It is safe to say, however, that under this method, with all its defects, many facts will be gathered that an observer of colorless attitude would have quite overlooked. The reverse may doubtless also be said. An effort to avoid the dangers at once of the colorless Scylla and the biasing Charybdis gave rise to
The Method of the Working Hypothesis.
This may be regarded as the distinctive feature of the methodology of the last century. This differs from the method of the ruling theory in that the working hypothesis is made a means of determining facts, not primarily a thesis to be established. Its chief function is the suggestion and guidance of lines of inquiry; inquiry not for the sake of the hypothesis, but for the sake of the facts and their final elucidation. The hypothesis is a mode rather than an end. Under the ruling theory, the stimulus is directed to the finding of facts for the support of the theory. Under the working hypothesis, the facts are sought for the purpose of ultimate induction and demonstration, the hypothesis being but a means for the more ready development of facts and their relations, particularly their relations.
It will be seen that the distinction is somewhat subtile. It is rarely if ever perfectly sustained. A working hypothesis may glide with the utmost ease into a ruling theory. Affection may as easily cling about a beloved intellectual child under the name of a working hypothesis as under any other, and may become a ruling passion. The moral atmosphere associated with the working hypothesis, however, lends some good influence toward the preservation of its integrity. The author of a working hypothesis is not presumed to father or defend it, but merely to use it for what it is worth.
Conscientiously followed, the method of the working hypothesis is an incalculable advance upon the method of the ruling theory, as it is also upon the method of colorless observation; but it also has serious defects. As already implied, it is not an adequate protection against a biased attitude. Even if it avoids this, it tends to narrow the scope of inquiry and direct it solely along the lines of the hypothesis. It undoubtedly gives acuteness, incisiveness and thoroughness in its own lines, but it inevitably turns inquiry away from other lines. It has dangers therefore akin to its predecessor, the ruling theory.
A remedy for these dangers and defects has been sought in
The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses.[1]
This differs from the method of the simple working hypothesis in that it distributes the effort and divides the affections. It is thus in some measure protected against the radical defects of the two previous methods. The effort is to bring up into distinct view every rational explanation of the phenomenon in hand and to develop into working
- ↑ In this sketch I have drawn freely upon my paper on 'The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses,' Journ. Geol., V., 1897.
