160 THE EVOLUTION OF CONTINUITY 



but it may well be that the Archaean rocks represent many 

 strata which have been crushed out of recognisability and 

 which may have contained fossils showing the progressive 

 evolution of living Continuity. 



Be this as it may, there can be little doubt that, as a 

 matter of acquired variation, transmissible be it noted, 

 each new form of living Continuity must have appeared 

 suddenly. 



To repeat ; as regards the fundamental forms of Continuity 

 we have advanced nothing since the Silurian period. During 

 the time that the presumed first strata of the globe were 

 forming, the highest form of Continuity known to us, the 

 Segmental, had already evolved. As has been said, however, 

 the Archaean rocks may represent many " lost " strata. 



It can hardly be doubted that the factor at work in the 

 formation of the successive types of Continuity has been 

 a compressing agency. It has been Force of Attraction 

 acting in special ways. For it is necessary to point out that 

 Force of Attraction does not solely imply either the attrac- 

 tion of one entity to another, or the mutual attraction of 

 two entities. The force is essentially directly attracting 

 in its action, it is true, but it may indirectly produce the 

 compression of objects not directly affected. 



If we turn, for example, to the evolution of the megazooid 

 of sea-anemone form (page 88, Figs. 24, 25) we must attribute 

 the results produced to steady vertical and lateral pressure 

 on all the development of a zygote which originally possessed 

 branching continuously zooidal potentialities. And the 

 pressure must have been constantly applied. In fact, the 

 compressing agency which produced the different forms of 

 living Continuity must have acted evenly and constantly 

 from age to age. It is not implied that the degree of com- 

 pression which produced filamentous Continuity was the 

 same as that which produced the megazooid, but that 

 variations in the degree constantly and inexorably conformed 

 to natural laws. 



The only attracting and compressing force to which we 

 can attribute constant action according to Law ; which 

 could compress evenly in vertical and lateral directions ; 

 which could originate the successive forms of Continuity 

 and maintain them after formation, appears to us to be the 



