487 
Professor Parker says :— 
“ To a certain extent the old adage, Nihil per saltum (‘ Nothing by 
leaps and starts’), is true in nature, but it is not universally true. 
Hence no well-informed naturalist is an absolute uniformitarian.”— 
Contemporary Review, vol. xlvii., p. 843.) 
“Yet changes of this kind, almost insensible, though very potent 
factors in evolution, are certainly not all that have taken place— 
some parts must have modified themselves suddenly.”—{Ibid. p. 833.) 
“ I feel the greatest difficulty in accounting for the establishment of 
a new breed in a state of freedom by slight selective influences, unless 
there have been one or more abrupt changes of type, leading step by 
step to the new form.”—(Galton. Nature, vol. xxxiii., p. 297.) 
If anyone supposes that the authority of Mr. Danvin is 
greater than that of the authors quoted, we can meet that 
difficulty by pointing out that Mr. Darwin himself speaks 
of the dictum, Natura non facit saltum, as— 
“ that old and somewhat exaggerated canon in natural history.”— 
{Origin of Species, p. 136.) 
In some cases Mr. Darwin admits that there is a con 
siderable gradation in the amount of variations :— 
“Under the term of ‘variations’ it must never be forgotten that 
mere individual differences are included.”—{Origin of Species, p. 64.) 
“ Monstrosities graduate so insensibly into mere variations that it 
is impossible to separate them.”—{The Variation, vol. ii.,p. 234.) 
The slight degree of variation which obtained among the 
birds which Mr. Darwin noticed, does not seem to corres 
pond with the investigations of other naturalists :— 
“A correspondent states that he has seen a variety of the goldfinch 
marked by strong distinguishing characters—considerably larger size, 
more graceful form, and much richer and more lustrous plumage— 
which bird-catchers say occurs frequently as a progeny of the or 
dinary bird. The distinctions of this animal are greater than those 
held in many instances as specific ; there seems no room to doubt in 
such an instance that pairs so peculiar might, in fresh ground of their 
own, give rise to a race which naturalists would call a separate 
species.”—{Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. 12th ed., 
p. 227—note.)