142 THE EVOLUTION OF CONTINUITY 



sources which themselves were evolving and changing. 

 Thus, environmental action would impose sub-variations 

 of the fundamental variation represented by Life, and these 

 would become the stock characters of primitive types, from 

 which in time sub-types would similarly arise, and so on. 

 And taking Life to be the Great Acquired Variation of 

 the globe, we further believe that the main stock-variations 

 which were acquired by Life were the successive multiplications 

 of living Continuity. For the multiplication or intensifica- 

 tion of a given type of Continuity into a higher form is 

 simply a matter of the acquisition of variation at the demand 

 of Environment. 



The Transmission of Acquired Variations. 



As we shall have to speak further of Acquired Variations 

 when dealing with " Natural Selection " and the " Origin 

 of Species," we shall pass on to the question of their " trans- 

 mission." 



That acquired variations can be transmitted is hotly 

 denied by many authorities, but the fact alone, that cellular 

 continuity has clearly appeared in past ages as an acquired 

 variation imposed on cellular discontinuity, and that the various 

 types of living cellular continuity have bred true (as regards 

 their Continuity) to the present day, would appear to prove 

 decisively that acquired variations can be transmitted. But 

 there is experimental evidence which settles the question 

 definitely. 



In this connection a most interesting paper by Prince 

 Kropotkin may be quoted from. 1 



" The tortoiseshell butterfly, a very common inhabitant of our 

 gardens and fields, has been a favourite subject of such studies. It 

 was known long since to appear in two forms, described by entomo- 

 logists as Vanessa levana and Vanessa prorsa, which formerly were 

 considered as two distinct species. Later on it was found that these 

 two forms were merely two different broods of the same species. The 

 levana form, which is orange brown, with blackish brown spots on 

 the upper side of the wings, lives through the Winter as a chrysalis, 

 to appear as a butterfly in the spring ; while the eggs of the prorsa 

 form, which has black wings with a white transverse band, are laid 

 in Spring and it issues as a butterfly only late in the Summer. It was 



1 Inherited Variation in Animals. Prince Kropotkin. " The Nine- 

 teenth Century and After," Nov. 1915. 



