A TOO-ASSERTIVE CONTINUITY xv 



which strikes Bateson J and those who follow him ; 2 but 

 it is the continuity which rather aggressively impresses 

 the great majority of those whose lives are devoted to the 

 study of species. The work of the systematist would 

 be immensely facilitated by that very discontinuity which 

 is always eluding him, but obtrudes itself upon Bateson. 

 The letters of Darwin quoted on pp. 59, 60 and 67 of 

 the present work are almost pathetic in their statement 

 of difficulties due to continuity in Cirrhipedes. 



How are we to account for the discontinuous parts 

 of the series ? Is discontinuity a result of gradual 

 growth, or did it spring into existence ready made ? 

 Ever since the appearance of the Origin of Species, the 

 great majority of naturalists have believed the former ; the 

 latter is maintained by a small group of active workers 

 who, sometimes called ' Mutationists ', sometimes ' Men- 

 delians ', would in this country be more correctly termed 

 ' Batesonians '. It would be absurd to attempt to 

 account for the sharp discontinuity in the series of 

 mature individuals by supposing that each member of 

 it suddenly came into existence full grown. Similarly, 

 in attempting to account for the discontinuity of species 

 it is surely unreasonable to neglect all study of the birth 

 and growth of species which are going on all over the 

 world, Blinded by the assurance of the dogmatic state- 

 ment that the problem can only be attacked in one 



1 ' We see all organized nature arranged in a discontinuous series of 

 groups differing from each other by differences which are Specific' 

 1. c, p. 16, 



Variation may teach us ' the origin of that Discontinuity of which 

 Species is the objective expression '. 1, c, p. 1 7. 



2 ! The species riddle presents itself definitely as the problem of the 

 existence of a series of discontinuous groups of creatures, sharply marked 

 off the one from the other . . .' R. H. Lock, in Variation, Heredity and 

 Evolution, London, 1906, p. 11. 



