288 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

resemblances which can be traced between the arm and the

leg and between the hand and the foot.

A vast number of instances of variations which have

appeared suddenly have recently been brought forward in

a very interesting and important work.* It has been sought

to lessen the value of these instances on the ground that the

great majority of them may be called " monstrosities." But

this effort shows much shallowness of mind on the part of

those who made it. For what, after all, is the real nature of

these variations ? However they may merit to be called

" monstrosities," as structures out of harmony with the whole

whereof they form a part, they are, almost all of them,

orderly and perfect in themselves. They eloquently proclaim

that organic nature is not a passive mass of matter, devoid

of innate laws of self-regulation, but that every fragment of

it, even each of its very aberrations, is replete with order of

its own kind and in its due degree.

It is impossible to have somewhat widely studied the

science of Zoology or that of Botany without being im-

pressed with the plain fact that considerable or small gaps

between the various kinds of living creatures are manifest on

all sides. The existing creation is plainly discontinuous, not

only in the inorganic world, but also in that which is organic,

however much its gaps may be filled up by the discovery of

the remains of organisms which exist no longer.

That they could ever be entirely filled up had we full

cognizance of every form of life which has passed away,

cannot certainly be affirmed with reasonable confidence when

we reflect on the great facts of discontinuity to which we

before called attention.!

There is, in the first place, the chasm which exists between

* Materials for the Study of Variation. By WILLIAM BATESON, M.A.

London, 1892.

t See ante, p. 215.

resemblances which can be traced between the arm and the

leg and between the hand and the foot.

A vast number of instances of variations which have

appeared suddenly have recently been brought forward in

a very interesting and important work.* It has been sought

to lessen the value of these instances on the ground that the

great majority of them may be called " monstrosities." But

this effort shows much shallowness of mind on the part of

those who made it. For what, after all, is the real nature of

these variations ? However they may merit to be called

" monstrosities," as structures out of harmony with the whole

whereof they form a part, they are, almost all of them,

orderly and perfect in themselves. They eloquently proclaim

that organic nature is not a passive mass of matter, devoid

of innate laws of self-regulation, but that every fragment of

it, even each of its very aberrations, is replete with order of

its own kind and in its due degree.

It is impossible to have somewhat widely studied the

science of Zoology or that of Botany without being im-

pressed with the plain fact that considerable or small gaps

between the various kinds of living creatures are manifest on

all sides. The existing creation is plainly discontinuous, not

only in the inorganic world, but also in that which is organic,

however much its gaps may be filled up by the discovery of

the remains of organisms which exist no longer.

That they could ever be entirely filled up had we full

cognizance of every form of life which has passed away,

cannot certainly be affirmed with reasonable confidence when

we reflect on the great facts of discontinuity to which we

before called attention.!

There is, in the first place, the chasm which exists between

* Materials for the Study of Variation. By WILLIAM BATESON, M.A.

London, 1892.

t See ante, p. 215.