We greatly suspect that she [Nature] does make considerable jumps in the way of variation now and then, and that these saltations give rise to some of the gaps which appear to exist in the series of known forms.[1647]
Again, C. R. Bree, M.D., argues in this wise in considering the fatal gaps in Mr. Darwin's theory:
It must be again called to mind that the intermediate forms must have been vast in numbers.... Mr. St. George Mivart believes that change in evolution may occur more quickly than is generally believed; but Mr. Darwin sticks manfully to his belief, and again tells us “natura non facit saltum.”[1648]
Herein the Occultists are at one with Mr. Darwin.
Esoteric teaching fully corroborates the idea of Nature's slowness and dignified progression. “Planetary impulses” are all periodical. Yet this Darwinian theory, correct as it is in minor particulars, agrees no more with Occultism than with Mr. Wallace, who, in his Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, shows pretty conclusively that something more than Natural Selection is requisite to produce physical man.
Let us, meanwhile, examine the scientific objections to this scientific theory, and see what they are.
Mr. St. George Mivart is found arguing that:
It will be a moderate computation to allow 25,000,000 for the deposit of the strata down to and including the Upper Silurian. If, then, the evolutionary work done during this deposition only represents a hundredth part of the sum total, we shall require 2,500,000,000 (two thousand five hundred million) years for the complete development of the whole animal kingdom to its present state. Even one quarter of this, however, would far exceed the time which physics and astronomy seem able to allow for the completion of the process.
Finally, a difficulty exists as to the reason of the absence of rich fossiliferous deposits in the oldest strata—if life was then as abundant and varied, as, on the Darwinian theory, it must have been. Mr. Darwin himself admits “the case at present must remain inexplicable; and this may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views” entertained in his book.
Thus, then, we find a remarkable (and on Darwinian principles all but inexplicable) absence of minutely graduated transitional forms. All the most marked groups—bats, pterodactyles, chelonians, ichthyosaurians, amoura, etc.—appear at once upon the scene. Even the horse, the animal whose pedigree has been probably best preserved, affords no conclusive evidence of specific origin by significant fortuitous variations; while some forms, as the labyrinthodonts and trilobites, which seemed to exhibit gradual change, are shown by further investigation to do nothing of the sort.... All these difficulties are avoided if we admit that new forms of animal life of all degrees of complexity appear from time to time with comparative suddenness, being evolved according to laws in part depending on surrounding conditions, in part internal—similar to the way in which crystals (and, perhaps from recent researches, the lowest forms of life) build themselves up according to the internal laws of their component substance, and in harmony and correspondence with all environing influences and conditions.[1649]