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It is valid, however, to question Herschel’s commitment to this “novice” method (as some authors have labeled it) - he seems to allow for wilder speculation in his method of hypotheses (i.e. his “expert” method), and some have said that the novice method was outlined mainly for rhetorical purposes and that Herschel’s true views were more closely aligned with a more liberal, less restrictive set of guidelines. Bolt claims that Herschel “explicitly encourages and defends the use of hypothetical reasoning” in PD and in related essays, meaning that he did not feel bound to the naive inductivist view outlined above. This was influenced in part by the great success of the wave theory of light, which was a prime example of a theory which could not have come from purely inductive generalizations (whereas Newton’s theory of gravity is an example of one which could have). In this sense, Herschel contributed to the rise of the hypothetico-deductive method in the 19th-century.
Herschel’s view on theory construction and the ways in which he related to the two conflicting views of his time are nicely outlined by the first and second points of the following passage from PD.:
<blockquote>We have next to consider the laws which regulate the action of these our primary agents; and these we can only arrive at in three ways : 1st, By inductive reasoning; that is, by examining all the cases in which we know them to be exercised, inferring, as well as circumstances will permit, its amount or intensity in each particular case, and then piecing together, as it were, these disjecta membra, generalizing from them, and so arriving at the laws desired ; 2dly, By forming at once a bold hypothesis, particularizing the law, and trying the truth of it by following out its consequences and comparing them with facts; or, 3dly, By a process partaking of both these, and combining the advantages of both without their defects, viz. by assuming indeed the laws we would discover, but so generally expressed, that they shall include an unlimited variety of particular laws ; following out the consequences of this assumption, by the application of such general principles as the case admits; comparing them in succession with all the particular cases within our knowledge ; and, lastly, on this comparison, so modifying and restricting the general enunciation of our laws as to make the results agree.</blockquote>
The third point regards the deductive process of rigorously testing proposed hypotheses, which he regarded as the “essential vehicle of scientific advance”.
