Other things equal, the simpler hypothesis is to be preferred to the less simple where no proof can be had of either. But none the less, the simpler may be false and the other true. Cheapness is no proof of goodness. We are naturally impatient of troublesome and complex theories; but what we gain in the simplicity of an hypothesis, we commonly lose in the difficulty of getting the facts to square with it. It is a simple theory that circular motion is the most perfect, and that the planets being the most perfect bodies must move with the most perfect motion; but so many epicycles must be introduced to explain apparent exceptions that the modern astronomical hypothesis, however more complex in statement, is on the whole welcomed as a simplification. So we are disposed to think it is with regard to the popular form of Evolutionism. Its simplicity in statement is more than cancelled by its difficulty in application; and at last we are driven to conceive it in a form which at once deprives it of its title to popularity. So far as it is simple it is fallacious and proves incoherent on closer inspection, when we try to translate its terms into clear and distinct ideas; but when we get it into intelligible form it is no simpler than the theistic hypothesis which it wants to displace, except inasmuch as it prescinds from the question of origin and last end. But in this, its only intelligible form, it leaves the argument from adaptability intact, and even requires theism as its rational complement.