rNRLF
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
MEDICAL CENTER LIBRARY
SAN FRANCISCO
Ex Libris
C. K. OGDEN \
SYMBIOSIS
SYMBIOSIS
A Socio-Physiological Study of Evolution
BY
H. \REINHEIMER
cduthor of "Evolution by Co-operation," " Symbiogenesis " etc.
Wo
HEADLEY BROTHERS,
18, DEVONSHIRE STREET, E.C.z
1920
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NUTRITION AND EVOLUTION
"A volume of real, deep interest"
Daily Chronicle
SURVIVAL AND REPRODUCTION
" Tou jours du plus haut interet "
La Nature
EVOLUTION BY CO-OPERATION
" We have found the book interesting and suggestive "
British Medical Journal
SYMBIOGENESIS
" Mr. Reinheimer's study of the far-reaching importance
of this principle is a valuable contribution to scientific
thought He has important realisations to
communicate "
The Times
"There are in his volume so many related facts, and
so much pause-compelling suggestion, that his work must
be reckoned with in any future study of Nature's methods
in evolution "
Scientific American
" Mr. Reinheimer's book is marked by seriousness of
purpose, width of inquiry, and a grasp of several important
truths "
Nature
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION IX
I THE ECONOMY OF NATURE I
II THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE - 23
III THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 45
IV EVOLUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 63
V THE " INTELLIGENCE " OF PLANTS - 82
VI LIFE AND HABIT 94
PART II
I " NORMALS " 121
II LA VIE NORM ALE 124
III THE VALUE OF ABSTEMIOUSNESS - I2Q
IV PARASITISM V. SYMBIOSIS - 131
V THE LAW OF SYMBIOTIC MODERATION - 139
VI THE BIO-ECONOMICS OF INTERNAL SECRETIONS 146
VII THE LAW OF THE MEMBERS - I5O
VIII " PATHOLOGIA PHYSIOLOGIAM ILLUSTRAT " - 153
IX FOR " PROFESSIONAL " SERVICES RENDERED - l6l
PART III
I " CONTRE-EVOLUTION " - 167
II " ARBOREAL MAN " - 212
Til MALADIE ET SYMBIOSE - 236
INDEX ... - 289
INTRODUCTION
OURS is a busy age, and it has little patience with long
dissertations. I have thought fit, therefore, to preface my
remarks by as brief as possible a statement of my case.
The main conclusion which I wish to enforce is that the normal
relations between organisms, more particularly those having
regard to food, involve, quite indispensably, a stupendous amount
of systematic biological reciprocity, so that upon all organisms,
be they high or low in the scale of life, there devolve definite
duties and obligations, on pain of degeneration or destruction,
viz., to contribute in their several ways to the welfare of the
organic family as a whole. I consider the normal growth of
organic wealth in the shape of powers and capacities as not
dissimilar, and not inferior in importance, to that of the normal
growth of wealth in human societies. In either case wealth is
due to effort, genius, and to the co-operation of all in the
utilisation of natural riches.
I regard the totality of organisms as a kind of world-society,
the various species and families of plants and animals being the
individuals of which this world-society is made up ; and, just as
in human societies, the progress and the success or happiness of
the individuals depend upon the character of their mutual
relations and behaviour, i.e., their conduct. As in human
societies, too, such conduct either makes for the good of the whole
and the parts or it does not, and so a quasi-moral character
belongs to all such " conduct " of individual species. The ways,
movements, efforts and aims of organisms are all in this sense
" good " or " bad," and there is, therefore, a biological morality
throughout, which does not, of course, involve conscious decision
or really ethical praise or blame of the individuals concerned.
My thesis with regard to evolution is that everything normal
and sound in organic evolution is due to biologically righteous,
i.e., essentially co-operative, behaviour ; whilst everything
abnormal and pathological is due to unrighteous, i.e.,
x INTRODUCTION
fundamentally predatory behaviour. Although predatory species
may apparently, and for a time, live quite well, yet their temporary
success is at the expense of permanent survival. This teaching
is startling to Biologists, many of whom scoff at the idea of
morality or progress in connection with Evolution.
I could myself scarcely have attained to the present outlook
but for the aid of special stepping-stones which, quite naturally,
led on to higher things. What was it that constituted these
stepping-stones ? The theses with regard to the Biology of
Food previously established by me. These theses briefly are to
the effect that (a) perpetual " in-feeding " produces a general
predisposition to disease, and (b) that the morbidity so estab-
lished eventually manifests itself in a tendency to monstrosity.
From these conclusions there emerged the corollary that
Parasitism not only differs from, but is fundamentally antithetic
to Symbiosis, i.e., systematic biological co-operation, and, what
is more, that Parasitism is as much abhorred and penalised by
Nature as Symbiosis is sanctioned and rewarded. In the sequel
I was led on to the broad view that organic evolution itself owes
its direction chiefly to a socio-physiological principle, namely,
that of " Symbiogenesis," and this view is to be further enforced
in the present volume. I have not yet come across a single
biological writer who distinguishes fitly between Symbiosis and
Parasitism. Yet this distinction is one, I venture to suggest,
upon which much, nay very much, in biological interpretation
depends. I do not think I am going beyond the facts in stating
that, with regard to this distinction, Science has as yet attained
no clarity of thought.
Modern Biology is rather seriously handicapped by the lack
of an adequate and systematic co-ordination of the many lines
of evolution making up sociological development and also by
the absence of a comprehensive theory of disease. These
deficiencies become the more impressive the more one has had
occasion to envisage the wonderful, articulated economy of Nature
as exhibited by the phenomena coming under the head of
Symbiosis. Small wonder, therefore, that I have felt tempted
to expand my exposition of Symbiosis in the attempt to remedy
the, to me, most glaring defects of Biology.
I trust that I am not unduly sanguine in hoping for an
early acceptance of my socio-physiological views, and that in
particular the antithesis between Symbiosis and Parasitism, to
INTRODUCTION xi
which I attach great importance, may lead to the establishment
of a new organon of medicine.
As regards this antithesis, once more, I contend that it is
essentially identical with that existing between health and disease.
My reasoning is as follows : Symbiosis means partnership
systematic, intimate and laborious. It exemplifies sound
Economics. Parasitism, on the other hand, means the denial
of such partnership, and the setting up of warfare. It exemplifies
unsound Economics. Now when we speak of healthy function
and " function " is a fundamental concept alike of Physiology
and of Biology we mean this : the due performance of " duties "
on the part of the units, which " duties," I submit, are none
other than obligations in partnership. Nor does it make any
great difference whether these duties are conceived of as physio-
logical rather than biological. In practice these spheres overlap,
for Nature knows no watertight compartments as between
Physiology, i.e., the functioning of the organism, and Biology,
i.e., the inter-relations of organisms and species. In the last
analysis, therefore, everything in Physiology or Biology turns
upon the performance of duties duties and partnerships. To
live is to be or not to be : in a relation of Symbiosis with the
rest of the world. Disturbed " function," i.e., disease, is, in the
main and broadly viewed, a disturbed balance due to a disturbed
or perverted partnership. Recent Pathology shows that we may
have a kind of " biological " disease superposed upon " physio-
logical " disease. That is to say a disease of the " species "
may grow out of a disease of unbalanced, because non-symbiotic
individuals ; although, as I insist again, the distinction is rather
verbal and due to our preference for watertight compartments
more than to any real break in the unity of disease. Disease,
in my view, is a continuous process continuous inasmuch as
the root-cause, the disturbance of balance, the unbalancing,
because non-symbiotic action, or, in other words, the divorce
from Symbiosis persists. And inasmuch as the cause persists,
disease persists and develops without respecting organs, or
organisms, or species ; it is " cosmopolitan," i.e., biological as
well as physiological.
What tells most, and is almost the essence of disease, is the
loss of resisting power. And this loss, I contend, is universally
due to one great cause, namely, action or behaviour that is not
according to Symbiosis, i.e., systematic biological co-operation.
xii INTRODUCTION
I have heard it said that the Physiologist should refer all
phenomena of life, as far as possible, to the laws of Physics and
Chemistry. I should say that it is more than probable, however,
that even this laudable pursuit will ultimately yield nothing
more startling than the truth which I have endeavoured to
formulate in socio-physiological language. The most important
constitutional law of the universe, according to Symbiosis, may
be stated in more general terms thus : A body should possess
all that is necessary, but no more. Any superfluity acts as an
impediment apt to cause disease inasmuch as it militates against
usefulness in Symbiosis. And this would also apply in exactly
the same way in the physical world. A body needs to be pure and
austerely constituted lest it lose resistance pari passii with
(cosmic) usefulness.
Some parts of the book are, I am aware, somewhat technical
in treatment ; but this was unavoidable in view of my main
purpose which was to rescue Symbiosis from " scientific," i.e.,
specialists' depreciation, and this necessarily required some
detailed exposition of my views and the evidence which has le
me to adopt them. Further, if my thesis with regard to the
extinction of species being ultimately due to a divorce from
Symbiosis, was to carry conviction to the professional Biologist
it had to be supported by some detailed palaeontological and
pathological evidence, which again indispensably entailed the
consideration of some technical matters.
CHAPTER I
THE ECONOMY OF NATURE
" Life is that which feels and knows and wills, that for which values
exist and which itself exists as a value," DR. R. M. MAC!VER.
BACON, in Sylva Sylvarum, says : " There are in Nature certain
fountains of justice, whence all civil laws are derived but as
streams." This shows a philosophic insight into Nature which
is very surprising for the time at which it was written, and which
is strictly in line with the conclusions of modern science, a fact
which has not hitherto been recognised even by scientific men.
Although mutual aid, sacrifice and altruism have in a general
way been recognised as important accessory factors of progress,
the special part played throughout by Symbiosis and all it involves,
has never been demonstrated, nor even, so I venture to assert,
approximately apprehended. Those who conceded " co-
operation," for the most part held it to be a rather tardy and
adventitious auxiliary of " Natural Selection."
It scarcely seems to have occurred to any one so far that
a principle so simple as Symbiosis should contain the secret of
integrative evolution to a degree which renders it of first-rate
importance. True, Herbert Spencer, Geddes and Thomson,
Prince Kropotkin, and Henry Drummond have gone so far in
adumbrating the economic and quasi-ethical aspects involved in
Symbiosis as to concede that without gratis benefits to offspring,
and " earned " benefits to adults, life could not have continued,
nor evolved into higher forms. Yet, so overshadowed has been
the whole literature of evolution by the unfortunate metaphor
of " the struggle for existence," that the systematic study of
the economic and sociological aspects of evolution has been
persistently neglected. Whilst " competition " was given the
foremost place, the rendering of the long overdue account of
what is actually due to co-operation on the one hand and com-
petition on the other, has not even been attempted. Obviously,
before we can pronounce as to the relative merits of either factor,
2 SYMBIOSIS
we require to have a due and reliable account of what they have
achieved, both singly and in conjunction. The rendering of this
account involves the study of what I have called "Bio-Economics,"
a branch of Biology, the value of which I have set myself the
task to get properly recognised. I contend that the closer study
of this Bio-Economics the knowledge of that which makes for
true economy in the world of life can no longer be avoided.
Otherwise the biological and sociological outlook will continue
to be hazy and ill-defined. We cannot remain content to be
ignorant of what really constitutes the distinction between the
reciprocal and the non-reciprocal, the useful and the wasteful,
i.e., the physiological and the pathological, or, as I might also
say, the legitimate and the illegitimate, the moral and the immoral
activities.
Darwin believed that a knowledge of variation under
Domestication would afford the best and safest clue to the
means of modifications. Now, in the light of later biological
study, I strongly demur to this, since, in my view, Domestication
of the animal is very similar to slavery in the human world and
is productive of abnormal and often evil results, as Darwin and
others have seen.
Buffon long ago recognised that Domestication produces
very grave ill-effects upon animals. He says that " the stigmata
of their captivity, the marks of their chains, can be seen upon all
those animals which man has enslaved." He speaks of the " ills
of slavery " as a main cause of degeneration.
Darwin, in his turn, admits in his Variations of Animals and
Plants under Domestication,, that domestic races of animals
and cultivated races of plants often exhibit an abnormal character,
as compared with natural species because " they have been modified
not for their own benefit, but for that of man," and he also
concedes that the higher variability of domestic productions
may perhaps in part be due to excess of food that is, strictly
speaking, a pathological cause. That " fatty degeneration "
and precocity are only too frequently induced by Domestication
is, of course, well known. Recent research has confirmed the
view that the usual methods of Domestication are pregnant with
unwholesome results upon the constitution of the organism,
that they retard or inhibit its progressive evolution, and it has
also brought to light the fact that they are often fraught with
undesirable reactions upon man.
