Evolution advances by breaks, not gradual transitions between forms

Evidence

This explosion of vitality, joined to the process of contraction, indicates at the same time continuity and rupture. The more complex the living being, the more its organism contracts its elements: in this sense, increasing contraction marks continuity on the scale of beings and forms an evolutionary line. But at the same time, this evolution is a sequence of ruptures. Between plant and animal, for example, there is not so much a transition as a break. Hegel explains this very well: ‘A point occurs at which the continuity of mediation, a gradual progression which could be either a chemical or mechanical development, suddenly breaks off and becomes impossible. This point is everywhere and penetrates everything… .’ — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 523

Categorization

• XREF: Hegel’s ‘point where mediation breaks off’ evokes dialectical rupture and the reader’s plasticity as both receiving and refusing form. — connects to: Transformative change is gradual within continuities, not clean breaks; Plasticity means formative change through rupture, not smooth continuous adaptation — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 258; Repertoire change happens through continuous modulation, not sharp breaks. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 352
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how Hegel’s discontinuous evolutionary line maps onto Malabou’s claim that plasticity is neither pure continuity nor pure rupture.

Broader Connections

• Transformative change is gradual within continuities, not clean breaks #contradicts (0.95)
• Plasticity means formative change through rupture, not smooth continuous adaptation #corroborates (0.90) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 258