THE EVOLUTION OF CONTINUITY 155 



one, but such an occurrence would surely be exceptional, 

 for on every hand we can see that Attraction is the dominant 

 force, and higher and higher Continuity its goal. 



All these conjectures apart, the fact remains that we 

 have the simplest known living type — the Discontinuously 

 Multicellular — and all its successive multiplications, with 

 us at the present time. This certainly shows that from the 

 earliest ages the different forms of Continuity have remained 

 arrested as regards their Continuity. Thus the world 

 contains such diverse living types as amoebae, fungi, free 

 zooids, zooidal colonies, medusae, corals, and vertebrates ; 

 only a certain proportion of each newly evolved form of 

 Continuity having been permitted to evolve to a higher 

 form. 



The multiplication of living Continuity has not, however, 

 been a process of moulding on new lines the already existing 

 Individual, but of the developing Individual. For example, 

 no actually existing series of primitive zooids was compressed 

 to form the primitive sea-anemone — just as we know that 

 no already formed terminal plant-shoots are compressed to 

 form the plant flower ; but serial zooidal potentialities were 

 compressed in their attempts at realisation, so that the 

 megazooid resulted. Our conclusion is that the multiplica- 

 tion of living Continuity has been due to compressing environ- 

 mental force which acted on the first division-results of the 

 zygote, or fertilised ovum, and all their subsequent product. 

 Thus, the first megazooids of sea-anemone form would appear 

 all at once, and we may picture with what comparative 

 suddenness a stretch of primaeval sea-bed would become 

 studded over with a perfectly new living type, complete in 

 structure from the first. Clearly a gap in the road of evolu- 

 tion would be the result of this sudden leap to a higher form 

 of Continuity. In a similar way we may picture the sudden 

 appearance of filamentous Continuity, that of the tissues of 

 , the primitive discontinuous zooid, that of the zooidal colony, 

 or that of megazooids in series ; the last leading to primitive 

 segmental Continuity and, like all the preceding forms, taking 

 shape in a watery environment. But no similar evolution 

 of Continuity has taken place on dry land. The different 

 forms of Continuity which have appeared there have, we 