THE ECONOMY OF NATURE 3
Mendelism, again, has shown that Domestication is frequently
a process of continuous loss. Everything was there in the wild
or independent state ; but with Domestication a process of
degradation set in and " factor " after " factor " was lost.
Again, in the Journal of Economic Biology, June, 1915, Mr. G.
Massee points out that the leading idea in dealing with cultivated
plants is to intensify or develop to an abnormal extent either
the flowering, fruiting, or some desirable quality, and in so doing
there is a marked tendency to upset the physiological balance
of the plant and also to open the door to the spread of disease.
It is, moreover, fairly generally known, as Mr. F. G. Aflalo
has said, that the wild sheep is a hundred per cent, cleverer than
the domestic animal; and again, the fruiting of the raspberries
under cultivation is a much more exhaustive task on the part of
the plant than Nature's fruiting of wildlings would be thus
showing losses under Domestication.
Lydekker moreover says that in the wild state the pheasant
is content with one wife, but the so-called tame pheasant of our
coverts is a polygamist, which is a retrograde step on Herbert
Spencer's principle of Sociology as applied to pheasant society.
I could easily multiply instances showing the inferiority of
Domestication.
There is thus an accumulation of facts showing that what
is bad practice in social life is also bad practice when applied to
the lower creation. Variation under Domestication should not,
therefore, have been relied on as a parallel to Nature's work of
progressive modification.
On the other hand, Symbiosis is a far better guide to Nature's
method, since it is not only free from the blemishes of Domestica-
tion, but represents also the source of all wholesome accumula-
tion of what I call physiological capital which is essential to the
progress of organic life. Symbiosis teaches that in Nature as
in human life the best results are achieved by a system of
wholesome independent though interdependent labour. The
study of this principle provides every justification for Burke's
contention, practically identical with Bacon's, however differently
expressed, that " there is but one law for all, namely that law
which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity,
justice, equity the law of nature and of nations."
The lichen, for instance, presents a co-operative association
between an alga and a fungus, a union calculated to meet by
4 SYMBIOSIS
mutual effort the economic problem of existence. Systematic
economic co-operation in this case of " attached " Symbiosis
has led to a high degree of reciprocal adaptation and
reciprocal differentiation in the physiology of the organisms
concerned. Indeed the physiological reciprocity has here become
so intimate that it required years of painstaking research to
establish the fact of the compound and dual nature of the
lichen.
It is generally a higher fungus which is thus found to be
associated with a generally unicellular, sometimes filamentous
alga. The special fungi which take part in the association are,
with rare exceptions, not found growing separately, whilst the
algal forms are constantly found free. The algal forms thus
have retained their primitive independence rather more than
the fungus, which latter, on the other hand, has stamped its
character more prominently upon the compound inasmuch as
the reproductive organs of the lichen are of a typically fungal
character. The algal cells are never known to form spores whilst
forming part of the lichen-thallus, but they may do so when
separated from it and growing free. "The fungus," says the
Encyclopedia Britannica, " clearly takes the upper part in the
association."
The fungus, in virtue of its bio-chemical equipment, is better
qualified than the alga for the labours of sex. But though the
alga, by restraining its own reproductive tendencies, as the
Encyclopaedia says, plays a subordinate part, the part played
by the alga is of considerable and far-reaching importance. For
the better the associated fungus specialises as regards the
reproductive function, more exclusively deputed to it, the
better the alga is able to perform its own special photosynthetic
duties," i.e., to manufacture essential food and even a surplus
of such food, and often various other valuable substances domes-
tically and bio-economically important, which are stored up in
the compound organism as capital to facilitate further develop-
ment.
Lichens are able to live in situations where neither the alga
nor fungus could exist alone. The alga is protected by the
threads (hyphae) of the fungus, and supplied with water and
salts and, possibly, organic nitrogenous substances, and, in turn,
it manufactures photosynthetically carbohydrates, the surplus
of which it yields to the fungus. This form of relationship is
THE ECONOMY OF NATURE 5
now known in other groups of plants, though it was first discovered
in the lichens. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica,
" Lichens are frequently found in the most exposed and arid situations.
In the extreme polar regions these plants are practically the only vege-
table forms of life and possess the capacity of resisting extremes of warmth,
cold and drought without destruction. On a bare rocky surface a fungus
would die for want of organic substances, and an alga from drought and
want of mineral substances. The lichen, however, is able to grow as
the alga supplies organic food material, and the fungus has developed a
battery of acids which enable it actually to dissolve the most resistant
rocks." (Pioneer work !)
The lichens are characterised by their slow growth, which is
associated with great length of life. It is possible, says Dr. O. V.
Darbishire, that specimens of such long-lived species of Lecidea
geographica actually outrival in longevity the oldest trees.
From this we may see that Nature does know a method of
production and of advance superior to our usual methods of
Domestication, which aim at exploitation rather than counter-
service. Symbiosis entails the fullest physiological and biological
" Give and take." It thus brings about a summation and a gain,
rather than a loss, of factors. Symbiosis enriches the protoplasm.
Domestication impoverishes it.
Bougie, a French sociologist, says :
'*la mise en commun des forces individuelles engendre une force totale
plus grande que leur somme, ... la combinaison des travaux
augmente leur emcacite,"
and this also applies in Nature. Here as there, the more A can
rely on B, the more A can give and in turn stimulate B to increas-
ing outputs. Further, the more A and B progress in correlated
efficiency, the better will they be able to help C and D, as fellow-
members in evolution, causing them, in turn, to increase in
efficiency and usefulness. The whole level of life is thus gradually
and almost insensibly advanced by every symbiotic increase of
power.
What we have shown in detail in the case of the fungus and the
alga is parallelled by the relation between insects and plants,
except that in the latter we have a more developed, i.e., " un-
attached " form of Symbiosis, whilst " attached " Symbiosis is
peculiar to the lichen and a few other compound forms. Grant
Allen long ago pointed out that the insect has turned the whole
surface of the earth into a boundless flower-garden, which
supplies it from year to year with pollen or honey, and the plant
6 SYMBIOSIS
in turn gains more assured perpetuation by the baits it offers
for the insects' allurement. The conclusion to be drawn is that
Symbiosis is responsible for new and improved economic and
genetic values. In the course of evolution the range of symbiotic
relations has steadily expanded, the partners betaking themselves
to wider fields of action though maintaining their essential
economic union, i.e., "non-attached" Symbiosis. The joint
evolution of plant and animal progressed au fur et a mesure as the
symbiotic output of mutually valuable substances increased.
It is an acknowledged fact that the status of a plant is in
accordance to its output of valuable substances, i.e., of biological
capital.
An increasing number of biologists look upon the relation of
the elements of protoplasm as essentially of the nature of
Symbiosis, i.e., as a " partnership " of " life-elements." The
principle of partnership, therefore, is very fundamental ; and,
the more and the better it is applied by the organism, the richer
in desirable factors becomes the protoplasm. The wider, i.e.,
the non-attached forms of Symbiosis, may thus justly be viewed
as legitimate extensions of the most fundamental principle of
organic life, namely, that of partnership, involving " live and
let live."
It is a remarkable fact, connected with plant-animal Symbiosis,
that a plant stimulus is required by many animals in reproduction.
This I believe to be connected with the fact usually expressed
by saying that the " kingdoms " are mutually complemental.
In reality, plant and animal are inter-dependent and stand in
a relation of Symbiosis to each other. They are co-evolved and,
as Darwin long ago apprehended, descended from a common
progenitor.
The marvellous genetic purposes to which the bee tribe puts
the surplus productions of the plant in " manufacturing " honey,
are by no means unique cases of symbiotic adaptation as might
be thought ; for many other animals also require the vital symbiotic
stimulus of plant pabulum in one form or other. In the interesting
case, typical of many others, of the plant-animal Convoluta
roscoffensis, the " attached " Symbiosis is so intimate that, as
Prof. F. Keeble has shown, the egg-production ceases as soon as
the plant partner (the green cell) is unable to do its share of work
through being deprived of light. Moreover, if Convoluta
roscoffensis is robbed altogether of its (" infecting ") green cells,
THE ECONOMY OF NATURE 7
" life is not worth living, and it dies though surrounded by a
plentiful micro-flora of which in happier, infected circumstances
it avails itself without stint."
Hence the inference has been drawn that such animals subsist
on the food-materials manufactured synthetically by their green
or yellow cells.
In these cases other food materials may at times be tempting
as a kind of luxury, but for the essential purposes of reproduction
only special symbiotic supplies of food are of real avail.
Even at the very lowest rung of the evolutionary ladder we
find Symbiosis established. As an instance, I would cite the case
of the bacteria. The importance of these micro-organisms and
in particular their symbiotic achievements, in virtue of which
they have become indispensable even to the highest forms of
life, has only quite recently been fully established. Dr. H. F.
Osborn, in his essays upon The Origin and Evolution of Life
upon the Earth, tells us that a bacteria-less earth and a bacteria-
less ocean would soon be uninhabitable either for plants or
animals, and that in all probability bacteria-like organisms
prepared both the earth and the ocean for the further evolution of
plants and animals. He instances the Nitroso Monas of Europe,
presumably a survival from Archezoic time, and provides an
interesting description of the industry and of the symbiotic
relations of this veritable pioneer of organic civilisation.
For combustion it takes in oxygen directly through the inter-
mediate action of iron, phosphorus, or manganese, each of the
single cells being a powerful little chemical laboratory which
contains oxidizing catalyzers, the activity of which is accelerated
by the presence of iron and manganese. Still in the primordial
stage, Nitroso Monas lives on ammonium sulphate, taking its
energy (food) from the nitrogen of ammonium and forming
nitrites. Living with it is the symbiotic bacterium Nitrobacter,
which takes its energy (food) from the nitrites formed by Nitroso
Monas, oxidising them into nitrates.
Clearly, without the primal industry of Nitroso Monas, the
Symbiosis with Nitrobacter would be impossible, and without
the succession of ever higher but similar forms of life-partner-
ships, the evolution of the highest forms of life would have been
impossible.
The nitrates formed by the symbiotic industry of bacteria
are, of course, of immense value, and are practically indispensable
8 SYMBIOSIS
to the Bio-Chemistry of the higher plants and of animals. The
higher forms of bacteria also are capable in virtue of Symbiosis
of enriching the soil and plant by the fixation of atmospheric
nitrogen.
Given therefore a sufficiency of symbiotic endeavour, there
will result an ever growing range of fruitful and reliable cor-
relations, and these profitable correlations are as so many external
supports, links or tools of life veritable investments of accumu-
lated marginal or surplus capital. They are sources of further
outside services and of various supplementary and complementary
supplies, indispensable to progressive life. Just as in the advance
of human civilisation, so in Nature the widespread establishment
of numerous mutually beneficial " trade " systems with their
corresponding momenta for " work/' for " order," for systematic
mutuality in short the need for preservation of " social "
values acted as so much pressure ii\ the direction of a further
general advance. This pressure is implied in the concept of
" Symbiogenesis," by which I mean the direction given to evolution
by the long-continued operation of Symbiosis in the production
of higher forms of life and in the more complete development of
beneficial relations between them.
The terrestrial conditions of life, for instance, are more
favourable than aquatic to the advance of Symbiosis, owing to
greater security and better opportunities for mutuality and
beneficial correlations, in short for " trade." Upon the land a
far greater number of symbiotic momenta could therefore arise
and push each other on unceasingly ; and the result is that it
is upon the land that we find the most developed, the most
advanced and the most intelligent animals.
We saw in the case of the lichen that work, accumulation of
valuable capital, health, longevity, and generally wholesome
influences go together, and we stressed the fact that such happy
configuration of " good " factors easily becomes instrumental
to vitally important " pioneer "-work ; all of which is really of
transcendent importance, not only so far as our economic parallel
is concerned, but also as a lesson in organic Sociology and in
" Evolution " generally. For it is the " pioneer " that matters.
The mysterious " common progenitor," so often invoked by
Evolutionists as a kind of deus ex machind of descent, what is he if
not a pioneer one who by strenuous and mainly symbiotic effort,
by wholesome capitalisation, built up essential " endowments "
THE ECONOMY OF NATURE 9
sufficient to give rise to long successions of phyla, orders and
genera. It has been found that Symbiosis is, for the most part,
ultimately connected with nutrition. What is more significant
still is this : genuine symbiotic adaptation is everywhere based
upon what I have termed " cross-feeding." Be it amongst the
symbiotic bacteria, or in the case of the lichen, or in that of the
bee and the flower, or in any other case, the significant fact is
that we have to do with " cross-feeding," i.e., reliance upon
special products of another " kingdom." The animal Convoluta
roscoffensis, mentioned above, which in virtue of its " garden "
of green cells can live and reproduce very comfortably without
need of depredation, presents a relation which is not the excep-
tion but the norm of Nature. What is exceptional rather in
this particular case is that it shows a retrogressive step in
Symbiosis, i.e., from the non-attached to the attached form.
