502 WHETHER THE LAW OF CONTINUITY CONSISTENT CHAP. xxiv. 



exist in the Divine Mind, whether realised or not materially 

 and in the visible creation, of which the 6 links do not 

 pass by an easy transition ' the one into the other, at least 

 as beheld by us. 



Dr. Asa Gray, an eminent American botanist, to whom we 

 are indebted for a philosophical essay of great merit on the 

 Origin of Species by Variation and Natural Selection, has well 

 observed, when speaking of the axiom of Leibnitz, ( Natura non 

 agit saltatim,' that nature secures her ends, and makes her dis 

 tinctions, on the whole, manifest and real, but without any 

 important breaks or long leaps. e We need not wonder that 

 gradations between species and varieties should occur, or that 

 genera and other groups should not be absolutely limited, 

 though they are represented to be so in our systems. The clas 

 sifications of the naturalist define abruptly where nature more 

 or less blends. Our systems are nothing if not definite.' 



The same writer reminds us that 'plants and animals are 

 so different, that the difficulty of the ordinary observer would 

 be to find points of comparison, whereas, with the naturalist, 

 it is all the other way. All the broad differences vanish one 

 by one as we approach the lower confines of the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms, and no absolute distinction whatever is 

 now known between them.'* 



The author of an elaborate review of Darwin's ' Origin of 

 Species,' himself an accomplished geologist, declares that if 

 we embrace the doctrine of the ( continuous variation of all 

 organic forms from the lowest to the highest, including man 

 as the kst link in the chain of being, there must have been 

 a transition from the instinct of the brute to the noble mind 

 of man ; and in that case, ( where,' he ( asks,' are the missing 

 links, and at what point of his progressive improvement did 



* Natural Selection not inconsistent Asa Gray. Triibner & Co., London, 

 with Natural Theology, p. 55, by Dr. 1861. 



