An introductory text-book of logic - Mellone, Sydney - Rare Books at ...

2Q2
THE THEORY OF INDUCTION
Thus, the work of the alchemists, who spent days and
nights in experiments to find a means of transmuting
metals into gold, prepared the way for modern scientific
chemistry, which has long exploded the wild guesses
which guided the alchemists in their experiments, and
without which they could never have made them. Dr
"
Hill has vividly illustrated this : point We are apt to
smile at the delusions of the alchemist. His expecta
tion that at any moment he might find gold in his
crucible seems to us merely a fixed idea. But what
other motive had he for research? Merely to mix
things together, to heat them and cool them, to sub
lime and condense, to dissolve in water or alcohol, in
order that he might see what happened, was to play the
child. Anything might happen. The result might be
pretty or ugly, pleasant to smell or the reverse ;
but it
could not be useful. What purpose was served when,
at the end of a long succession of processes, his chemi
cals disappeared into thin air, with an unseemly haste
which perhaps smashed his retorts, and laid the philoso
pher upon his back?" Such experiments would be
motiveless. If we are in doubt as to the cause of any
phenomenon, we make a guess, supposition, or conjec
ture, we imagine what seems a sufficient cause, and
proceed to test it by the methods previously described.
Such a conjecture is called in scientific language an
hypothesis (viroOea-is, suppositio, "placing under").
Hypotheses, then, are continually employed throughout
the Methods of Inductive Observation and Experiment.
Mill s great mistake lay here. He recognised, indeed,
the validity of the Method of Explanation by Hypothesis,
which he calls the Deductive Method ; and he grants that
to
"
this method the human mind is indebted for its most
of Nature." But
conspicuous triumphs in the investigation