The inferiority in the Convolutal arrangement is emphasised by
its impermanence. This impermanence is clearly due to an
insufficiency of the principle of " live and let live " between the
partners, a fact to which I shall presently recur. Meanwhile
we are warranted to infer that genuine symbiotic adaptation is
not compatible with predaceous ways of living, and that the
symbiotic relation requires indeed the utmost discrimination
as regards food lest the delicate balance of physiological and
socio-physiological services that it entails become disturbed.
Needless to say, such discrimination is fruitful also in
psychological good effects. I would point out in this con-
nection that such mainly cross-feeders as man, the apes and
parrots, for instance, rank high in intelligence and status. Had
theirs not been a mainly symbiotic history, they would scarcely
present, as they do, an almost unbroken tradition of cross-feeding.
Obviously, if the land has provided more favourable conditions
than the waters towards the acceleration of progressive evolution,
this was in no small measure due to the fact that the land presented
conditions more favourable to the " sociological " requirements
of Symbiosis, such as are indispensable to physiological perfec-
tion. In the case of the lichen, the fungus can be a model partner
to the alga only on condition that it exercises forbearance
and does not prey upon the alga. It may exchange products ;
but it must essentially remain a worker and a cross-feeder, i.e.,
it must draw for sustenance on the soil or on the rocks. The
reproductive specialism of the fungus, so useful in the partnership
io SYMBIOSIS
with the alga, depends upon the fungus' integrity as a worker
and cross-feeder. The more the fungus is able, with the aid of
the alga, to perfect its chemical specialism, the more this must
conduce to an enrichment of the protoplasm. Symbiosis, with
its necessarily implied " work," forbearance and restraint, is
therefore of immense importance in progressive evolution. And,
in general, the better the " sociological " conditions, the more
scope there is for physiological elevation.
In the case of Convoluta referred to above, Prof. Keeble
points out that the relation between the coloured chlorophyll-
containing cells and the animal tissues presents the closest parallel
to the relation which obtains between the green and the non-green
cells of any chlorophyllous plant. What it points to is this :
that the relation between the parts of an organism, the so-called
physiological economy, is of a similar, if not identical nature
with that existing between separate individuals in Symbiosis.
In a strenuous chlorophyllous plant, the more complete and
intense the internal Symbiosis, the more assured is the success
of the sexual mode of reproduction (as against the mere asexual
or seedless method of propagation) ; and it is to the sexual method
more particularly that we owe the most ideal productions of
the plant. The asexual method, though common enough, does
not represent the highest symbiotic potentiality of the species,
but appears rather as an inferior method, necessitated by special
conditions of existence. It stands to reason that those of the
non-green cells of a strenuous chlorophyllous plant which are
to perform the exacting duties of sex, require in turn the utmost
co-operation from other cells, tissues and organs. These exacting
duties of the sexual cells involve the accomplishment of complete
pro-creation with its concomitant demand of a provision of
a considerable amount of embryonic and post-embryonic equip-
ment of the new organism. And they involve, moreover, as an
indispensable bio-economic concomitant, the simultaneous
accumulation of biological exchange capital. For, in order that
the race may prosper and the labours of sex be not in vain,
provision must be made, over and above embryonic nutrition,
for cross-pollination and seed-dispersal. And this contingency
requires a permanent symbiotic relation with biological " helpers "
or " partners," who in turn require (such are the dictates of
" natural Ethics ") to be adequately " paid." The plant is
called upon to provide " remuneration," or " offerings " adequate
THE ECONOMY OF NATURE n
to the needs of its biological " helpers." It is part of the function
of sex in plants to provide for these needs.
These needs are indeed calculated to call forth improvements
of internal co-operation of the plant. Just as it has been said
that the " Eternal Feminine " drags us on, i.e., stimulates towards
greater perfection, so symbiotic partnership stimulates progressive
developments. It is somewhat in this manner that I believe
Symbiogenesis to supplement " Pangenesis," and to tend towards
the establishment of sociological and physiological gains in
support of progressive evolution. Internal and external forms
of Symbiosis are thus inter-dependent and supplement each
other. The phenomena of Sex, therefore, evidence the importance
of the role of Symbiosis, i.e., the relation between the sexes is in
fact a case of Symbiosis.
We saw how the conspicuous double success of the lichen
in achieving fitness and in benefiting the world of life, depended
upon the perfection of the symbiotic relation physiological,
sexual and economic between two organisms of different
species.
In the case of the Convoluta, however, the association is of
only a transient character. It might be termed seasonal Symbiosis,
for the partnership generally ends by the animal partner summarily
devouring the green cell partner, the goose which laid the golden
eggs, a form of exploitation which precludes the establishment
of abiding gains such as are obtained by the internal Symbiosis
between the parts of a strenuous plant, by the enduring partner-
ship in the case of the lichen and by the norm of " non-attached "
animal-cwm-plant Symbiosis in Nature.
Lack or perversion of Symbiosis, physiological or biological,
and from whatever cause, inevitably militates against stability,
permanence, and effectiveness in the world of life. The " plant-
animalism " of Convoluta, because of the one-sidedness of service,
approximates to the case of Domestication rather than that of
Symbiosis. Domestication we have already found to induce
a " misere physiologique." We may explain the " misere " as
due to the stifling effects of Domestication upon the " physio-
logical economy," i.e., upon internal Symbiosis, the organism
being simultaneously cut off from its true symbiotic bonds in
Nature.
As regards Domestication, once more, a creature may be
made more conspicuous in appearance, and, in many ways, more
12 SYMBIOSIS
agreeable to our fancies by the usual methods ; yet the result is
generally obtained at the expense of evolution. The late Dr.
A. Russel Wallace mentioned the fact that the inhabitants of the
Amazonian region have a way of inducing obesity in green parrots
in order to make them present the most magnificent scarlet and
yellow feathers. Instead of feeding them on seeds, their natural
food, they feed them on fat. Now feeding on seeds on the part
of the bird is in Nature generally associated with the important
bio-economic rdle of the bird as seed-disperser. That is to say
the normal feeding habit of the parrot is in accordance with a
most important symbiotic relation which has been of tremendous
consequence in the evolution of plant and animal, and which
cannot be lightly infringed. The Amazonian bird fancier obtains
his ends at the expense of Symbiosis. But such ends as his
are not the ends of Nature. To achieve conspicuous colouration
is but poor compensation for the loss of essential capital in other
directions, such as is certain to ensue with non-symbiotic feeding.
The case of another parrot, the Australian Kea, shows that
a general deterioration of character follows in the wake of a
transition from symbiotic to non-symbiotic feeding. This bird,
driven into the mountains by man, has taken to rank in-feeding
and in fact to murder. It has become a sheep-killer and an
" outlaw," and is rapidly undergoing a change for the worse in
its once kindly and sociable character. Convoluta and changing
parrots, therefore, have this in common : the species are not
duly, i.e., symbiotically, balanced in Nature.
In his little work on Degeneration, Sir E. Ray Lankaster
long ago stated that:
" Any new set of conditions occuring to an animal which render its food
and safety very easily attained, seem to lead as a rule to degeneration."
If food and safety should not be too easily obtained, lest
degeneration ensue, it is plain (if moral is what is conducive to
progress, and immoral that which retards evolution) that a point
of quasi-moral importance is involved in nutrition, and we
should not be satisfied to shirk the issue. There must be a
principle of Natural Ethics which governs nutrition a principle
by which the instincts of plants and animals are normally guided
so as to obviate degeneration and its dire results. I shall revert
to this matter in subsequent chapters. Meanwhile we may
conclude that if Symbiosis, in virtue of its perfected division of
labour, is a means of obtaining a super-adequacy of force from
THE ECONOMY OF NATURE 13
nutrition, on the other hand organisms can remain adequately
symbiotic only on condition that they are sufficiently restrained
in their appetites, and that quality and quantity of food are
not such as to impede widely useful activities. Failure to live up
to its highest symbiotic duty causes the organism to drift from
Symbiogenesis into Pathogenesis. And organisms are frail. What
Burke said of man, namely, that power gradually extirpates
from the mind every human and gentle virtue, applies, mutatis
mutandis to all organisms. The advent of " lucky " circum-
stances, of " prosperity," is universally apt to cause " back-
sliding " from the fine qualities which first led to success :
" Peace makes plentie, plentie makes pride
Pride breeds quarrell, and quarrell brings warre ;
Warre brings spoile, and spoile povertie,
Povertie patience, and patience peace :
So peace brings warre, and warre brings peace."
The principle of abuse of power thus applies widely.
The plant, as the weaker vessel, is easily and generally made
the sufferer. We cannot, therefore, be surprised to find that
it has been obliged to evolve thorns, poisons, and other defences
in self-protection against depredation. Its chief protection,
however, must always consist in the fact of its good biological
character, which has the virtue of ranging the most potent bio-
logical interests on the side of the plant in its struggle against
depredation. A number of plants are poisonous to those animals
veritable " plant- carnivora " which are wont to be highly
destructive vis-d-vis to them ; whilst the same plants nevertheless
may continue to supply wholesome food to other more modest
animals. The reaction of the plant against depredation, how-
ever, has important and far-reaching consequences : it means
the exclusion from the best fare of inconsiderate animals, a fatality
which is of great physiological and sociological significance.
Failing to obtain the best food, the thriftless animals have to be
content with inferior and irregular fare, and often with what
they can get anywhere and anyhow. Their " industry " therefore
becomes increasingly one of robbery and murder, and their
organisation and character change accordingly. Such is the
decay of most in-feeders, who develop all manner of morbid and
inordinate appetites until finally their diathesis and their plight
are such as to cause them to prey upon and even to exterminate
each other. Now the course of such developments is not entirely
14 SYMBIOSIS
unfavourable to the plant. For the numbers of " plant-
carnivora " are kept down by the inordinate appetites of the rank
in-feeders and rank carnivores, which are thus as " executioners "
in the service of the plant (by whom they are ultimately main-
tained). It is not to be denied, therefore, that, owing to the
disobedience to the law of Symbiosis, there is a need of " execu-
tioners " in the world. It is customary to refer to the respective
phenomena by saying that there exist " complex and unexpected
checks " amongst organisms " which have to struggle together "
(Evolution, by Geddes and Thomson, p. 153). A typical
example is generally adduced from Darwin's Origin, chap. III.
It is as follows : " Red clover depends for fertilisation upon the
humble-bees, these upon immunity from the attacks of field
mice, and thus indirectly upon the number of cats."
Such instances of checks and counter-checks, interesting
enough by themselves, have deluded many a reader into facile
acceptance of the belief in the blind struggle of organism against
organism in Nature, whilst, in my view, they merely illustrate
the eternal difference between right and wrong. I should merely
say that even cats may be of indirect importance in Symbiosis,
namely as " executioners/' decimating the " plant-carnivora."
It is of some little interest in this connection to examine
Darwin's own account of this case. He says :
" I am tempted to give one more instance showing how plants and
animals, remote in the scale of nature, are bound together by a web of
complex relations."
(Follow examples of the absolute dependence of some plants
upon insect fertilisation, as that of Lobelia fulgens, of our
orchidaceous plants, of viola tricolour, and of clover.)
" Humble-bees alone visit red clover, as other bees cannot reach
the nectar." (Follows the case of the dependence of clover upon
cats.)
"Hence it is quite credible (Darwin concludes), that the presence of a
feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine through the
intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers
in that district."
While Darwin's conclusion is correct so far as it goes, I am of
opinion that it is nevertheless inadequate because it fails to make
us realise the nature of the relations and checks existing between
organisms in the web of life. Mere temporary " frequency "
of a species in a district tells us little about its real chance of
THE ECONOMY OF NATURE 15
survival or about its real importance and status in the web of
life. The fundamental and abiding fact in the above example
is the symbiotic industry of the plant. In this industry the humble-
bee shares, not by way of " intervention," as Darwin puts it,
but by way of systematic biological partnership. " Interven-
tions " begin with the uncalled for and illegitimate role of the
mice, whose predatoriness calls upon them the infliction of the
hyper-" intervention " of the still more predatory cats. Further,
this hyper-" intervention " is not so unconnected with influences
coming from Symbiosis as at first sight it looks. For the cats
exist only by the good will of man a symbiotic partner of the
plant whose interest is in so far identical with the plant's as to
require the decimation of vermin, if need be by biological
" executioners."
