354 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



may be a consequence and expression of the Discontinuity 

 of Variation ? " He then states, that on the received 

 hypothesis, " Variation is continuous, and the Discontinuity 

 of Species results from the operation of Selection." This, 

 however, is not quite a correct statement of the received 

 hypothesis if " discontinuous " is used in Mr. Bateson's 

 sense, as including every change of colour which is not by 

 minute gradation, and every change in number of re- 

 petitive parts — as of vertebrae, or of the joints of an 

 antenna, or the rings of a worm — which is not by a 

 gradation of the part from a minute rudiment. Such 

 changes of colour or in the number of parts are admitted 

 by all Darwinians as, in many cases, constituting a part 

 of that individual variation on which modification of 

 species depends. It is, however, on the supposed rejection 

 of this class of variations by Darwinians that he bases 

 what he terms " an almost fatal objection " to their theory. 

 Returning, however, to the supposed overwhelming im- 

 portance of discontinuous variation, we pass on to the last 

 chapter of the book, headed " Concluding Reflexions," and 

 we read : " The first object of this work is not to set forth 

 in the present a doctrine, or to advertise a solution of the 

 problem of Species," and then follows immediately a further 

 discussion of this very theory of discontinuity, which is 

 set forth as a doctrine, and as a help to the solution of that 

 problem. We are told that the difficulties of the accepted 

 view " have oppressed all who have thought upon these 

 matters for themselves, and they have caused some anxiety 

 even to the faithful " ; it is urged that " the Discontinuity 

 of which Species is an expression has its origin, not in the 

 environment nor in any phenomenon of Adaptation, but in 

 the intrinsic nature of organisms themselves, manifested 

 in the original Discontinuity of Variation " ; that, " the 

 existence of sudden and discontinuous Variation, that is 

 to say, of new forms having from their first beginning 

 more or less of the kind of perfection that we associate with 

 normality, is a fact that disposes, once and for all, of the 

 attempt to interpret all perfection and definiteness of form 

 as the work of Selection." And then comes the positive 

 statement — " The existence of Discontinuity in Variation 



