reasoning is not very formidable to those who are not to be frightened
by consequences. It is an 'argumentum ad ignorantiam'--take this
explanation or be ignorant.

But suppose we prefer to admit our ignorance rather than adopt a
hypothesis at variance with all the teachings of Nature? Or, suppose
for a moment we admit the explanation, and then seriously ask ourselves
how much the wiser are we; what does the explanation explain? Is it
any more than a grandiloquent way of announcing the fact, that we really
know nothing about the matter? A phenomenon is explained when it is
shown to be a case of some general law of Nature; but the supernatural
interposition of the Creator can, by the nature of the case, exemplify
no law, and if species have really arisen in this way, it is absurd to
attempt to discuss their origin.

Or, lastly, let us ask ourselves whether any amount of evidence which
the nature of our faculties permits us to attain, can justify us in
asserting that any phenomenon is out of the reach of natural
causation. To this end it is obviously necessary that we should know
all the consequences to which all possible combinations, continued
through unlimited time, can give rise. If we knew these, and found
none competent to originate species, we should have good ground for
denying their origin by natural causation. Till we know them, any
hypothesis is better than one which involves us in such miserable
presumption.

But the hypothesis of special creation is not only a mere specious mask
for our ignorance; its existence in Biology marks the youth and
imperfection of the science. For what is the history of every science
but the history of the elimination of the notion of creative, or other