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32   NATURAL INHERITANCE.   [CHAP.

between an omnibus and a hansom, and it would be difficult between an omnibus and a four-wheeler.


Evolution not by Minute Steps Only.-The theory of Natural Selection might dispense with a restriction, for which it is difficult to see either the need or the justification, namely, that the course of evolution always proceeds by steps that are severally minute, and that become effective only through accumulation. That the steps may be small and that they must be small are very different views ; it is only to the latter that I object, and only when the indefinite word " small " is used in the sense of " barely discernible," or as small compared with such large sports as are known to have been the origins of new races. An apparent ground for the common belief is founded on the fact that whenever search is made for intermediate forms between widely divergent varieties, whether they be of plants or of animals, of weapons or utensils, of customs, religion or language, or of any other product of evolution, a long and orderly series can usually be made out, each member of which differs in an almost imperceptible degree from the adjacent specimens. But it does not at all follow because these intermediate forms have been found to exist, that they are the very stages that were passed through in the course of evolution. Counter evidence exists in abundance, not only of the appearance of considerable sports, but of their remarkable stability in hereditary transmission. Many of the specimens of intermediate forms may have been unstable varieties,