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If we have sometimes gone astray in wanting to simplify the elements of a science, it is because we have established systems before having gathered a large number of facts. Such a hypothesis, very simple when we consider only one class of phenomena, requires many other hypotheses when we want to get out of the narrow circle in which we had first been enclosed. If nature has proposed to produce the maximum of effects with the minimum of causes, it is in all of its laws that it has had to solve this great problem. It is undoubtedly very difficult to discover the bases of this admirable economy, that is to say the simplest causes of the phenomena envisaged under such a wide point of view. But, if this general principle of the philosophy of the physical sciences does not immediately lead to the knowledge of the truth, it can nevertheless direct the efforts of the human mind, by distancing it from the systems which relate the phenomena to too many of different causes, and by making him adopt preferably those who, supported by the smallest number of hypotheses, felt more fruitful as a result. (en) |
