Читать книгу A Theory of the Mechanism of Survival: The Fourth Dimension and Its Applications онлайн

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But among other things it was demonstrated that in order to account for the observed phenomena of refraction it was necessary to suppose that the "Corpuscles" travelled faster in water than in air.

At first there was no means of determining directly whether this was so or not. But later the researches of Foucault made it possible to settle the point by direct measurement. When the velocity of light in air and water respectively was measured directly by Foucault's method it was found that the velocity in water was less than that in air. The Corpuscular theory was therefore untenable.

It is only by this process of forming, testing and, if necessary, rejecting hypotheses that we gradually attain to exact knowledge. As Prof. Richet says:

"La science n'a jamais été qu'une serie d'erreurs, approximations constamment evoluant constamment boulversé, et cela d'autant plus vite qu'elle était plus avancée."

(Annales des sciences psychiques, 1905, p. 15.)

From this brief resumé of the steps involved in scientific progress it is clear that the formation of a working hypothesis, by inductive reasoning from the observed facts, is a normal, necessary, and invariable step in the progress of any science whatsoever.