ertion recently made by an
eminent authority, that the principal cause of the difficulties of many
naturalists in matters of religion is their deficient philosophical
training.

Wagner's statement implies that, in the case of Darwinism one may in
defiance of all established law, actually reverse the methods of
natural science. How justifiable and how necessary was it not, then,
that even three decades ago Wigand should have written his
comprehensive work: "Darwinism and the Scientific Researches of Newton
and Cuvier."

Ordinarily the scientific (inductive) method proceeds from the "actual"
and attempts to deduce from the "individual case" an explanation, which
applies to the whole. Here, however, we are face to face with a theory,
which, according to the candid confession of an advocate, fails in the
individual case, but furnishes a unifying explanation of the whole.
This means nothing less than a complete subversion of all scientific
methods. Usually a theory is deduced from separate observations
regarding the "actual" but here--and this is what Wigand constantly
asserted--the theory was enunciated first, and then followed the
attempt to establish it in fact. One could then rest content and trust
to the future to establish the theory by producing evidences of the
"actual" in the individual case. But forty years have elapsed since the
Darwinian hypothesis first became known, naturalists by the thousands
have spent themselves in the endeavor to corroborate it by proofs based
on actual facts, and to-day one of its own advocates has to confess
that the endeavor has been a total failure. Instead of drawing the
conclusion, however, that the theory is unwarranted and that the
decrease of enthusiasm for it is therefore a natural consequence, he
gratuitously enters a flat denial of this inference.

Every intelligent observer must conclude with absolute certainty from
this confession of a Darwinian, that Darwinism is, in fact, not a
scientific but a philosophic theory of nature.

But let us proceed to a consideration of the other reasons which Wagner
suggests as an explanation of the retrogression of Darwinism. He states
as a first reason, that scientific research since Darwin "has amassed
such an abundance of empiric materials for the truth of the principle
of Descent, that this doctrine has been able, even for some time past,
to maintain an independent position and to draw proofs of its truth
immediately from nature itsel