AN INTEGRAL HEURISTIC

This paper gives a heuristic derivation of the skein relation for the Homfly polynomial in an integral formalism. The derivation is formally correct but highly simplified. In the light of Witten's proposal for invariants of links via functional integrals, it is useful to have a formal pattern to compare with the complexities of the full approach. The formalism is a heuristic. However, it is closely related to the actual structure of the Witten functional integral.