Dr. Jim Reads from Darwin's Origin of Species, Chapter 6, p. 114 beginning with Special Difficulties of the Theory of Natural Selection.


One of the interesting points made in this section of Darwin's magnum opus is found at p. 116 where he had been detailing how nature presents itself with a great deal of variety but little in the way of innovation. "Why, on the theory of Creation, should there be so much variety and so little real novelty?" he wrote. "Why should all the parts and organs of many independent beings, each supposed to have been separately created for its proper place in nature, be so commonly linked together by graduated steps? Why should not Nature take a sudden leap from structure to structure? On the theory of natural selection, we can clearly understand why she should not; for natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by short and sure, though slow steps." 

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