3

3

Argument" is nothing but an instance of the first stage of all such work, the stage of observing the facts, or variously rearranging them, and of pondering them until, by their reactions with the results of previous scientific experience, there is "evolved" (as the chemists word it,) an explanatory hypothesis. He will note, however, that this instance of Retroduction, undeniable as this character is, departs widely from the ordinary run of instances, especially in three respects. In the first place, the Plausibility of the hypothesis reaches an almost unparalleled height among deliberately formed hypotheses. So hard is it to doubt God's Reality, when the Idea has sprung from Musements, that there is great danger that the investigation will stop at this first stage, owing to the indifference of the Muser to any further proof of it. At the same time, this very Plausibility is undoubtedly an argument of no small weight in favor of the truth of the hypothesis.

In the second place, although it is a chief function of an explanatory hypothesis (and some philosophers say the only one,) to excite a clear image in the mind by means of which experiential consequences of ascertainable conditions may be predicted, yet in this instance the hypothesis can only be apprehended so very obscurely that