Who would deny that man is pre-eminently in need of the
industry of the plant ; that he is a symbiotic partner of the
plant ; and that, hence, it is his biological duty to protect the
industrious plant as far as possible against its enemies ? Is it
not, therefore, that the symbiotic plant by its good services
unconsciously obtains the most potent, i.e., conscious pro-
tection in the world of life ? Is it not also that in the place of
" unexpected " checks in a vague or blind " struggle for exist-
ence," we arrive at the conception of definite checks with strict
reference to the bio-economic usefulness of the respective species
in the world of life ? Professor J. Arthur Thomson states in one
of his books that the only correct way of viewing life is to view
it whole. " But," he adds, " it is somehow difficult to make
good science of the tout-ensemble." I believe one reason why
we have not yet succeeded in obtaining a good and compre-
hensive biological science is the wholly arbitrary way in which
Biologists regard man as a being apart from nature. No sooner
had " Evolution " established man's descent from animal origins
than it proceeded to pitchfork him out of Nature a being quite
unique in aims and compelled by them to be in perpetual
rebellion against natural law a view as absurd as that which
regards the animal generally as a typically predaceous kind of
organism. But man is inseparably linked to the plant-kingdom
by eternal laws of organic sociology, and his whole make-up
must be understood in the light of that relation. This fact
largely accounts for his abhorrence of vermin and even for his
occasional alliances with the feline animals a type of creature
16 SYMBIOSIS
which he has otherwise had good reason to detest. I should say
that normally the intervention of neither mice nor cats is
necessary for the success of the plant. What is necessary and
indispensable is the Symbiosis between red clover and humble-
bee. Such Symbiosis primarily determines the numbers of the
clover and of the bee. Only in so far as predaceous disturbers
of Symbiosis have arisen, is there a need of the intervention
of the feline. Necessary though its intervention may be, it is
a secondary factor belonging to the utilisation even of partial
evil for ultimate purposes of progress. The intervention of the
mice is, bio-economically speaking, to quite opposite purposes
to that of the bees. That of the mice is noxious and not wanted ;
that of the bees is essential, fruitful, and evidently desiderated.
Unless we draw such qualitative distinctions, we are in danger
of arriving at false values, at so preposterous a conception,
for instance, as that which looks upon the most thriftless, the
robbers and executioners as the mainstays of life. That Darwin
was in danger of arriving at some such paradoxical position may
be seen from his utterance on the last page of the Origin, that
" from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted objects
which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher
animals directly follows/'
It is not enough to demonstrate the existence of inter-
relations and of checks, it is necessary to elucidate the nature
of either and this with reference to abiding values. Darwin's
remarks that humble-bees alone visit red clover, other bees not
being able to reach the nectar, is of some importance in organic
sociology. It may be said to illustrate the case of exclusion
from want of symbiotic adaptation. What becomes of the
excluded animals, we might ask ? They must either seek other
symbiotic adaptations, or, failing to do so, and failing re-con-
version, be content with less and less wholesome adaptations,
which means retrogressive evolution and an increasingly pre-
carious existence, albeit such "degenerating types may pass
through numerous outwardly conspicuous phases of robber
existence giving them a fictitious appearance of health and
even of viability. Divorce from Symbiosis is fatal. There
is no greater error than that which consists in the belief that in
Nature the robber and murderer is equally sanctioned with
the industrious organism. And let it here be said that a general
survey of the feeding practices of the exclusive plant-feeders
THE ECONOMY OF NATURE 17
amongst animals shows that the animal does not, as a norm,
act indiscriminately as a plant-devourer or plant-destroyer ; but
it appropriates only certain parts of the plant, the loss of which
by no means necessarily leaves the plant the poorer. The plant
is the richer in the end for what is legitimately taken from it. x
Fechner suggested that plant and animal should be regarded
as ' ' gleichwiegende Faktoren eines lebendigen Wechselver-
haltnisses " (co-equal factors of a vital reciprocity), and he
regarded the whole of human, animal and vegetable kingdoms
as indissolubly inter-evolved and inter-linked and forming with
the inorganic systems of our globe a " zweckvoll verkniipftes
Ganze " (a purposefully inter-linked whole).
This led him on to the idea that with the general progress
of things, the blemishes of nature may perhaps gradually diminish
or cease to exist altogether. This is similar to Herbert Spencer's
idea concerning the evanescence of evil. Both alluded to some
such all-pervading principle of life as Symbiogenesis, which
makes for organic and moral values at the same time as it makes
for progress and order generally. Spencer declares that " evil
perpetually tends to disappear " in virtue of an (un-named)
" essential principle of life."
Fechner says in his Uber die Seelenfrage :
But in the cosmic process disharmonies may last for a millenium in
order to be dissolved into harmony in a subsequent one. . . . The
dissolution of evil is caused by, and consists in the fact of its being anta-
gonistic to the grand order of things, whereby it stimulates re-actions,
which latter augment with the evil and finally surpass it in growth, so that
not only is the evil removed, but it is, as it were, transformed into good,
and becomes a source of good. It therefore differs from good only because
good is a direct source of furthering the purposes of the grand order of
things, whilst evil becomes indirectly a source of good.
It is clear that once we concede a wider " biological citizen-
ship " with its bio-economic and associated bio-moral impli-
cations, the old stumbling block of " good and evil " can be
largely removed, whilst the wider perspective thus obtained
lends itself to a sounder conception of values in many directions
where previously uncertainty and doubt prevailed. Once the
world-wide web of bio-economic evolution is perceived, it becomes
clear that much of the suffering in the world is of a retributive
character, and therefore a potential factor for good. Pessi-
mism, on the score of Nature's alleged callousness or cruelty
should, therefore, be ruled out of court.
i8 SYMBIOSIS
It should now be clearly possible to draw a distinct line
between Parasitism and Symbiosis, and this is of the utmost
consequence in biological interpretation.
Parasitism is the precise antithesis to Symbiosis. It is, in
fact, an extreme form of that " misere physiologique," of that
diathesis which, as we saw, characterises our domesticated
" productions," many of which, though they gain in size, in
fatness and in " variability," yet lose capital in a true evolution-
ary sense.
We shall therefore have to differ^ from the view expressed
in the Encyclopedia Britannica that such terms as symbiosis,
commensalism and mutualism cannot be sharply marked off
from each other, or from true parasitism and must be taken as
descriptive terms rather than as definite categories into which
each particular association between organisms can be fitted.
Symbiosis in that work is actually treated under the head of
Parasitism, and writers so advanced even as Geddes and
Thomson would seem to look upon Symbiosis as "an instance
of* a parasitism which is reaching equilibration."* So far from
attaching particular importance to Symbiosis, these writers
show a predilection to base their theory upon the modifications
due to extreme Parasitism.
There is very little doubt, I think, that the self-limitation of
naturalists in their consideration of Symbiosis is due to a mis-
understanding, or rather a neglect, of fundamental economics.
The fact is that as regards Natural Economics we have scarcely
got beyond the general concept of the " modus vivendi," accord-
ing to which the strong are credited with so much self-control
that they will not devour all the weak so as to prevent the utter
destruction of their own food. Apart from the idea of the
modus vivendi, some writers have also emphasised various
other factors as contributive to progressive evolution. The
"appetency" of the organism, i.e., endeavour perpetually and
imperceptibly working in effect through an incalculable series
of generations ; the union of diverse sexual elements in fertilis-
ation as a potent source of change ; the influence of external
factors upon the parturient system ; changed " conditions "
generally ; " use " and " disuse " ; the quasi-discipline exercised
by animate and inanimate nature ; the memory factor ; all
these have been urged. They would seem to require proper
* Evolution, pp. 1 06, 107.
THE ECONOMY OF NATURE 19
co-ordination and proper unification by being related to some
central principle.
Before this desirable end can be achieved, however, we
need a valid comprehension of what constitutes true usefulness,
i.e., usefulness in the widest evolutionary sense, a valid quali-
tative standard of measurement. For, what kind of" appetency,"
of " union," " fertilisation," " conditions," " use," and of
" discipline " is it that is conducive to definite modification in
the direction of progressive evolution ?
Some writers seem to have felt instinctively that the answer
to such queries must be looked for in Bio-Economics. They
have hinted that comparisons with the normal growth of wealth
might prove useful. The difficulty here, however, seems to have
been that the " Science of Wealth," the " dismal " science, as
stated at present, has little commended itself to Biologists.
Professors Geddes and Thomson, for example, call it a " preten-
tious but inchoate would-be-science."
In so far as Economics have hitherto been too arbitrarily or
unscrutinisingly drawn upon, there has resulted nothing but
defective views and mischief, justifying Samuel Butler's gibes
that " as soon as the world began to busy itself with evolution
it said good-bye to common-sense and must get on with
uncommon sense as best it can ; " that " it will take years to
get the evolution theory out of the mess in which Mr. Darwin
has left it," and justifying also the arraignment of modern
Biology by French sociologists on the score of an utter lack
of " jugements de valeur."
A further result of these shortcomings is that evolution,
which, as was well said by Samuel Butler, should affect human
affairs at every touch and turn, has become unattractive to the
general public. On the whole, it proved true as Henry
Drummond remarked, namely, that evolution was given to the
modern world out of focus, was first seen by it out of focus,
and has remained out of focus to the present hour.
It was not unnaturally expected at one time that " Evolution"
would enlighten us about " les volontes de la nature " and
provide us with " un metre du progr&s, un crit^re objectif du
bien et du mal."
But the hopes of the world were to be sadly disappointed.
Instead of teaching us the ideal goal and the true means of pro-
gress of our own species, Evolution has bid fair to poison our
20 SYMBIOSIS
mental and moral outlook with as fatally defective teachings
as were ever promulgated by obscurantists or the professors
of the " dismal " Science.
Had Symbiosis been properly appreciated by the pioneers of
Evolution, a different view would have resulted. But, as Samuel
Butler tells us, in speaking of Buffon, the pioneers were too busy
with the fact that animals descended with modification at all,
to go beyond the development and illustration of this great
truth.
The facts concerning Domestication were much the more
familiar and also the more conspicuous. They seemed to present
tangible and welcome " proofs " of Evolution in the sense at
least of mere modification. In the first flush of " Evolution "
it did not seem to be of much consequence if Nature's economic
character were somewhat blackened by the implication that
she had scarcely known better methods than those of the stock-
yard. Moreover, Physical Science was in the ascendant and
Economics with its adjuncts of morals and religion on the
descendant. Thus nature was painted red in claw and tooth,
and the natural order was proclaimed as such against which it
was right that man should rebel. As the force of this argu-
ment increased, creeds ascribing benevolence to Nature tended
to become discredited. Teachings such as Rousseau's evangel
of trust in Nature became submerged. Jean Jacques, indeed,
was now looked upon as a mere babbler.
I fully admit that naturalists were not without merit for
having revealed to us what startling powers of discipline there
are inherent in the natural process. But it should not have
been overlooked that where there is a schoolmaster there is
also generally a " good mother," and one good mother, as is
well known, is worth more than a dozen schoolmasters. The
initial error of Naturalists consisted in mistaking the abuse for
the norm in Natural Economics, in making " guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon and the stars," thus causing it to
appear as though organisms were " villains of necessity, fools by
heavenly compulsion ; " and the error bred prolifically.
Granted that Nature has her own chapter of Pathology ;
but though it presents a veritable " corruption-gendered
swarm," this is only the reverse of the medal ; and ex ab^isu non
arguiiur ad usum.
In Political Economy it needed all the powers of advocacy
THE ECONOMY OF NATURE 21
of a Ruskin to obtain at last some degree of recognition of the
" moral signs " attached to wealth the distinction, that is,
between wealth and " illth."
No Ruskin of Biology has however yet appeared to sift the
grain from the chaff as regards the rights and the wrongs of
" organic capital." I venture to think that the verdict of History
will be that both Biology and Political Economy failed of their
chief object through a neglect of moral signs.
The pioneers of both sciences wished to avoid such short-
comings by proceeding very comprehensively. Those of
Political Economy wanted their science to embrace the natural
laws which determine the prosperity of nations, their civilisation,
wealth, happiness, etc. They were mindful enough of the
Baconian statement which I introduced at the beginning of
this chapter. They were in quest, in Bacon's language, of " foun-
tains of justice " upon which to found their science. There
are indications indeed to show that they were in quest of some-
thing cognate to what I have ventured to call " Bio-Economics."
But there was little in the then science of Biology to help them,
and later schools, e.g., that of " Natural Selection," implicitly
or explicitly denied all justice or morality in Nature. Samuel
Butler prefers the older pioneers of " Evolution." He speaks
of the days before " Natural Selection " had been discharged
into the waters of the evolution controversy, like the secretions
of a cuttle fish, and he also states that :
' ' Our modern evolutionists should allow that animals are modified not
because they subsequently survive, but because they have done this or
that which has led to their modification, and hence to their surviving."
