☆ 「假說」可以源於事實和現象的觀察，
可以源於理論上的需要，
亦可以來自幻想、創造、發現，甚至運氣。
「假說」可以來自幻想，可以天馬行空、發想無端，
可以突然靈機一閃，顯示出天才的洞察力，
「假說」可以是重新組織舊有的知識，提出一個嶄新的看法。
所以有時「假說」是一種屬於天才的「創造」，
有時則是一種屬於天才的「發現」。
Every really new idea looks crazy at first.
( Alfred North Whitehead )
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
( Albert Einstein )
I never made one of my discoveries
through the process of rational thinking.
( Albert Einstein )
… of all forms of mental activity
the most difficult to induce … is the art of
handling the same bundle of data as before,
but placing them in a new system of relations
with one another
and giving them a different framework,
all of which virtually means putting on
a different kind of thinking-cap for the moment.
( H. Butterfield, 1949)
科學家及科學歷史學家 Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974)
用了一個顯淺和成功的例子來說明這種天才的「創造」：
This ability to order things into likes and unlikes
is, I think, the foundation of human thought.
And it is a human ability;
we trace and to some extent inject the likeness,
which is by no means planted there by nature
for all to see.
Our very example of Newton’s apple shows this vividly.
For Newton’s instant insight, as he himself told it,
was precisely to see the likeness
which no one else had seen
between the fall of the apple and the swing
of the moon in her orbit round the earth.
The theory of gravitation rests upon this;
and familiar as the likeness now is to us,
and obvious, it would have seemed merely
fanciful to the Aristoteleans of the Middle Age.
( Jacob Bronowski 1951)
天才的洞察力，
就是能夠「看到」和「思考到」一般人想不到的東西。
Scientific research consists in seeing
what everone else has seen,
but thinking what no one else has thought.
( Albert Szent-Gyorgyi )
It’s not what you look at that matters,
it’s what you see.
( Henry David Thoreau )
至於盤尼西林 penicillin 的發現，則完全是由於運氣。
其中當然有假說和實驗互相交替的過程。
☆ 「假說」必須服膺事實和推理。
科學重視慎密的思考和推理，重視天才的構思，
但最後只有事實才是真正的權威。
In questions of science
the authority of a thousand is not worth
the humble reasoning of a single individual.
( Galileo Galilei )
筆者按：
明白科學中的「假說」是甚麼，對研究紫微斗數非常重要，
當我們遇上一些困難的例子時，我們就會需要提出許多「假說」，
然後逐一用邏輯或者事實去反駁，能夠生存的「假說」，
一旦遇上一錘定音的例子，就可以變成可靠的斗數「理論」。
所以學習紫微斗數的人，有需要自修一點科學的歷史和哲學。