40 LAW OP VARIATIONS. 



infinitely worse: He reasons downwards from his 

 ignorance! which, avowedly, is the first term in his 

 theory. 



He says that he does not know the cause of varia- 

 tions — the law to which his data conform! He, 

 further, tacitly deprecates all inquiry into the legiti- 

 macy of his' methods, and requires that all should 

 accept his metaphysical formula of confessed ignorance, 

 as matter of necessary belief. Such devices, the advo- 

 cates of the scientific method say, they leave to tricky 

 metaphysicians, with which to beguile the ignorant and 

 superstitious. Yet, this vaunted champion of the in- 

 ductive method, confesses that his first assumption (or 

 apology therefor) in a theory which essays to revo- 

 lutionize all preconceived ideas of the origin and 

 dignity of the human race, cannot satisfy the require- 

 ments of inductive or scientific thought; but, that he 

 is constrained, at the very outset of such theory, to 

 deal with his subject on transcendental grounds only. 

 He himself tacitly concedes, in a mild deprecating 

 way, that the very base of his theory is sapped, if any 

 one be so unkind as to take exception to his first 

 assumption of ignorance; and intimates, in a mode 

 little short of explicit expression (aye, directly states) 

 that the sole strength of his theory lies in an assumed 

 agreement between his deductions from this principle 

 of ignorance, and the phenomena in hand. You may 

 read between the lines that he hopes this fancied agree- 

 ment may atone for his gross violation, at the start, of 

 the canons of science. 



We say fancied agreement; and such it is. For, he, 