The hour for the unification of Natural and Political
Economy had not struck and, hence, the commendable attempts
of the pioneers of Political Economy ended in failure. They
were told that the range of their definitions was far too wide,
too all-inclusive of the other sciences, so that " the best encyclo-
paedia would really be the best treatise on Political Economy."
But, as the course of that science has evidenced, Political
Economy could ill afford to be without knowledge of the natural
fountains of justice. Having been too scantily informed on
these vital matters by Biology, Political Economy failed, in
turn, to become the true handmaid of the former. Both depart-
ments of knowledge, therefore, remained more or less " anaemic "
and became " dismal " and unsatisfactory in all they taught.
22 SYMBIOSIS
Biologists and Economists have little cause to congratulate
themselves on their mutual elevation, and it is scarcely a matter
for surprise that there is usually not much love lost between
the two.
I hope that I have to some extent shown how necessary it
is that Natural and Political Economy should nevertheless
complement each other. There should be ample scope for a
chapter of " Bio-Economics " in connection with the theory
of evolution ; and this should in turn furnish Political Economy
with appropriate data for a more comprehensive treatment
of its own essential subject-matter than hitherto possible.
CHAPTER II
THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE
La nature aime les croisements. E. FOURIER.
N the previous chapter I have tried to show that there exists
o close a parallel between the Economics governing the growth
f the organic world and those governing the progress of human
ivilisation as to justify the concept of " organic civilisation,"
nd the allied biological concept of " duties " in the way of
ivision of labour and of community of life.
In particular I showed a great " civilising " force in Nature
pringing from, and associated with, Symbiosis, i.e., the pheno-
aenon of systematic biological co-operation. Symbiosis we found
o be the source of accumulation of wholesome physiological
apital which is essential to the progress of organic life ; so much
o that we felt justified in drawing the inference which is here
o be further fortified that in Nature as in human life the best
esults are achieved by a system of wholesome, independent,
hough interdependent, labour.
We found that the existence of numerous symbiotic " trade "
ystems in the world of life acts as so much " pressure " in the
lirection of a further and general advance. I spoke in this
xmnection of the principle of Symbiogenesis, meaning thereby
he direction given to evolution by the long-continued operation
)f systematic biological reciprocity in the production of higher
orms of life and in the more complete development of beneficial
elations between them.
The success of Symbiosis was found to be determined by the
:ompleteness and efficiency of reciprocal arrangements, of give
md take, and by the absence of depredation. It was also
emphasised that Symbiosis primarily subserves a quasi-economic
>urpose in the natural world, that such economic association
is Symbiosis primarily entails, in course of time, and with growing
efficiency, conduces to pronounced physiological results, affecting
.ex, structure, status and biological correlations. Stress was
24 SYMBIOSIS
also laid upon the fact that the special adaptations characteristic
of Symbiosis are for the most part ultimately connected with
Nutrition, which seemed to open up new vistas of thought for a
consideration of this very matter of Nutrition hitherto a
veritable Cinderella of Science.
I have stated that Symbiosis was primarily economic, and,
seeing that the economic problem is as ancient as Life itself,
one cannot be surprised to find that it was a major concern
of Life to bring Nutrition under early, socio-physiological
regularisation.
And this is saying in other words that the principle of
organic self-preservation indispensably demanded that the norm
of food getting and of metabolism should accord with co-
operative bio-economic laws as opposed to indiscriminate or
predatory ways of appropriation which by their lawlessness
would have continually endangered the very basis of existence.
My thesis is that food is effective and legitimate in an evolu-
tionary sense that is in the sense of aiding the progress of
organic civilisation precisely in so far as it is obtained by
honest toil and put to symbiotic use. In the previous chapter
it was pointed out that only " right " use, " right " union, and
" right " appetency (endeavour perpetuated and imperceptibly
working in effect through an incalculable series of generations)
could have produced evolution in the direction of organic
civilisation. In the present chapter it is " right feeding " that is
to be particularly insisted upon as an essential condition of
progress. I would urge that it is with Nutrition as with
Fertilisation ; neither in fact subserves merely the multiplication
of individuals, mere " re-production " ; but also, and in the
result more fundamentally, the exaltation of type.
As the norm of life, every organism in its development must
be passed through the unicellular stage. The fusion of two
germ-cells does not result simply in the birth of a new individual,
but starts that individual with increased elan vital, with increased
symbiotic supports. The essence of Fertilisation is thus seen
to consist in the raising of the level of being through amphimixis
(mingling and mutual stimulation of parental qualities), or,
in other words, the sexual form of Symbiogenesis. I believe
that something similar is purported by Nutrition, which equally
involves protoplasmic union with previous " maturation,"
previous Symbiosis and subsequent elevation of type, as we shall
THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE 25
see in more detail hereafter. What is obvious in Fertilisation,
namely, that there is co-operation and reciprocal differentiation
between the partners, i.e., male and female, is, of course, less
apparent in Nutrition ; but the indisputable and indispensable
connection between Nutrition and Symbiosis nevertheless shows
that we must look for a similar nexus in that case.
It should be remembered that, as we now find in so many
instances, food exerts a controlling or directive influence upon
the development of the organism as well as its growth ; and
modern discoveries of the effects of vitamines are constantly
emphasising this fact.
It is almost absurd to expect otherwise than that in a system
so profoundly correlated and co-evolved in its parts as that of
organic civilisation, the provision of important stimuli, such as
food is capable of conveying, is achieved by very definite
arrangements, involving definite biological " duties " on the part
of the recipients as well as the providers of the food.
It is also reasonable to expect that the effectiveness of food
will be found to depend upon the measure of biological co-opera-
tion that went towards its elaboration, and this is what I hope
to show.
It has recently been found that ordinary organic substances
vary considerably in their behaviour according to their origin,
whence it is not a far cry to the recognition that food substances
vary in effectiveness in accordance with the nexus under which
they have been produced. A symbiotic nexus, for instance, gives
rise to such vitally useful substances as the vitamines. A
non-reciprocal (or perverted symbiotic) nexus, on the other hand,
results in the formation of such substances as the alkaloid poisons,
which are so appallingly injurious to the would-be aggressor,
or anti-reciprocal factor in the nexus.
According to the investigations of Prof. E. J. Reichart, of
Pennsylvania, it would appear that over and above species
variation, differences due to environment and nurture are clearly
manifest in the starches, for instance. In other words, substances
vary in accordance with the treatment meted out to the producers
of the substances.
In the previous chapter it was already demonstrated from the
case of the lichen that the organism which is equipped for
Symbiosis is thereby enabled to form powerful and widely useful
ferments, and that every increment of Symbiosis must mean
26 SYMBIOSIS
an increment of useful " synthetic mechanism." I would,
therefore, propound the view that food is capable of transmitting
essential and quasi-genetic stimulation and, further, that the
effectiveness and the true legitimacy of food ultimately depend
upon harmonious and reciprocal relatiors between food supplier
and food-recipient, i.e., upon an adequate symbiotic nexus
analogous indeed to that obtaining between the sexes.
Unfortunately the study of Correlation and of Reciprocity
in Nature has hitherto been neglected, more so even than that
of Nutrition, and it is little surprising therefore, that to many the
attempt to draw a distinction between legitimate or illegitimate
feeding will appear almost fantastic. With Correlation and
Reciprocity left out of the reckoning, there is indeed scarcely
an alternative but to assume that whatever an organism has
somehow been accustomed to in the way of foods, constitutes
its normal and also its " legitimate " food. Such doctrines, of
course, are particularly pleasing to those quibus in solo vivendi
causa palato est, and some would carry their logic so far a? to
maintain that in the practice of life one may with impunity
disregard Symbiosis and inter-relatedness (or, for the matter of
that, the sanctity) of life generally.
La recherche de la paternite est interdite so ran Napoleon's
brutal code, and a number of gourmands would apparently
like to have it thus : La recherche de la legalite de la nutrition est
interdite , but it can be abundantly shown that indiscriminate
feeding, regardless of Symbiosis, everywhere results in disease,
in retrogression, and in nemesis. There are no short cuts to
enduring gains in the physiological sphere any more than in the
social sphere of life. Here as there it is true, as Bacon said,
that the shortest way is commonly the foulest.
Darwin has shown how felonious food-getting on the part of
the bee produces a vicious biological circle, whilst it is apt
thoroughly to " debauch " the bee itself. The same sequence
of cause and effect is universally observable, as I have been at
some pains to demonstrate in every one of my books. A plant
that fails to draw mineral salts from the earth will not form
regular fibrous tissue of any value and must be the poorer in
" capital " and in survival- value. Organisms that draw their
nourishment in parasitic fashion from others, instead of obtaining
it by work, become as degraded as they become dangerous
and thus liable to be exterminated by every means in the power
THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE 27
of the community of strenuous organisms. I have found the
analogy with sex everywhere helpful to illustrate that there is
a norm of healthy and legitimate feeding. The study of sex has
shown that certain modes of protoplasmic union, though quite
possible for a time, are yet abnormal and, in so far as they would
lead to stagnancy, are really " abhorred " by progressive Nature.
For some 150 years it has become apparent that flowers are
adapted to be crossed. Darwin's famous aphorism that " Nature
abhors perpetual self -fertilisation," sums up the results of his
classical experiments on the subject, although it still leaves us
in the dark as regards the real cause of this " abhorrence." It
is, however, remarkable that Darwin again and again felt driven
in some cases to distinguish between " legitimate " and " illegiti-
mate " fertilisations merely in view, of course, of results. It
is also significant that the immediate results in Darwin's experi-
ments frequently seemed to show that self-fertilisation was not
prejudicial to size and numbers. It was only after a great
number of generations that what I would consider to be a true
super-adequacy of force, due to legitimate and progressive,
i.e., genuinely co-operative union, such as obtainable with cross-
breeding, became apparent. It was the remoter and permanent
result, be it remembered, that led Darwin to his classical pro-
nouncement as to the superiority of cross- over self -fertilisation.
The subject is of so great an importance that it will be as well
to let Darwin himself speak on its history :
There is weighty and abundant evidence (he says in The Effects of Cross
and Self-Fertilisation) that the flowers of most kinds of plants are con-
structed so as to be occasionally or habitually cross -fertilised by pollen
from another flower, produced either by the same plant, or generally, as
we shall hereafter see reason to believe, by a distinct plant. . . . Long
before I had attended to the fertilisation of flowers, a remarkable book
appeared in 1793 in Germany: Das Entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur, by
C. K. Sprengel, in which he clearly proved by innumerable observations,
how essential a part insects play in the fertilisation of many plants. But
he was in advance of his age, and his discoveries were for a long time
neglected.
In the introduction of his book (p. 4) Sprengel says, as the
sexes are separated in so many flowers, and so many other
flowers are dichogamous, " it appears that Nature has not willed
that any one flower should be fertilised by its own pollen."
In 1862 (says Darwin), I summed up my observations on Orchids by
saying that nature " abhors perpetual self -fertilisation." If the word
perpetual had been omitted, the aphorism would have been false.
28 SYMBIOSIS
Darwin also tells us that Andrew Knight (Philosophical Trans-
actions, 1799, p. 202) saw the truth much more clearly, for he
remarked that " Nature has something more in view than that
its own proper males should fecundate each blossom."
My contention is that fertilisation entails but one though, of
course, a most important form of symbiotic specialisation, and
that Nutrition entails another form of such specialisation,
and further that " cross-feeding " is superior to " in-feeding "
in a similar way, and for the same reason that cross-breeding
is superior to in-breeding., namely, that it is more congruous with
the requirements of the symbiotic nexus of life.
The law relating to Nutrition may indeed be stated in analogous
and in corresponding terms with that stated by Darwin with
regard to Fertilisation, viz., " Nature abhors perpetual in-feeding,"
with the addendum that what " abhorrence " there is in Nature
is mainly due to economic discrepancies arising from modes of
feeding subversive of Symbiosis. The term " in-feeding,"
therefore, is used to denominate the indolent appropriation of
food manufactured by close relatives in the biological scale
and the correlated shirking of the economic duty of production
or of mutual service of some kind. The term " cross-feeding,"
on the other hand, designates the norm of healthy feeding, associa-
ted with symbiotic endeavour, and so far as the animal is
concerned generally with the ingestion of properly matured
surplus products of plant life, which represent the food ideally
adapted to the requirements of the animal world.
Nature has thus indeed " more in view " than mere breeding
and even mere feeding, and her secret, I maintain, was only very
partially discovered by Sprengel, Knight, and even by Darwin.
