LAW OF VARIATIONS. 39 



Not to quibble and say that the facts and the theory- 

 are altogether two different things ; it may be admitted, 

 that the facts are a foundation; but, between those 

 facts and Darwin's theory, there is no connection, no 

 intervening support for the superstructure of the 

 theory. A wide hiatus yawns between. 



The inductive method, of which Darwin's theory 

 has been lauded to the skies, as the bright exemplar, 

 has, in this ascription of the facts of variation, to an 

 "innate tendency," been ruthlessly violated. That 

 method forbids any principle to be taken for granted 

 (save in a merely tentative hypothesis, avowedly tenta- 

 tive) : or assumed at all, unless it represents truly the 

 resolution of the unknown into the known. Thus, 

 had Darwin conceived some law which he fancied 

 governed variations, he might, tentatively only, have 

 assumed it, though the evidence^ in support of it were 

 very inadequate. But, merely to formulate his ignor- 

 ance, in some set expression, as he has done, is grossly 

 illegitimate, and never tolerated, when the canons of 

 science are held in any esteem. Had his " innate ten- 

 dency," not been a mere formula for his ignorance, but 

 a hypothesis; to reason downwards, from such an 

 assumption, which had not withstood all the tests of 

 induction, would have been to violate the veiy spirit 

 and letter of the scientific method. This method will 

 concede nothing, but insists upon first reasoning 

 upwards ; and scoffs at the idea that any theory can be 

 scientific, when based upon a principle which has not 

 complied with the requirements of proof. Yet, Dar- 

 win violates all science, by perpetrating something 



