THE EVOLUTION OF CONTINUITY 153 



have interfered to fix and preserve them for us up to the 

 present time, a small proportion only of each new Continuity- 

 type having been allowed to disappear in the origination of 

 higher forms. The remaining proportion has suffered 

 permanent arrest as regards Continuity, and further evolution 

 has been a species of differentiation within the given Con- 

 tinuity-type. In fact, we may say that the arrested types 

 of Continuity are the " fixed tissue cells " of the living body 

 of Nature. The forces which produced each form of living 

 Continuity have down to the present maintained it, any 

 variation occurring being that of subordinate character. 



It is obvious that each new form of living Continuity 

 must have appeared suddenly. From discontinuity to con- 

 tinuity there is a sudden step, and the basis of Continuity's 

 evolution has been a species of multiplication. What we 

 have to bear in mind is that all down the ages force of 

 Attraction, as force working for continuity or compression, 

 has been acting, and continues to act, in opposition to that of 

 Repulsion, which works for decompression and discontinuity ; 

 and that from time to time the former force has been able 

 to dominate to an extent allowing it to compress still further 

 the results of its previous action. These repeated intensifi- 

 cations of Continuity took place, however, countless years 

 ago on plastic evolving primitive types, and affected a limited 

 number, or what we might call the " main stem " of each 

 Continuity group. The destiny of a certain number of 

 organisms of a given new Continuity was to develop along 

 an evolutionary road whose feature was the repeated 

 multiplication of Continuity, much as the evolution of certain 

 cell-lines of a developing Segmental Individual is along a 

 main road leading to cycle-termination, or sexual elements. 



The parallel between the evolution of the Individual 

 cycle and the evolution of the body of Nature is by no 

 means far-fetched, for in both cases surely the same funda- 

 mental laws must be at work. And as we can perceive that 

 the arrest and differentiation of the human body's somatic 

 cells is for the maintenance of the body's personality during 

 life, and for its future reproduction, and that they reflect 

 a state of equilibrium or balance, so may we take it that 

 the fixation of Continuity types which occurred in past ages 

 has been, and still is a necessity for the proper evolution of 



