Page:The Foundations of Science (1913).djvu/45

 

 

a superficial observer, scientific truth is beyond the possibility of doubt; the logic of science is infallible, and if the scientists are sometimes mistaken, this is only from their mistaking its rules.

“The mathematical verities flow from a small number of self-evident propositions by a chain of impeccable reasonings; they impose themselves not only on us, but on nature itself. They fetter, so to speak, the Creator and only permit him to choose between some relatively few solutions. A few experiments then will suffice to let us know what choice he has made. From each experiment a crowd of consequences will follow by a series of mathematical deductions, and thus each experiment will make known to us a corner of the universe.”

Behold what is for many people in the world, for scholars getting their first notions of physics, the origin of scientific certitude. This is what they suppose to be the role of experimentation and mathematics. This same conception, a hundred years ago, was held by many savants who dreamed of constructing the world with as little as possible taken from experiment.

On a little more reflection it was perceived how great a place hypothesis occupies; that the mathematician can not do without it, still less the experimenter. And then it was doubted if all these constructions were really solid, and believed that a breath would overthrow them. To be skeptical in this fashion is still to be superficial. To doubt everything and to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; each saves us from thinking.

Instead of pronouncing a summary condemnation, we ought therefore to examine with care the rôle of hypothesis; we shall then recognize, not only that it is necessary, but that usually it is