Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

~MEMORY-. 317
selves which is nece, sary to give plausibility to a hypothetical
theory, are likely to furnish, in time, the materials of a juster
system.
The proper use of hypothetical theories. - Some of the followers of Lord Bacon have, I think, been led, in their zeal for the
method of induction, to censure hypothetical theories with too
great a degree of severity. Such theories have certainly been
frequently of use, in putting philosophers upon the road of discovery. Indeed, it has probably been in this way, that most
discoveries have been made; for although a knowledge of facts
must be prior to the formation of a just theory, yet a hypothetical theory is generally our best guide to the knowledge of useful
facts. If a man, without forming to himself any conjecture
concerning the unknown laws of nature, were to set himself
merely to accumulate facts at random, he might, perhaps, stumble
upon some important discovery; but by far the greater part of
his labors would be wholly useless. Every philosophical inquirer, before he begins a set of experiments, has some general
principle in his view, which he suspects to be a law of nature;X
and although his conjectures may be often wrong, yet they serve
to give his inquiries a particular direction, and to bring under
his eye a number of facts which have a certain relation to each
other. It has been often remarked, that the attempts to discover
the philosopher's stone, and the quadrature of the circle, have
led to many useful discoveries in chemistry and mathematics.
And they have plainly done so, merely by limiting the field of
observation and inquiry, and checking that indiscriminate and
desultory attention which is so natural to an indolent mind. A
* " Recte siquidem Plato,' Qui aliquid qunrit, id ipsum, quod qumnrit,
generali quadam notione comprehendit: aliter, qui fieri potest, ut illud,
cum fuerit inventurn, agnoscat' Idcirco quo amplior et certior fuerit
anticipatio nostra, eo magis directa et compendiosa erit investigatio." -
[As Plato justly observes,' He who is in search of any thing, has some
general notion of what it is that he is seeking for; otherwise, how should
he recognize it when found i' Therefore, according as our anticipation is
full and clear, so will our investigation be brief and direct.] -De Aug.
Scient. lib. v. cap. 3.
27*