MONSTROSITIES 281 



that it must be extinguished by dilution with normal blood does 

 not seem tenable. 



* Natura non facit saltum ' may after all be one of those 

 dogmas of Science which may be upset when we begin to perceive 

 that there is no good reason why nature should not make a * saltum.' 



It is a matter of history that the doctrine of Natural Selection 

 was suggested in Darwin's mind by the studies he made in the 

 artificial selection of domestic Pigeons and other animals ; but 

 Naturalists seem slow to accept the suggestion which monstrous 

 forms in domestic animals and man would naturally lead to, viz., 

 the probability that similar monstrosities in past ages may have 

 been factors in the evolution of animals and plants. 



And the reason may be that there lingers in men's minds a 

 theological bias in connection with the word ' monstrosity.' How 

 could a perfect God allow such a hideous anomaly to live, and 

 engender others like it ? But if He did not allow it, how did it 

 make its appearance ? 



In the Royal College of Surgeons there is the skeleton of a 

 wild Cat with six legs. It was entrapped when half grown. It is 

 evident that it could have lived up to that age, and have struggled 

 successfully for its existence, and, if not captured, it might have 

 laid the foundation of a race with six legs ! The extra pair of legs 

 are attached to the pelvis, and are evidently the only remnant of 

 a twin Cat. 



Professor L. Agassiz seems to have had a notion that the ' Divine 

 thought,' now and again, burst out into a new line of evolution, as 

 if it were tired of amusing itself on the old lines, and wanted to try 

 some new experiment. 



Unfortunately for this mode of theology, the new type did not, 

 in most cases, cut itself off from the old lines entirely, but seemed 

 to be made up of the old pattern, with something new added on, or 



