FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 49 



times in which the needed inherent variations are not 

 forthcoming." ^ 



It has already been shown that Darwin entirely- 

 recognized the limits which the variations now 

 called " fluctuating " may set to the progress 

 achieved by artificial selection, and that he ad- 

 mitted the necessity of waiting for a fresh " start 

 in the same line." In this respect he agreed with 

 modern writers on mutation; but differed from 

 them, as has been already abundantly shown, in 

 the magnitude assigned to the variations form* 

 ing the steps of the onward march of evolution. 

 His observation and study of nature led him to 

 the conviction that large variations, although 

 abundant, were rarely selected, but that evolu- 

 tion proceeded gradually and by small steps, — 

 that it was " continuous," not " discontinuous." 



In his presidential address ^ to the British As- 

 sociation at Cape Town in 1905, Sir George 

 Darwin brought forward the following argument 

 from analogy against the " continuous transfor- 

 mation of species " : — 



" In the world of life the naturalist describes those 

 forms which persist as species; similarly the physicist 

 speaks of stable configurations or modes of motion of 

 matter; and the poHtician speaks of States. The 

 idea at the base of all these conceptions is that of 

 stabiUty, or the power of resisting disintegration. In 

 other words, the degree of persistence of permanence 

 of a species, of a configuration of matter, or of a State 



' Development and Evolution. 3. M. Baldwin, New York, 1903, 

 p. 360. 



" Report British Association, 1905, p. 8. 



