Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/78

74 begotten of the contradictory conclusion should be made the basis of a new inquiry, and if possible of a new working hypothesis. Instead of the usual assumption of choice, and of the possible alternative of reaching truth or falling into error, let the assumption be that all acts of the mind are parts of a rigorous chain of antecedents and consequents. Let it be assumed that no swerving from the predetermined sequences is possible, that every thought and every act follows its antecedents with absolute rigor, no real choice, or volition, or alternative between accuracy and error being possible.

Let this set of assumptions be tried as a working hypothesis. If investigation be possible under it, let such investigation cover the whole ground of what we call truth and error. Let a distinction be drawn between absolutely predetermined mental actions corresponding to truthfulness on the one hand, and falsity on the other, if this be possible, and out of the former let science be constructed and let it be shown why it is science, and let the latter be disposed of in some suitable way. In other words, let the doctrine of determinism be put into workable form, and carried into effect in all its applications, with every step true to the primary assumptions. If this can be done successfully, we shall have a wholly new working basis for the production of science, with new criteria of science. If it can not be done and the hypothesis of determinism is unworkable, let it be cast aside like any other unworkable hypothesis. Whatever metaphysicians may think of an unworkable scheme, scientific investigators may as well send it to the junk shop.

Huxley once delivered himself of an able exposition of determinism. It was severely criticized by a fellow countryman who seemed to Huxley to have dealt with him unjustly, and he poured out the vials of his rhetorical wrath upon him as only Huxley could. But if determinism be true, I do not see how Huxley's critic could have swerved by a turn of a phrase from what he wrote, and Huxley's wrath was not more consistent than that assigned to Xerxes when he lashed the stormy Hellespont because it thwarted his purpose. But in this I may be wholly wrong. Let determinism prove itself by giving rise to a complete and systematic working hypothesis.

Whether this can be clone or not, let any other basal assumptions suggested by the inquiry be made the ground of like attempts and be developed into full working hypotheses, if possible, and so continue the effort until the whole field is covered. Let it be seen what can and what can not be put into the form of a working system.

In this second illustration of the method of regenerative hypotheses, I have touched questions not usually thought to belong to the earth-sciences. It is none the less true that they are basal to the earth-sciences, as they are to all science, and to all true philosophy as well. The earth-sciences are entitled to probe for their own bottom as well as other sciences, or any philosophy, and it is altogether wholesome that