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 CHAPTER VII HOW TO CHOOSE OUR HYPOTHESES

faculties by means of which we get our positive data are called the senses (sight, hearing, etc.).

The faculty by means of which we get our hypothetical data is called the Imagination.

Some persons are prone to warn young people against what they call an excessive exercise of the imagination. Of course, to say that "excessive" anything is too much is a mere truism, but nobody knows yet what is the proper amount of use for the imagination. What we do know is that there is a good deal of excessive mis-use of the imagination, by which I mean that there is a frightful amount of using it contrary to the laws of its normal action. A kind of use of it, such as, when we find a child doing it with its eyes, we say, "Do not learn the habit of squinting"; or if it does the analogous thing with its legs, we say, "Go and run about, or do some gymnastics; do not stand there lolloping crooked against the wall." 37