These show that the very few facts known with certainty were freely supplemented by a number of ill-founded conjectures, and sometimes even by " figments and falsehoods, which in the earliest times, no less than nowadays, used to be put forth by raw smatterers and copyists to be swallowed of men."
The volatile oils have for centuries been regarded as of value in disorders of the reproductive organs, and the reputation of myrrh in this connexion is simply a survival of this ancient but ill-founded belief.
There is now little doubt that the claim formerly advanced in favour of the Chinese is ill-founded.
The conclusion that with good taxes long established the burden of taxation tends to become equal over the whole community was certainly not ill founded in the circumstances of former times, and may be accepted as true even in the present day.
In a two page ruling, the European court of human rights threw out her appeal as " manifestly ill-founded " .