According to my own version of the underlying reality, the bio-
economic law of Reciprocity, i.e., that of Symbiogenesis, demands
that some new factors or parts of factors and certainly at
least a modicum of legitimate external support shall be garnered
by the partners in their respective spheres of (specialised) action,
and, in a befitting way, be brought into the union. The require-
ments of a growing organic civilisation, moreover, demand, and
actually effect, that many and various symbiotic systems with
their " symbiotic momenta " shall push each other on unceasingly
to their mutual advantage, that the concord once established
between one symbiotic system and another shall be adequately
maintained. Such being the essential economic realities of life
THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE 29
on our globe, Feeding and Breeding, Nutrition and Fertilisation
had in the main to be ordered in accordance with the requirements
of the symbiotic nexus ruling in the world of life that is to say
they are far from being mere self-regarding processes. Had
Darwin seen the importance of Symbiosis, as it is possible to-day,
he would scarcely have allowed himself to be influenced by
Hermann Miiller's over-emphasis of propagation per se to say
that his own aphorism (as stated above) was " perhaps rather
too strongly expressed."
We shall see hereafter that symbiotic systems leave the world
of life permanently the richer for their presence, and, what is
more, that they provide the increments of organic capital essential
to the arrival of new, more advanced and better equipped, races
of plants and animals. We shall find that the plant, for instance,
constantly produces essential organic substances in virtue of
Symbiosis a fact which, once thoroughly grasped, will make a
vast difference in biological and sociological interpretation. For
it reveals the truth that many important functions hitherto
regarded as predominantly self-regarding, are in effect pre-
eminently " other-regarding " in character. Strenuous organisms,
so long as they have not lost the seeds of the " virtues "
engendered in them by the normal course of Nature, affect each
other much as do the components of a Parallelogram of Forces :
they tend to produce a resultant equal to their combined value,
and, what is more, theirs being a case of living Dynamics,
i.e., Bio-Dynamics this resultant grows cumulatively in force
and tends more strongly every day to favour the dominance of
Symbiosis, i.e., to uphold the law of Concord, on our globe.
It has been said that Nature is careful of the species, but
regardless of the individual. I should say that the method of
progressive evolution is to foster a symbiotic resultant rather
than to favour particular individuals or species in that merely
expedient way, for instance, in which the welfare of every creature
is supposed to be looked after by " Natural Selection," acting,
according to Darwin, " solely by and for the good of each." To
maintain and to increase the dominance of Symbiosis generally,
is all that is really wanted to ensure a tolerable security of life
concurrently with a certain measure of individual liberty of
action. This Bio-dynamic " pressure "- or " resultant "-
producing aggregate force of Symbiosis is implied by the term
Symbiogenesis. The phrase : The operation of Symbiogenesis
30 SYMBIOSIS
implies that no individual or race exists for itself ; that all have
to contribute their share of progress to organic civilisation, that
all have to give freely as they also freely receive ; that all have to
help in upholding the law of Concord if they are to survive, rather
than behave in an anti-symbiotic manner ; and thus there will
be scope for mutual elevation rather than for mutual plunder
with ensuing stagnancy and retrogression. With sufficient
vision we should see that the distribution of real power in the
biological polity is similar to the circulation of blood in the
healthy body : all correlated parts are reached and remunerated
in accordance with their biological dues, and all make their
return contribution in various ways so as to merit again in turn
more or less remuneration from the general symbiotic fund of the
biological polity.
Only in a highly diseased body, the rule of Reciprocity does
not hold good, since in this case for reasons so far considered
as mysterious it appears that the physiological " control " is
gone, that there is a subversion of the " ordinary laws " (whatever
they may be) which " we must assume " to govern the proportions
and proper relations of tissue growth. Tumours, for example,
are, contrary to what is the rule with normal structures,
imperfectly provided with blood vessels, and, hence, subject to early
decay, the resulting cavities or open wounds being exposed to
various harmful secondary infections. Cancer, therefore, repre-
sents a case of Discord. There is a physiological bankruptcy
owing to insufficiency of symbiotic funds and in the ensuing
scramble for " funds " some cells of the body, the so-called
" cancer-cells," draw parasitically on the other tissues to the
ultimate exhaustion of the body-cells and to their own final doom.
The case is paralleled throughout by the phenomenon of
parasitism in Nature. In either case it is generally to be seen
that " rich " and abundant, yet still incomplete, diet has led up
to a slackening and finally a disappearance of the essential
symbiotic factors with the identical result of increased liability
to retrogressive development, to disease and infection.
Darwin rightly laid stress on the greater health and powers
of resistance and the greater constitutional vigour, exhibited by
the cross-fertilised plants in his experiments in Fertilisation.
The reason is that cross-breeding, like cross-feeding, implies a
more extended symbiotic range of life with ampler opportunities
for biological exchanges than do in-breeding and in-feeding
THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE 31
respectively. The " cross," in either case, is associated with
the more widely useful mode of life. This ensures correspondingly
wider symbiotic supports, or greater " returns," which results in
dominance, vitality, and resistance to disease. What in the
previous chapter we found to be the natural fountain of Justice,
thus emerges here again as the true fountain of Health and
Power.
Darwin noticed in the case of Linaria vulgaris that the crossed
plants proved more vigorous than the self-fertilised, and he also
tells us that " bees incessantly visit the flowers of this, i.e., the
cross-fertilised Linaria, and carry pollen from one to the
other ; and if insects are excluded, the flowers produce extremely
few seeds. This, in my view, is typical of the superiority of the
symbiotic life over the non-symbiotic as represented by the
in-breeding and in-feeding modes -for, evidently, the former
mode involves a widely fruitful intercourse with a happy con-
summation in correlated progress, arising from extended mutual
usefulness, whilst in-breeding and in-feeding modes, with much
narrower and more specially self -regarding intercourse, mean
relative stagnancy. Another phenomenon that puzzled Darwin
is thus also becoming intelligible : the startling amount of expendi-
ture apparently lavished by some organisms towards the attain-
ment of cross-fertilisation. I would view this expenditure as
the price paid by the organism for the privilege of due participa-
tion in the onward march of organic civilisation and for genuine
survival, and particularly so by reason of the fact that the
material here in question, which is abundantly produced, i.e.,
pollen grains, subserves a double, i.e., a domestic and a biological
symbiotic purpose.
We can thus understand how it is that longevity is generally
related to the standard, i.e., the biological status, of each species
in the scale of organisation, as well as to the amount of expenditure
in reproduction and in general activity. The secret precisely
consists of a widely useful life which shrinks from no sacrifice
to merit a permanent place in the forefront of organic civilisation.
It consists in a kind of instinctive " wisdom," which proverbially
has length of days in her right hand.
The lichen, as was shown in the previous chapter, represents a
typical case of a healthy, long-living, resistant and successful
organism, clearly distinguished and dominant in virtue of
Symbiosis. What is usually overlooked, however, in this
32 SYMBIOSIS
connection, and what is now more specially to be insisted upon
is, that the success of the lichen as a symbiotist is essentially
connected with cross-feeding.
It is owing to the power of disintegrating by both mechanical and
chemical means (says the Encyclopedia Britannica), the rocks upon
which they are growing, that lichens play such an important part in soil
production.
The lichen thus draws its food pre-eminently from the
inorganic world, which I claim to be vitally important. It is
what I call " cross-feeding " for the plant, and is parallel to the
symbiotic draft by the animal on the vegetable world.
The instance of the lichen as a successful " cross-feeder/' of
course, is not unique ; but the same connection, or sequence,
holds universally amongst plants, as we shall presently see in
greater detail. The case of clover may serve as a first example,
illustrating the pronounced good effects of cross-feeding. Says
Prof. James Long :
There is nothing in romance or ancient story more thrilling than the
fact that by the employment of certain mineral fertilisers (cross-feeding !)
the clovers and superior grasses, almost unknown before, appear and grow
with luxuriance ; while the inferior grasses and weeds disappear, unable
to contend against those species of plants, which fed by man (cross-
fed !) obtain the mastery of the situation Clover is a deep-
rooted plant and a nitrogen gatherer ; while it revels in particular minerals.
Sometimes one alone, although sometimes two or three are required. Thus,
when those foods are supplied, clover responds with its beautiful foliage,
its roots simultaneously piercing the soil to great depths in search of water,
and at the same time appropriating foods, which they find down below and
which they bring near the surface for the benefit of neighbouring shallow-
rooted plants. (Italics mine.)
What strikes one as at least curious is that a case of ordinary
legitimate feeding, although indeed combined with pioneer-work
in organic civilisation, is to be set down as almost belonging to
the sphere of " romance," when it in reality concerns the most
universal work-a-day life of plants, on which all organic
existence fundamentally depends.
It is now, however, a well established fact that plants generally
thrive on mineral food, i.e., on what I call " cross-feeding/' and
my thesis that Nature prefers " cross-feeding " in the interest
of organic civilisation, may be seen to receive considerable
corroboration from the following facts and considerations. In
a valuable contribution to The Principles of Crop Production,
THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE 33
Dr. E. J. Russell refers to a generalisation made by Liebig in
1840, with regard to plant nutrition to the effect that the true
function of manure is to provide, not organic matter, but mineral
constituents, which the chemists had ignored.
This discovery of Liebig, according to Dr. Russell, was " a
brilliant stroke. It enabled us to reduce the whole art of
manuring to an exact science." Before 1840, as this authority
tells us :
The practical man knew that farm-yard manure was the great ferti-
liser ; he also knew that other substances as bones, salt, etc., had, in certain
circumstances, considerable fertilising value. The most obvious facts were
the large amounts of organic matter in the best manures ; and it is only
natural that chemists and physiologists should have connected these
and argued that the object of the manure was to furnish organic matter
for the plant.
But Liebig's " brilliant stroke " of discovery brushed aside
this " obvious connection " and proclaimed that it is the mineral
constituents that are indispensable and must be supplied to the
plant, i.e., in my more generalised terminology, that the plant's
well-being depends upon " cross-feeding/' i.e., on its draft on
the inorganic kingdom. True, Liebig had left something out.
Thinking that the requirements of a plant could be gauged by
the composition of the ash, he overlooked the fact that, " for
practical purposes/' it was necessary to add nitrogen as well
before complete growth could be obtained. For, a complete
growth depends upon a complete diet, as a complete heredity
depends on a full measure of contribution from the symbiotic
environment which, in this instance, is furnished by nitrogen
specially elaborated for the plant by friendly bacteria. Dr.
Russell tells us that we may take it as established that crops
can be grown satisfactorily and indefinitely by supplying proper
quantities of suitable compounds of nitrogen, phosphorus and
potassium, and he would call this the first principle of Crop
production. The first principle of Crop production is, I should
claim, an integral part of the greater generalisation that " cross-
feeding " is the ideal method of obtaining these essentials of
diet for all organisms, and I maintain, that the work of the
world is best done on " cross-feeding."
And that such a bio-economic and for that matter widely
generalised statement is called for and well justified, is borne
out by Dr. Russell's account of the successive steps of
34 SYMBIOSIS
agricultural discovery subsequent to Liebig. For it turned out
that the soil presented all the problems of " population," though
but of " soil population." In this " soil population " there
obtains a wonderful " division of labour," and nothing is left to
accident. The higher plant, as has been said, indispensably
needs apart from other inorganic substances nitrates. How
are these provided ? How also are those organic substances
which are often so amply furnished to the plant by the soil after
it has been enriched by manure, to be re-converted into
inorganic matter so as to constitute the ideal food for the health
and the toil of the higher plant ? The reconversion, we are told,
is neither chemical nor physical. It is " biological." It repre-
sents labour performed by that important part of the " soil
community " which has long been entirely overlooked, but has
recently come into great prominence : the bacteria, the number
of which is enormous, running into millions per gram. " How
do these organisms live ? They must have food ; and they must
have energy ? "
They thrive in part on the spare-capital of the higher plant
population with whom they stand in a symbiotic exchange
relation so far as their food and well-being are concerned. Nor
is the soil an^nert medium, but it plays a great part in the business
of crop-production. The recognition that the plant is a living
thing and that the type of soil is an important factor in crop
production, Dr. Russell tells us, has restored perspective and
broadened our conception of the factors necessary for plant growth.
It has several times happened in the history of agricultural chemistry
(says Dr. Russell) that the new illuminating idea wanted to revivify the
subject in a stagnant period has come in from some outside technical
problem that had to be solved.
So it was here. The growth of the towns and of stricter
ideas on public health had brought into prominence the need for
better sewage purification, and it was imperative that the
problem should be dealt with somehow or other.
Schloessing and Miintz found that satisfactory purification
involved the conversion of ammonia into nitrate, and by a brilliant
investigation they found that this process was neither chemical
nor physical, but biological. Their work was extended to the
soil with remarkable results. It was seen that the soil was not
a mere inert mass, but that it was teeming with life and pulsating
with change. What I would specially urge in this connection
THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE 35
is that the same process which ensures the utmost public health
by the purification of sewage also provides the most ideal
food, i.e., " cross-food " (nitrates) for the strenuous and
symbiotic plant, and further that the " biological " part
of the process is mainly made up of the " work " of symbiotic
organisms, which are able to perform their indispensable services
and thus to form important links in the great bio-economic chain
of life precisely in virtue of the symbiotic character of their
relations with the strenuous plant.
