A Quote by Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz on laws, leadership, nature, order, philosophy, plants, possibility, questions, research, superiority, present, theory, thought, and world

Philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz speculated on the possibility of "intermediate species" over a century before the publication of Darwin's theory: "All advances by degrees in Nature, and nothing by leaps, and this law as applied to each, is part of my doctrine of Continuity. Although there may exist in some other world species intermediate between Man and the Apes, Nature has thought it best to remove them from us, in order to establish our superiority beyond question. I speak of intermediate species, and by no means limit myself to those leading to Man. I strongly approve of the research for analogies; plants, insects, and Comparative Anatomy will increase these analogies, especially when we are able to take advantage of the microscope more than at present."