38 LAW OF VAEIATIONS. 



learned and scientific), that their derivation is as Dar- 

 win would have it, they, beyond question, are entitled 

 to have the ground alleged in support of such an 

 hypothesis, formed of something more substantial 

 than such flimsy material as an " innate tendency." 

 Even though the consequences of the theory were 

 comparatively of no moment whatever, it might well 

 be required in the name of science, and of common 

 sense, that the base of the theory — the base especially 

 — should present at least some semblance of solidity. 

 Most assuredly — even though there were no law, yet 

 discovered, which governed the facts of variation, and 

 though there were no converse theory deducible from 

 that law — Darwin would be bound to find a law of 

 variation, or frame some legitimate induction, before 

 he could rightly mount one step higher in his theory. 

 It is not, merely, because there is a known, scientific 

 law governing variations, nor because there is a con- 

 verse theory of development, resting on that law, that 

 Darwin's passing by the facts of variations, with a 

 mere ascription of them to " an innate tendency," is to 

 be deemed unscientific and illegitimate. Those are 

 reasons, to the treatment of which we have not yet 

 come. They are over and beyond the point of the 

 intrinsic illegitimacy of Darwin's first assumption. 

 Darwin's process would be unscientific, and Darwin's 

 theoiy would be wholly illegitimate, if there were no 

 explanation, of variation, known ; and, if science gave, 

 at present, not the faintest glimmering of a promise of 

 one. It may be demurred, that the foundation of 

 Darwin's theory is found in the facts of variation. 