In other words, the " health " of the soil, the well-being of
the soil-" population," and the efficiency of labour on the part
of the higher plant, and all these entail, depend upon the
maintenance of a definite symbiotic nexus with symbiotic " cross-
feeding " as a condition fundamentally indispensable to the
maintenance of this nexus. Instead of saying that the important
work of converting the ammonia into nitrate is being achieved by
a process which is neither chemical nor physical, but biological,
I should say that we have here an instance of an essential connec-
tion between bio-economic and bio-chemical efficiency of work
such as is usually set up by Symbiosis ; for the organisms
concerned achieve the result by work chiefly chemical and
they owe their success as much to Symbiosis, as they in turn tend
by their work to further Symbiosis. In acquainting us with
the history of the soil-" population," Dr. Russell states the
following important facts :
A very cursory examination shows that the soil forms only a thin layer,
underneath it lies the subsoil, which is wholly different in colour, texture,
and especially in its behaviour towards the plants. Yet there was not
always this difference. When the soil was first laid down it was all like
the subsoil, and whenever a new surface becomes exposed, either by land-
slips, cliff-falls, etc., it is always the subsoil type that appears. The first
vegetation has no great supply of plant nutrients, but plants suited to
the conditions nevertheless spring up. They take what they can from the
crude soil, they take carbon dioxide from the air, they synthesise sugars,
starches, cellulose, proteins, etc., deriving the necessary energy from
sunlight. When the plants die they fall back on the soil and return to it
all that they took, and a good deal more of new material besides. That
introduces a fundamental change. The new material thus added contains
stores of energy and food substances suitable for the bacterial population,
which forthwith flourishes. Decomposition goes on, nitrates and other
substances are produced, and the conditions are made more favourable
for the growth of a new race of plants. One of the most obvious changes
is the formation of nitrates, but other products are formed as well. (Italics
mine.)
36 SYMBIOSIS
Again it is thus illustrated that all important pioneer-work
is done on " cross-feeding," as we found already in the case of
the lichen and in that of the clover. The primal plant nutrients
are inorganic, although eventually their further elaboration
is facilitated by division of labour and exchanges of surpluses
in Symbiosis. Strenuous work and Symbiosis provide the
original and permanent capital for the purposes of organic
civilisation, which can thenceforward proceed to more extended
forms of division and specialisation of labour with resultant
exaltation of type. The evidence shows that pioneer plants leave
the soil permanently the richer for their presence give more
than they take and. thus, and with a subsequent expansion of
Symbiosis, provide the economic and physiological basis of
progressive evolution. Such then is ttye explanation of the arrival
of " a new race of plants " typical of the way in which evolu-
tion is achieved by Symbiogenesis. I would only add that the
case of animal and plant Symbiosis is quite similar, for the better
the animal is supplied by plant surpluses, the more vigorous
it gets, the more it can in turn supply the plant with Carbon
dioxide and the better it can adapt itself to the needs of pro-
gressive evolution generally. As regards the process of nitrate
formation by bio-chemical decomposition, Dr. Russell further
tells us that the initial products are of little value to the crop
or the soil. The final (i.e., thoroughly converted) products are
invaluable for the plant nutrition. It is of the highest import-
ance that the reaction shall be carried rapidly and smoothly
to the nitrate terminus. Where for any reason it is not so
completed, the plants cannot be properly fed and " the soil
becomes unproductive." When Dr. Russell states that the
second broad principle of crop production is " that the bio-
chemical decompositions in the soil must proceed smoothly and
rapidly," I would say that it is therefore essential that scope
must be provided for Symbiosis and cross-feeding to proceed
completely and unhindered.
It has long been found that surfeit of any factor otherwise
essential to plant growth is harmful. Extra supplies may do
harm, either by direct injury or by cutting out another indis-
pensable substance.
We are thus introduced to a " Law of Minimum " as the
third principle of Crop production.
Here again I would point out that Symbiosis-ff/w-cross-
THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE 37
feeding in themselves involve regulative, limiting and restraining
factors in so far as every worker or unit is fed in accordance with
its contributions, as every substance is supplied in accordance
with reciprocal needs, and particularly because a strenuous,
working organism has to be restrained in its appetites because
of the very fact of work. I would make it a strong point, there-
fore, that Symbiosis constitutes a safeguard not only of adequate
work, but also of normal appetites and, hence, also a safeguard
against disease and likewise against prolific reproduction. The
symbiotic nexus, as already pointed out, has successfully estab-
lished itself precisely because of a fundamental and perennial need
of regularisation of supply and demand, both of food material and
of individuals and species. Those who entirely overlook the
indispensable symbiotic nexus in organic civilisation, of course are
not unnaturally startled to find that an indiscriminate supply of
any one essential substance can have such surprising correlated bad
effects as actually exist. Once, however, we grant the need of
symbiotic moderation, it is clear that no link in the symbiotic chain
of life can be seriously interfered with without other links being
thereby thrown out of gear.
The " Law of Minimum," therefore, is nothing more than the
" Law of Symbiotic Moderation." This " Law of Minimum,"
or of " Symbiotic Moderation " is closely akin to another which,
as I have elsewhere shown, operates as an application to Biology
of Gresham's " Law of Currency," namely, that bad organic
" currency " drives out good " currency," much the same as in
the life of States bad currency drives out good.
And these laws may indeed be considered as affording further
apposite analogy between Sex and Nutrition. The fusion oi
germ-cells in the process of Fertilisation proceeds in such a manner
that after mytosis the germ-cell contains of unclear substances
only that, but all that, which is necessary to produce a new typical
aggregation of hereditary substances. Superfluities are eliminated.
The success of that form of sexual co-operation which we call
" Fertilisation," would thus seem to depend upon the unimpeded
union of essential elements, and the process of Fertilisation, in
the last analysis, may be said to purport racial purity quite as
much as amphimixis, both being indispensable to true viability
and true success.
Physiologists are beginning to see that the process of Digestion
inter alia purports similar ends, and hence, it is explainable why
38 SYMBIOSIS
a simple and harmoniously balanced dietary is more effective in
the end than one consisting of " rich " food and of dainties, replete
with artificial stimulations. " Abbondanza genera fastidio."
But fastidiousness must entail a loss of essentail symbiotic
stimulation with less resistance to disease and with greater
strains thrown upon the eliminative system. Hence costly
eliminations must ensue in order to maintain a modicum of racial
purity, and they cannot but leave baneful effects both upon the
digestive and generative systems. There is, that is to say, a
nemesis of reproduction following in the wake of nutritional
exaggerations, which may now be seen in reality to be a nemesis
incumbent upon violations of the biological law of Concord, the
qimsi-mor&l law of Symbiosis.
It has been found that in the reproduction of a " lawless
entity," such as the cancer cell, mytosis is defective. My
interpretation is that such abnormality is the result of a pro-
nounced and prolonged " parasitic diathesis " due in the majority
of cases to non-symbiotic feeding which acts as the very anti-
thesis to the so-called " law of physiological control," which, as
already stated, is no other than the law of Symbiosis. When
we come to the norm of life, it is everywhere apparent that Nature
is frugal, that she is, in Shakespeare's words, " like a thrifty
goddess," and that Milton in particular proved himself " skill'd
to sing of Time and Eternity," in comparing Nature to a good
cateress, who
Means her provision only to the good
That live according to her sober laws,
And holy dictate of spare temperance.
Plant and soil, on Dr. Russell's showing, constantly react
upon each other ; " each plays an active part, disturbing both
the reaction and the distribution of the products." I should
say that the plant has its needs and the soil has its needs ; and
further that the needs of organic civilisation generally must be
adequately considered by the agriculturist.
Apart from Symbiosis one might have expected that, in view of
its predilection for the end-product, the plant would tend to hasten
the essential process of nitrate formation spoken of above. But
in reality the strenuous plant, being a typical symbiotic worker,
a genuine agent in the web of life, which does not work for
" getting rich " quickly and regardless of other interests the
THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE 39
plant, Dr. Russell tells us, does not accelerate the nitrate
formation.
On the contrary, the growing plant appears to retard it, and nitrate
is always formed in higher quantities on fallow than on cropped land, even
after allowing for what is. taken by the crop.
Whatever the exact explanation may be, we may be sure
that the fact of Symbiosis necessarily introduces regulative and
restraining factors in many directions. It is quite intelligible
that the strenuous plant finds a surfeit of nutrients incompatible
with its work. It is only the harmful, i.e., the idle and predatory
organisms of the soil, that " thrive " in surfeit. These latter,
in Dr. Russell's words, given a continued spell of " favourable "
conditions (which I take to be conditions favouring surfeit) may
even establish " some sort of " superiority. Under the identical
conditions the efficiency of the strenuous bacteria falls off, and,
therefore, under a resulting double inadequacy of Symbiosis,
the plants must suffer. Dr. Russell would roughly divide the
soil population into two groups : one favourable to the pro-
duction of plant food, the other not. This shows that our
investigators are driven more and more to make that vital and
more generalised and more universal distinction which I have
set myself to emphasise, namely, between the symbiotic and the
non-symbiotic, the normal and the abnormal, modes of life
generally. The way to keep down the npxious, i.e., parasitic
population in cultivation consists in sterilisation of the soil.
The useful population is, on the whole, more resistant to adverse cir-
cumstances than are the harmful organisms, and, therefore, survives more
drastic treatment.
But, if the strenuous organisms are more resistant to adverse
circumstances than the parasitic ones, this is precisely because,
relying upon honest labour and on the support of Symbiosis,
they consequently enjoy better health and stronger constitutions
than those whose existence is not so supported. Parasitism, on
the other hand, as the economic antithesis to Symbiosis, must
make for the physiological antithesis, i.e., for weakness, disease
and retrogression, which is amply borne out by results in either
case.
To give but one further example of the way in which Parasitism
shows itself incompatible with symbiotic support : the Nematode
worms, most of which are rank parasites, and which, according to
Prof. Arthur J. Thomson, " do not seem to lead on to anything
40 SYMBIOSIS
else," are almost the only animal types without wandering
phagocytes the microscopic symbiotic defenders, discovered
by the late Prof. Metchnikoff, which play so great a part in
safeguarding the blood of animals against the attacks of injurious
microbes.
When Dr. Russell in a subsequent paper* develops the idea
of an apparent paradox " that any process fatal to life (but not
too fatal) proves ultimately beneficial to fertility, while any
process beneficial to life proves ultimately harmful," I would
demur. I see no paradox whatsoever in the fact that only
conditions favourable to Symbiosis are favourable to life in a
real sense, and that on the other hand surfeiting conditions
however acceptable the materials provided would normally be
in so lar as they interfere with efficiency of work and of
Symbiosis, thus preparing the soil for pathogenic and parasitic
rather than strenuous and progressive developments, are really
unfavourable to life.
Long frost, drought, heat (says Dr. Russell), benefit the useful makers
of plant food, while prolonged warmth, moisture and treatment with organic
manures lead to deterioration or to " sickness " as the practical man
puts it.
But this is really only saying that in cultivation anything
which favours honest labour and Symbiosis at the expense of
Parasitism, proves in^the long run more favourable to life than
anything which favours Parasitism at the expense of honest toil
and Symbiosis a truth which is borne out universally and which
can lend itself to paradoxes only so long as we fail to draw a clear
distinction between the reciprocal and the non-reciprocal, the
normal and the abnormal, modes of life.
In my book on Symbio genesis I have stressed the fact,
brought to light by recent horticultural investigation at the
Woburn Experimental Fruit Farm, that ramming the soil round
the tree at the planting has beneficial effects upon growth. It
means bringing the roots into intimate contact with the soil,
which ensures an ample supply of mineral substances. The
salubrious effects of intimate earth-contact in this case, I hold,
are due to the fact that it affords to the tree a direct draft upon
ideal plant-food, that it entails the most complete " cross-
feeding."
The flower must drink the nature of the soil before it can put forth
its blossoming.
* Nature, Vol. 97, No. 2,433, p. 332.
THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE 41
This view of the matter seems to some extent corroborated
by recent experience of Plant-Teratology. Thus it is stated by
Mr W. C. Worsdell, F.L.S., in his work on the subject, that the.
root of the vascular plant is less prone than any other organ to
deviate from the normal form, i.e., it is least predisposed to
teratological developments which are largely pathological.
