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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.[[CiteRef::Herschel (1831)|pp. 198-199]]</blockquote>
The third point regards the deductive process of rigorously testing proposed hypotheses, which he regarded as the “essential vehicle of scientific advance”.[[CiteRef::Cobb (2012b)|p. 32]]
===== On Theory Appraisal =====
Herschel’s views on theory appraisal closely mirror the “deductive” part of the hypothetico-deductive method. When considering a scientific theory, he states that “it is the verification of [the inductions in question] which constitutes theory in its largest sense”. [[CiteRef::Herschel (1831)|p. 200]] The method of verification is described by means of an example - Herschel describes the process as follows:1. The construction of the theory: “Inductions drawn from the motions of the several planets about the sun [lead] us to the general conception of an attractive force exerted by every particle of matter in the universe on every other”.[[CiteRef::Herschel (1831)|p. 201]]2. The verification of the theory: “When we would verify this induction, we must set out with assuming this law, considering the whole [solar] system as subjected to its influence and implicitly obeying it, and nothing interfering with its action;” and when observing what formerly qualified as exceptions to the accepted theory, we find that these deviations are “neither exceptions nor residual facts, but fulfilments of general rules, and essential features of the statement of the case, without which our induction would be invalid, and the law of gravitation positively untrue.”[[CiteRef::Herschel (1831)|p. 202]]
In other words, a scientist must assume a proposed law, and test for deviations in an isolated environment. What we can glean from this description is that Herschel thinks a theory is “good” if it has new empirical content, and that if a theory has exceptions in a given domain, it is “positively untrue”, which is consistent with his view on the attainability of ultimate causes.
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