et Imbecillitate Darwiniana. 1 5 



assured by rigorous observation or experi- 

 ment : a method very different from that 

 of Newton in establishing the law of gravi- 

 tation. When Newton said : hypotheses non 

 fingo : he was not, as some absurdly now 

 imagine, speaking ironically : he meant what 

 he said : videlicet : that if he appealed to a 

 power, he first made sure that it was one. 

 But in the nineteenth century, figmentary 

 hypotheses, euphemistically termed 'working' 

 hypotheses, were the logical fashion and the 

 order of the day : fleeting shadows, coming 

 only to go away again : speculative bubbles 

 beautiful to look at, formed in one moment 

 only to burst and be forgotten in the next. 



IV. 



Now Darwin was a Lyellian of the Lyel- 

 lians. This would be sufficiently obvious to 

 any student of his writings, even if he had 



