This view rests on the entirely gratuitous assertion, "that the decline, in the esteem enjoyed by Darwinism, is not due to a better insight arising from widened experience, but is primarily the expression of a tendency--a tendency which resulted almost as a psychological necessity from the precarious position into which Darwinism was forced under the sway of the theory of Descent." This assertion rests, as stated above, on wholly erroneous assumptions. It is a serious mistake, to speak in this connection of tendencies and even to brand them as a "psychological necessity." The decline in esteem is essentially due to experience, and indeed to experience which has made it certain that Darwinism has everywhere failed. The importance of the present crisis in Darwinism is to be restricted even further, according to Wagner, by the fact, "that the real objections, urged against the theory of Darwin, are almost in every instance based on theoretic considerations, the validity of which can be put to the test only in fictitious cases. This manner of proceeding manifestly leads to the inevitable consequence, that the results thus obtained can claim no decisive weight against Darwinism. A decisive critique can be constructed only on the basis of experience, and in this connection it cannot be emphasized sufficiently, that, as yet, the path to it has been scarcely indicated, to say nothing of its having been actually pursued." The reason for this fact according to Wagner, is to be found "in the numerous and most extraordinary difficulties that arise in the way of the empiric investigation of the theory of selection." After we have read all this, we instinctively ask ourselves: do we actually live at the beginning of the 20th century? Is it possible, that even at this late day the whole structure of scientific method is to be subverted in this fashion? Just consider for a moment, what according to these words is the actual import of the whole article: Darwinism is a unifying explanation of the origin of the totality of the world of organisms, but fails in the individual case; in any specified case it is "almost impossible" to trace with any certainty the action of natural selection in the process which results in the production of a new species; that is, Darwinism was enunciated with a complete disregard for inductive method, as an hypothesis to explain the whole, and without actual proof in the concrete--a most unscientific procedure. Immediately after, however, the adversaries of Darwinism are asked in all seriousness to produce individual facts in disproof of the theory.