George Henry Lewes on the role of imagination in science

    “It is because we see little that we have to imagine much” - G. H. Lewes reached this pregnant remark by starting here:

From known facts . . . [the scientist] infers the facts that are unapparent. He does so by an effort of imagination (hypothesis) which has to be subjected to verification; he makes a mental picture of the unapparent fact, and then sets about to prove that his picture does in some way correspond with the reality. . . . Were all the qualities of things apparent to sense, there would no longer be any mystery. A glance would be science. But only some of the facts are visible; and it is because we see little that we have to imagine much. (Quoted from The Principles of Success in Literature, by George Henry Lewes. Edited by Wm. Dallam Armes. 1901. Berkeley: University of California Students’ Co-operative. p. 69.)

    For a brief biography of George Henry Lewes, click here.