THE FILAMENTOUS INDIVIDUAL 51 



oycle begins is due to mutual personal attraction, and it is 

 not repeated within the Individual cycle. All following 

 " personal " or mass acts of the developing Individual's 

 cells are acts of repulsion. It is through personal repulsion 

 that one cell divides into two, two into four, and so on, 

 and the cells thus formed have no personal attraction to each 

 other. If after separation they do not continue to be mutu- 

 ally repellent, at least they are neutral, and there are number- 

 less forces at work whose action tends to scatter more widely 

 the already discontinuous. But it is just these scattering 

 intermediate cells of the Individual cycle which, as they 

 were produced, have been obliged to remain in cellular 

 continuity to form the Filamentous Individual ; and in a 

 similar way, we shall see, have scattering intermediate 

 muUicellxdar parts of higher Individuals been obliged to 

 develop in higher forms of continuity than filamentous. 1 



One is drawn to the conclusion that for the scattered 

 product of gamete-conjugation to develop in serial attach- 

 ment a special factor must have intervened ; one powerful 

 enough to overcome all forces working for the separation 

 and independence of the division-results, and one whose 

 action was (and is) evenly and constantly applied, and ready 

 to act on its last results. That the factor in question had 

 these characters will become more obvious as we go up the 

 ascending scale of living Continuity (though the definite way 

 in which it acted is not under consideration at present) ; for 

 living Continuity has apparently evolved by leaps and 

 bounds, each advance representing the multiplication of the 

 preceding form. In a word, the factor at work has been a 

 compressing force, so balanced and constant in its action 

 as to produce inevitably constant results. This force has all 

 along acted, and continues to act, directly and indirectly 

 as force of Attraction and of Repulsion, but in producing 

 Filamentous Continuity, and in steadily evolving and 

 maintaining the higher forms of Continuity, it reflects the 

 unalterable truth that Attraction is the dominant force. 



It is unnecessary to say that the form of Continuity which 

 Attraction, as compressing force, has managed to produce 



1 It may be advisable to remind the reader that the cell of the Dis- 

 oontinuously Multicellular Individual is itself a triumph of the Evolution 

 of Continuity, being an enormous system of parts held together. 



