I do not mean to condemn those who employ themselves in working out into detail this sort of hypotheses; it is useful to ascertain what are the known phenomena, to the laws of which those of the subject of inquiry bear the greatest, or even a great analogy, since this may suggest (as in the case of the luminiferous ether it actually did) experiments to determine whether the analogy which goes so far does not extend still further. But that, in doing this, we should imagine ourselves to be seriously inquiring whether the hypothesis of an ether, an electric fluid, or the like, is true; that we should fancy it possible to obtain the assurance that the phenomena are produced in that way and no other; seems to me, I confess, unworthy of the present improved conceptions of the methods of physical science. And at the risk of being charged with want of modesty, I cannot help expressing astonishment that a philosopher of Dr. Whewell's abilities and attainments should have written an elaborate treatise on the philosophy of induction, in which he recognises absolutely no mode of induction except that of trying hypothesis after hypothesis until one is found which fits the phenomena; which one, when found, is to be assumed as true, with no other reservation than that if on re-examination it should appear to assume more than is needful for explaining the phenomena, the superfluous part of the assumption should be cut off. And this without the slightest distinction between the cases in which it may be known beforehand that two different hypotheses cannot lead to the same result, and those in which, for aught we can ever know, the range of suppositions, all equally consistent with the phenomena, may be infinite.[11]