«So too, in order to explain the features of nature, we are permitted to assume any hypothesis we please, provided we deduce from it by mathematical inference all the phenomena of nature. And a more important point to note is this, that there is hardly any assumption we can make from which the same effects cannot be deduced — although perhaps with more trouble — from the laws of nature explained previously. For because, by the operation of those laws, matter assumes successively all the forms of which it is capable, if we consider those forms in due order, we shall finally be able to arrive at the form that is the form og this world. So one need fear no error from a false hypothesis.»


Spinoza, Principles of Cartesian Philosophy, Part 3