Natura non facit saltus

"Discontinuous variation" redirects here. For discontinuous variation in statistics, see categorical variable.

Natura non facit saltus[1][2] (Latin for "nature does not make jumps") has been an important principle of natural philosophy. It appears as an axiom in the works of Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays, IV, 16:[2] "la nature ne fait jamais des sauts", "nature never makes jumps"), one of the inventors of the infinitesimal calculus (see Law of Continuity). It is also an essential element of Charles Darwin's treatment of natural selection in his Origin of Species.[3] The Latin translation comes from Linnaeus' Philosophia Botanica.[4]

  1. ^ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Continuity and Infinitesimals".
  2. ^ a b Alexander Baumgarten, Metaphysics: A Critical Translation with Kant's Elucidations, Translated and Edited by Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Bloomsbury, 2013, "Preface of the Third Edition (1750)", p. 79 n. d: "[Baumgarten] must also have in mind Leibniz's "natura non facit saltus [nature does not make leaps]" (NE IV, 16)." Also see Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain, 1704, p. 50 [1]
  3. ^ Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, 1859, p. 194; see p. 173 in the 1860 US edition, at this link [2]
  4. ^ Carolus Linnaeus, Philosophia Botanica, 1st ed., 1751, Chapter III, § 77, p. 27.