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The method of the Hippocratic writers is that known to-day as the 'inductive'. Without the vast scientific heritage that is in our own hands, with only a comparatively small number of observations drawn from the Coan and neighbouring schools, surrounded by all manner of bizarre oriental religions in which no adequate relation of cause and effect was recognized, and above all constantly urged by the exuberant genius for speculation of that Greek people in the midst of whom they lived and whose intellectual temptations they shared, they remain nevertheless, for the most part, patient observers of fact, sceptical of the marvellous and the unverifiable, hesitating to theorize beyond the data, yet eager always to generalize from actual experience; calm, faithful, effective servants of the sick.
Our "normal" consciousness is circumscribed for adaptation to our external earthly environment, but the fence is weak in spots, and fitful influences from beyond leak in, showing the otherwise unverifiable common connection.
That the argument from General Laws is a futile argument, is no longer a matter of unverifiable opinion: it is as sure as is the most fundamental axiom of science. That the argument will long remain in illogical minds, I doubt not; but that it is from henceforth quite inadmissible in accurate thinking, there can be no question.
She did spirit writing that would have done credit to the immortal Slade, told me a lot of things that were true, and many more that were unverifiable or hopelessly vague. It was really worth much more than the price, and I did not need to feign the interest necessary to get her terms for a circle in the laboratory. Of course I had to make the terms with Farrington.
Whether his scheme of things is correct or not and it shares the common fate of all metaphysical systems in being unverifiable, and to that extent unprofitable he will in the last resort have made good his claim to be read by his insight into the varied needs of human life.
To recommend this conclusion, we must consider what it is that is proved by the empirical success of physics. What is proved is that its hypotheses, though unverifiable where they go beyond sense-data, are at no point in contradiction with sense-data, but, on the contrary, are ideally such as to render all sense-data calculable when a sufficient collection of "sensibilia" is given.
Therefore, it would seem, the correlation with objects of sense, by which physics was to be verified, is itself utterly and for ever unverifiable. There are two ways of avoiding this result.
Therefore if we accept the hypothesis suggested in 'Supernatural Religion' and it is a mere hypothesis, quite unverifiable the evidence for miracles would not be materially weakened. The author would, I suppose, admit that it is at least equally probable that the saying was quoted from our present Gospel.
The progress of physical science, since the revival of learning, is largely due to the fact that men have gradually learned to lay aside the consideration of unverifiable hypotheses; to guide observation and experiment by verifiable hypotheses; and to consider the latter, not as ideal truths, the real entities of an intelligible world behind phenomena, but as a symbolical language, by the aid of which nature can be interpreted in terms apprehensible by our intellects.
I am very suspicious of experiences which one is told to take on trust, and which can't be intellectually expressed. It's the sort of theory that the clergy fall back upon, what they call spiritual truth, which seems to me merely unchecked, unverifiable experience.
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