradict myself within a couple of sentences. 
I pass from this to the next point — the philosophic principles upon which I 
went to work. It is said I have been in love with hypothesis, and altogether 
ignored the Baconian system of philosophy. What have I really said ? I 
have said that hypotheses are useful things for a man to keep in his mind. I 
have said that I believe “practically” hardly any discoveries have been fully 
made out without the discoverer having a hypothesis upon which he was 
working.. For example : no one who looks at the discovery, whether true or 
not, of universal gravitation, can dispute that Newton went to its mathe- 
matical demonstration with the hypothesis already in his mind ; and if he 
had not had the hypothesis, it is certain he would never have attempted the 
mathematical demonstration. That is exactly the practical use that I submit 
hypotheses have — that if there is a fair amount of a priori possibility in their 
favour, they induce men to seek for facts in order to ascertain their truth or 
falsity. And this is really what I said, — that a man would seek for facts, 
to see whether his hypothesis was true or not ; never that he should go to 
facts in order to prove it true, for then he is an advocate. I do not say that 
any theory is to be maintained simply as a hobby, or that a man is to look 
out for all the facts in his favour, and shut his eyes against all those against 
him, for that is not science. But I submit that since we are in a manner 
obliged to use hypotheses, not being able indeed to help it, it is necessary 
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