20 THE EVOLUTION OF CONTINUITY 



What the phrase " Evolution of Continuity " really 

 indicates is that there are a number of different types, 

 kinds, or species of living Continuity, and we shall presently 

 try to show that this is the case ; and also that, funda- 

 mentally, natural living evolution has passed upwards 

 through a regularly ascending scale of Continuity -types. 



How there can be different types of Continuity can easily 

 be shown if we make use again of our beads. Let us place 

 a large number on a tray. Each single bead has, it is true, 

 its own Continuity which preserves its bead-identity and 

 holds its bead-molecules together ; but we shall ignore this 

 and take the single bead as our unit. 



First of all we begin by arranging the whole collection 

 in a state of Discontinuity, no two beads touching each 

 other. The beads are the discontinuous units. 



Our next step is to produce not only bead-continuity, 

 but the humblest form of this as our " primitive type," 

 and we find that our object is attained if we arrange the 

 collection of beads in one continuous single chain, or thread 

 it tightly on a fine wire. This gives us a " bead-filament," 

 the simplest form of Continuity for the whole collection of 

 beads, in that the terminal ones are in contact with but 

 one bead, and the intermediate ones with never more than 

 two. Any reduction of these contact proportions would 

 bring about the discontinuity of the series. 



Now, if we followed no guiding principle we might proceed 

 to form new bead arrangements of many sorts, all showing 

 an intensification of " bead-filament " continuity ; or make 

 patterns in which the number of points of bead-contact was 

 greater. But unless we worked on a fixed principle we 

 would not be evolving Continuity. This, however, we 

 might do in many ways, and a simple one would be as 

 follows : — 



We could regularly increase our unit. Thus, after 

 making the single bead-chain we could take as our unit 

 two beads joined in lateral continuity, and make a chain 

 of such units, as in Fig. 1, c. After this we could make 

 a chain in which four beads united in lateral continuity 

 constituted the unit ; and so on till, for a given number of 

 beads, we would have the highest form of bead-continuity 

 possible on the system followed. 



