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 itself, without the intervention of Darwinism." * * * "From which it follows as a matter of course, that the question, whether the manner indicated by Darwin for the origin of species is the correct one, has decreased by no means inconsiderably in significance, inasmuch as Darwin's theory could now, if it were necessary, be abandoned with less concern than formerly because it could be relinquished without detriment to the doctrine of Descent."