the hypothesis out of the facts.
Let us look more closely at Wundt's position. We will ask, first, whether the distinction between hypotheses and expectations is as pronounced as he maintains; and, second, whether the relation between Begründung and Bestätigung may not be closer than Wundt would have us believe.
As examples of the hypothesis Wundt mentions the Copernican hypothesis, Newton's hypothesis of gravitation, and the predictions of the astronomers which led to the discovery of Neptune. As examples of mere expectations we are referred to Galileo's experiments with falling bodies and pendulums. In case of Newton's hypothesis there was the assumption of a general law, which was verified after much labor and delay. The heliocentric hypothesis of Copernicus, which was invented for the purpose of bringing system and unity into the movements of the planets, has also been fairly well substantiated. In the discovery of Neptune we have, apparently, not the proof of a general law or the discovery of further peculiarities of previously known data, but rather the discovery of a new object or agent by means of its observed effects. In each of these instances we admit that the hypothesis was not readily suggested or easily and directly tested.
If we turn to Galileo's pendulum and falling bodies, it is clear first of all that he did not have in mind the discovery of some object, as was the case in the discovery of Neptune. Did he, then, either contribute to the proof of a general law or discover further characteristics of things already known in a more general way? Wundt tells us that Galileo only determined a little more exactly what he already knew, and that he did this with but little labor or delay.
What, then, is the real difference between hypothesis and expectation? If we compare Galileo's determination of the law of falling bodies with Newton's test of his hypothesis of gravitation, we see that both expectation and hypothesis were founded on observation and took the form of mathematical formulæ. Each tended to confirm the general law expressed in its formula, though there was, of course, much difference in the time and labor required. If we compare the Copernican hypothesis with Galileo's supposition concerning the pendulum, we find again that they agree in regard to general purpose and method, and differ in the difficulty of verification. If the experiment with the pendulum only substituted exactness for inexactness, did the Copernican theory do anything different in kind? It is true that the more exact statement of the swing of the pendulum was expressed in quantitative form, but quantitative statement is no criterion of either the presence or the absence of the hypothesis.
Again, we may compare the pendulum with Kepler's laws. What was Kepler's hypothesis, that the square of the periodic times of the several planets are proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from the sun, except a more exact formulation of facts which were already known in a more general way? Wundt's position seems to be this: whenever a supposition or suggestion can be tested readily, it should not be classed as a hypothesis. This would make the distinction one of degree rather than kind, and it does not appear how much labor we must expend, or how long our supposition must evade our efforts to test it, before it can win the title of hypothesis.
In the second place, we have seen that Wundt draws a sharp line between Begründung and Bestätigung. It is doubtless true that every hypothesis requires a certain justification, for unless other facts can be found which agree with deductions made in accordance with it, its only support would be the data from which it is drawn. Such support as this would be obtained through a process too clearly circular to be seriously entertained. The distinction which Wundt draws between Begründung and Bestätigung is evidently due to the presence of the experimental element in the latter. For descriptive purposes this distinction is useful, but is misleading if it is understood to mean that there is mere experience in one case and mere inference in the other. The difference is rather due to the relative parts played by inference and by accepted experience in each. In Begründung the inferential feature is the more prominent, while in Bestätigung the main emphasis is on the experiential aspect. It must not be supposed, however, that either of these aspects can be wholly absent. It is difficult to understand how any hypothesis can be entertained at all unless it meets in some measure the demand with reference to which it was invented, viz., a unification of conflicts in experience. And, in so far, it is confirmed. The motive which casts doubt upon its adequacy is the same that leads to its re-forming as a hypothesis, as a mental concept.
The difficulties in Wundt's position are thus due to a failure to take account of the reconstructive nature of the judgment. The predicate, supposition, or hypothesis, whatever we may choose to call it, is formed because of the check of a former habit. The judgment is an ideal application of a new habit, and its test is the attempt to act in accordance with this ideal reconstruction. It must not be thought, however, that our supposition is first fully developed and then tried and accepted or rejected without modification. On the contrary, its growth is the result of successive minor tests and corresponding minor modifications in its form. Formation and test are merely convenient distinctions in a larger process in which forming, testing, and re-forming go on together. The activity of experimental verification is not only a testing, a confirming or weakening of the validity of a hypothesis, but it is equally well an evolution of the meaning of the hypothesis through bringing it into closer relations with specific data not previously included in defining its import. Per contra, a purely reflective and deductive consideration which develops the idea as hypothesis, in so far as it introduces the determinateness of previously accepted facts within the scope, comprehension, or intension of the idea, is in so far forth, a verification.
If the view which we have maintained is correct, the hypothesis is not to be limited to those elaborate formulations of the scientist which he seeks to confirm by crucial tests. The hypothesis of the investigator differs from the comparatively rough conjecture of the plain man only in its greater precision. Indeed, as we have attempted to show, the hypothesis is not a method which we may employ or not as we choose; on the contrary, as predicate of the judgment it is present in a more or less explicit form if we judge at all. Whether the time and labor required for its confirmation or rejection is a matter of a lifetime or a moment, its nature remains the same. Its function is identical with that of the predicate. In short, the hypothesis is the predicate so brought to consciousness and defined that those features which are not noticed in the ordinary judgment are brought into prominence. We then recognize the hypothesis to be what in fact the predicate always is, viz., a method of organization and control.
VIII
Image and Idea in Logic
The logic of sense-impressions and of ideas as copies of sense-impressions has had its day. It engaged in a conflict with dogmatism, and scored a decisive victory. It overthrew the dynasty of prescribed formulæ and innate ideas, of ideas derived ready-made from custom and social usage, ancient enough to be lost in the remote obscurity of divine sources; and enthroned in their place ideas derived from, and representative of, the sense-experiences of a very real and present world. It marked a reaction from dogma back to the original meaning of dogma, back to the seeming, the appearance, of things. So thoroughly did Bacon and Hobbes, Locke and Hume, to mention only these four, do their work, that many of the problems growing out of the conflict itself, to say nothing of the scholastic traditions that were combated, have come to have merely a historical rather than a logical interest. Logic no longer concerns itself very eagerly with the content or sensuous qualities of ideas, with their derivation from sense-impressions, or with questions as to the relation of copy to original, of representative to that which is presented. It is concerned rather with the constructive operations of thought, with meaning, reference to reality, inference—with intellectual processes. Perhaps in no respect is this shifting of logical standpoint indicated more clearly than in the unregretful way with which the old logical interest in the sense-qualities of ideas is now made over to psychology. States of consciousness as such, we are told, are the proper study of psychology; whereas logic concerns itself with the relation of thought to its object. True, these states of consciousness include thought-states, as well as sense-impressions; ideas and concepts, as well as feelings and fancies; and the business of psychology is to observe,