Six Fallacies. 97 



tray the action of the environment, and the condi- 

 tions of life; he and the Darwinians will show that 

 a number of facts established in the comparative 

 study of organic species are just as they should be, 

 if species were descended from one another. Hence, 

 fifthly, one hypothesis will be made on demand to 

 fit into another; and a huge system of hypotheses 

 will grow round — what? to prove what? He has 

 not defined in nature the ground of the original 

 question — what a species is ? and whether there is a 

 single derivative species existing, as a matter of fact, 

 to lend some color to the question and hypothesis 

 which he suggests! So that it is a system of 

 gratuitous hypotheses, gratuitous because uncalled 

 for by any facts, and gratuitous because unproved 

 by the subsequent hypotheses. Wherefore, sixthly, 

 it is not surprising that, besides being gratuitous, 

 the system should elaborately be only begging the 

 question which it pretends to prove, and begging 

 for new hypotheses to prove it. The fecundity of 

 this school, in devising something newer still to 

 prove what is very new, seems a happy illustration in 

 logic of what I quoted before, das Immerwerden des 

 Neuen, " the ever becoming of the new;" and in- 

 deed it is a process which, if it once has a reason for 

 beginning, need never be checked by any sufficient 

 reason for ending. Every day we are witnessing 

 new phases of its evolution, Feternel devenir y in 

 logic as well as elsewhere. And as to the materials 

 on which Mr. Darwin's erudition expands at large, 



