Chapter 10, The Story of a Working Hypothesis, part 3

This, again, you will observe, is purely imaginary hypothesis. I had not the faintest warrant for saying anything of the kind; therefore I did not say it; but I experimented at treating my Hebrew friends and acquaintance as if they were natural born ministers, or servants, of the principle of rhythmic beat; as if it was their business to introduce respect for rhythm and an orderly arrangement of time into the general morals of the world; and as if they would, of course, become degraded more than other people, if they allowed themselves to drift into being irregular and disorderly. Now you will observe that, though all this was purely imaginary hypothesis, it was of a harmless kind; there is nothing contrary to the ten commandments, or to any other register of safe rules, in treating one's Hebrew acquaintance as if one expected them to be more orderly as to time than other people. The registered rules allowed me to consider this a safe road; and my imagination showed me that it was one along which I could travel quickly; therefore I started to go along it and waited to see where I got to. One consequence which came was that some of the people of Isra¨l began telling me that I seemed toe know things about their old books (even some old books that I had never read), which they themselves had never observed before; I had enabled them to get at real values for the x's and y's; of some of their problems. Please notice that all this is pure imaginary hypothesis. Ancient peoples made a hypothesis, for which they had no authority, about angels; and I made one, for which I had no authority, about some of those supposed angels. And, by dealing logically with these imaginations, we got to some very real knowledge.