Scientific Sophisms. 241 



there only in the absence of the " related forms " 

 "graduating insensibly." You have only to 

 imagine the " forms " and the " breaks " will 

 disappear. 



And yet, of these same " forms " it is all the 

 while most certain that they cannot be de- 

 scribed ; they are not known to have existed ; 

 they are not known to have been " related " ; 

 they are not known to " have become extinct." 

 Nor are the " breaks " more real. They are 

 breaks only on the assumption of the hypo- 

 thesis : not otherwise. And the second as- 

 sumption has no power to confer validity on 

 the first 



20. From this tissue of assumptions we revert 

 to the facts. No less a writer than Mr. Wallace, 

 "the independent originator and by far the best 

 expounder of the theory of Natural Selection," 

 differs to to ccelo from Mr. Darwin on the question 

 of the Origin of Man. For the creation of man, 

 as he is, Mr. Wallace postulates the necessity 

 of the intervention of an external Will. He 

 observes that even the lowest types of savages 

 are in possession of capacities far beyond any 

 use to which they can apply them in their 

 present condition, and therefore they could not 

 have been evolved from the mere necessities 



