504 LAW OF CONTINUITY. chap. xxiv. 



ideal of a perfect universe Avhich those who are opposed to 

 his ojjinions may have pictured to themselves. 



"\Ye may also demur to the assumption that the hj-pothesis 

 of variation and natural selection obliges us to assume 

 that there was an absolutely insensible passage from the 

 highest intelligence of the inferior animals to the improvable 

 reason of man. The birth of an individual of transcendent 

 genius, of parents who have never displayed any intellectual 

 capacity above the average standard of their age or race, is a 

 phenomenon not to be lost sight of, when Ave are conjecturing 

 whether the successive steps in advance, by which a jiro- 

 gressive scheme has been developed, may not admit of occa- 

 sional strides, constituting breaks in an otherwise continuous 

 series of psychical changes. 



The inventors of useful arts, the poets and prophets of the 

 early stages of a nation's growth, the promulgators of new 

 systems of religion, ethics, and philosophy, or of new codes 

 of laws, have often been looked upon as messengers from 

 Heaven, and after their death have had divine honors paid 

 to them, while fabulous tales have been told of the j)ro- 

 digies which accompanied their birth. Nor can we wonder 

 that such notions have prevailed, when we consider what 

 important revolutions in the moral and intellectual world 

 such leading spirits have brought about, and when we reflect 

 that mental as well as physical attributes are transmissible 

 by inheritance, so that we may possibly discern in such leaps 

 the origin of the superioi'ity of certain races of mankind. In 

 our own time the occasional appearance of such extraordi- 

 nary mental powers may be attributed to atavism ; but there 

 must have been a beginning to the series of such rare and 

 anomalous events. If, in conformity with the theory of pro- 

 gression, we believe mankind to have risen slowly from 

 a rude and humble starting-point, such leaps may have 