When we bear in mind that, as I have tried to show throughout,
the premier industry of the plant the industry which, because
of its symbiotic significance, is the best safeguard of healthy
development consists in the conversion of inorganic into
organic material, it seems doubly remarkable that those parts
which are most busily engaged upon such industry, though ever
so unobtrusively and even shut away from sun-light, are the most
robust in health and the most constant or " normal " in con-
stitution. Little doubt, that the connection with ideal food and
ideal work in this instance is a paramount factor in determining
the healthiness of the root.
Mr. Worsdell suggests that the comparative stability of the
root may be due to its usual
Location in the comparatively uniform environment of the soil, where
the factors which induce variation are very much less numerous and varied
than they are above ground.
I take it, however, that we have here above all to do with
capacity to resist disease, which capacity, as we have seen, cannot
be satisfactorily explained on purely mechanical grounds. The
soil may present a comparatively uniform " environment," but
surely this "environment" is not germ-proof. If the soil is
lacking in factors making for diversity, it also lacks certain factors
which usually make for health and normality such important
germicides, for instance, as fresh air and sunlight. The case of
the strenuous nitrifying soil bacteria versus the idle or predatory
soil organisms supplies strong confirmation of the view that
health and resistance everywhere primarily depend upon work
and Symbiosis with the necessarily implied cross-feeding.
If it may be said that the resistance to teratological develop-
ments on the part of the root is due to the comparatively uniform
factors presented by the soil, this view, in my opinion, needs to
be supplemented by the further statement that the factors are
constant because correlated with symbiotic strenuousness, which
ipso facto precludes relations with the animate environment
that make for morbidity.
42 SYMBIOSIS
According to Mr. F. A. Talbot, writing in The World's Work,.
November, 1918, the farmer's attitude towards " Nitrolim," the
artificial fertiliser a purely inorganic food is undergoing a
complete and welcome change.
What he (the farmer) spurned five years ago he is now embracing witl
avidity. When Nitrolim is supplied (Mr. Talbot says) the nitrogen is
held by the soil, forming as it were a reservoir of supply to the plant, while
the free lime, which by the way is given to the farmer who is called upon
to pay for the nitrogen content only, by sweetening the soil and improving
its texture as well as assisting the bacterial action which is for ever taking
place, renders the home for the roots much more congenial.
In other words, it is " cross-food " which supplies the best
conditions for work and for Symbiosis, and, hence, for health and
true wealth.
Dusty nitrolim (we are also told) has proved more than a match for
the most sturdy and aggressive charlock. Sprayed in a dry form it finds
the rough surface of the weed's leaves and stalks an excellent refuge,
especially when applied while the plague is soddened with dew or other
moisture. As it dissolves it exercises a destructive caustic effect, causing
the weed to shrivel and die.
But upon the young grain struggling for existence it exercises no
deleterious effect ; indeed it comes as a welcome stimulant. The capa-
bility of a fertiliser to exterminate an enemy while simultaneously stim-
ulating the crop which is menaced is certainly something novel to
agriculture, and it is a characteristic which deserves to be noted more
widely, if only for the reason that it constitutes the most economical
method of eliminating a plant pest which has yet been evolved.
And what is it that now emerges from the foregoing con-
siderations ? It is this : The plant is a perpetual worker, a
perpetual provider and an ideal capitalist. Having learnt the
lessons of strenuous work, having mastered the secrets of various
industries and become habituated to the mode of feeding most
appropriate to faithful pursuits, it proceeds to employ the popula-
tions of the soil, the land and the air, so as to make them co-operate
in the great work of organic civilisation. Having obtained such
participation to a tolerable extent, it synthetizes ( ever more
complex organic substances and contrives ever more effective
means of arriving at higher values in organic civilisation. By
constraining the bacterial and animal populations of our globe
to perpetual counter-services, and thus making them partners
in the business of organic civilisation, the plant concurrently
causes them to participate in the cosmic process of elevating
inorganic material to the stage of " organic " life, concerning
THE LAW OF CONCORD IN NATURE 43
which process and its ultimate aim, if any, one can only say with
Goethe that Nature alone knows what she wants. This much,
however, of eminent importance to our own lives we can gather
from the working of this cosmic process, namely, that the more
perfect the system of elevating inorganic matter by means of
v Q vmbiosis, the higher are the results in organic civilisation and
the greater the health, vigour, and dominance of the respective
plants and animals. Whilst attending to our own best interests,
we may thus at the same time be furthering the remoter ends,
if any, of the cosmic process. Qui sibi amicus est, scito hunc
amicum omnibus esse. So far as concerns the inorganic world's
share in Evolution, it seems partly to consist, on the " physical "
side, in supporting, in Atlas-fashion, the vast superstructure of
the organic world , and, on the " chemical " side, to furnish the
latter with appropriate primal stimulations and to guide their
application. The earth is like a great store-keeper of energies,
and when we see how essential even to the highest forms of
organic life is the constant replenishment of their energy in one
forn or another from the earth's store of primal energies, we are
reminded, on the ethical side, of the wonderful inspiration of
the Book of Job : " Thou shalt be in league with the stones of
the field," and, on the cosmological side, of the mythological
figure of Antaeus, the giant of Libj^a, the son of Poseidon and Gaea,
who, when thrown in combat, derived fresh strength from each
successive contact with his mother earth, thus symbolising the
law of Concord as between earth and man. We are perhaps
also reminded of the " Erdgeist " and of Fechner's famous passage,
viewing the earth as the grand matrix of all organic life and reality,
which so fascinated the lateProf. William James :
We rise upon the earth as wavelets rise upon the ocean. We grow
out of her soil as leaves grow from a tree. The wavelets catch the sun-
beams separately, the leaves stir when the branches do not move. They
realise their own events apart, just as in our own consciousness when any-
thing becomes emphatic, the background fades from our observation.
Yet the event works back upon the background as the wavelet works
upon the waves, or as the leaf's movements work back upon the sap inside
the branch. The whole sea and the whole tree are registers of what has
happened and are different for the wave's and the leaf's action having
occurred.
There is thus a double concord : between man and the earth,
44
SYMBIOSIS
and between man and the plant ; and the words addressed by
Wordsworth to the meek and long-suffering daisy :
Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity
contain not only a profound biological and bio-moral truth, but
quite possibly also an ampler cosmic truth, relating to the
essential interlinking of life, both organic and inorganic, in
cosmic evolution.
CHAPTER ITI
THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY
The religious problem of the present time is determined very largely
by the fact that the modern mind, in its attempt to understand life, starts
from the platform of Natural Science. PROF. W. R. BOYCE GIBSON,
M.A., D.Sc., in Hibbert Journal, October, 1918.
IN the previous chapters it was shown that the progress of the
organic world is mainly due to Symbiosis, and what this engenders
in values.*
We found that the principle involved in Symbiosis is capable
of extension over a wide range though the partners be separate
and unconscious of their co-operation. Symbiosis became
definable as that system of mutuality (whether between units
and units, or males and females, or species and species, or genera
and genera, or, finally, and very importantly, between the
" kingdoms " on the grand scale of Nature) under which, whilst
one part or party devotes itself to one kind of work and yields
benefits to others, those others, jointly and severally in their
turn performing their special duties, yield benefits to the first in
exchange.
In the present chapter, attention is to be more particularly
directed to the good moral effects of Symbiosis which is to be
specially vindicated as a source of morality, considered as the
gradually established sanction of sound bio-economic relations.
The imperative of the moral law is profound and deeply rooted
in the order of the universe, as Kant recognised. There is now
also an increasing consensus of opinion that consciousness descends
to the very lowest forms of organic life.
It is highly probable that the same holds good of morality in
the sense at least of reciprocity of conduct. Systematic recipro-
city between species or wider groups, or " symbiotic behaviour,"
involved from an early stage of evolution a kind of morality,
* A good and generalised definition of " value " in this connection, which may be regarded
as appertaining also to Biology, is that of Ruskin : " To be valuable," is to " avail towards
life." " A truly valuable thing is that which leads to life with its whole strength. In propor-
tion as it does not lead to life, or as its strength is broken, it is less valuable ; in proportion
as it leads away from life, it is unvaluable or malignant."
45
46 SYMBIOSIS
a quasi- or Bio-morality ; and it led eventually, by natural
momentum, to an ever increasing urge in the direction of increased
interdependence and, therefore, of enhanced Bio-morality. This
" symbiotic urge " was perhaps adumbrated by Herbert Spencer,
When he spoke in 1855, of " that beneficent necessity displayed
in the progressive evolution of the correspondence between the
organism and its environment."
Let us be clear at the outset about the meaning of this quasi-
or Bio-morality. I consider that the economic problem was
present from the first beginnings of life, and that there were two
ways of solving it : first the industrious, as instanced by the
symbiotic bacteria and by early symbiotic adaptation generally ;
and, secondly, the improvident and predaceous way, as instanced
by the devourers and the parasites, i.e., work and theft. The
former regime, because it allows the welfare of the total organic
family to take precedence of the individual gain, I call the good,
that is the moral, or bio-moral regime ; the latter, because it is
one of mere self-regarding expediency, regardless of " higher "
or wider interests, I call the bad or immoral regime. And I
conceive human, i.e., conscious morality to have arisen out of
such unconscious Bio-morality, and to be largely dependent
for its sanctions, past and present, upon Bio-morality. In my
opinion, every stage of life possesses its corresponding degree of
mind, consciousness and Bio-morality. I do not claim human
consciousness for the bacteria. I only claim that their various
ways of solving the economic problem involved conduct which,
when good in its tendency or results, I am justified in classing
as bio-moral on the ground that it -availed towards fuller life.
It is generally conceded that where mind exists, questions
of morality begin to arise. To those who deny all mind to the
lowest creatures I do not address myself. The leading related-
ness in the organic world becoming, from the very dawn of life,
one of systematic co-operation, reliance upon this principle became
more and more indispensable. This practical indispensability
of mutuality in an ever advancing " organic civilisation " found
concrete expression in the growth of innumerable faculties for
effective mutual stimulation, such as is taking place continually
for instance between bacteria and higher plant ; between fungus
and alga, forming together the lichen ; and, more generally,
between plant and animal on the vast scale of Nature. Symbiosis,
therefore, led from early times not only to a multiplicity of
THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 47
co-adaptations and of correlated faculties, but also to a powerful
nexus of sympathy and of bio-economic and bio-moral union,
binding together the strenuous world of life.
I strongly insist that morality, at least in the sense of Bio-
morality, has as much to do with Biology as morality has to do,
on Ruskin's showing, with Political Economy. And I consider
that for very important reasons, subsequently to be adduced, a
clear conception of the principal data of Bio-morality is of even
greater importance than a right answer to the question whether
acquired characters are or are not inherited, which answer,
according to Spencer, underlies right beliefs, not only in Biology
and Psychology, but also in Education, Ethics and Politics.
Here as there Spencer's words apply : "A grave responsibility,"
he says, " rests on biologists in respect of the general question,
since wrong answers lead, among other effects, to wrong beliefs,
about social affairs, and to disastrous social actions."
But you cannot deal adequately even with " acquisitions "
without making due allowance for the concomitant economic
and moral, or bio-economic and bio-moral factors ; and I believe
it can be fully shown that the history of " acquisitions " shows
throughout the dependence of progress upon the moral signs
attached to them, i.e., whether they represent, a plus or a minus
of " life " as a result.
Spencer was alive to the great need of ethical principles
scientifically derived. He specially admonished us in the
Preface to the Ethics, that the establishment of rules of
conduct on a scientific basis is a pressing need. For, " now that
moral injunctions are losing the authority given by their supposed
sacred origin, the secularisation of morals is becoming imperative."
Yet, on his own admission, he did not succeed in establishing
Evolutionary Ethics as consistently and sufficiently as one could
have wished. This I attribute to the lack of knowledge of Bio-
Economics. In the absence of this essential chapter of general
Biology, we find Spencer having recourse to relative (i.e., empirical)
and " absolute " Ethics and even constrained to admit that the
doctrine of Evolution had not furnished guidance to the extent
he had hoped. Yet, though the doctrine of Evolution, as then
formulated, could not help him in " special ways," he thought
that it could help at least in general ways by " bringing into view
those general truths by which our empirical judgments should
be guided."
48 SYMBIOSIS
In their exultation over Spencer's partial failure, some of his
critics forget that the doctrine of Evolution was in his time, and
still is, in its infancy. When it is said, therefore, that Spencer's
disappointment on the score of Evolutionary Ethics was quite
inevitable* because in trying to saddle the natural process with
Ethics, i.e., conduct determined by conscious will, he was
" attempting the impossible," it is overlooked that Spenc
nevertheless remained quite hopeful about the eventual solutioi
of the then difficulties. There is nothing in Spencer's writing
to justify the temper customary even in scientific quarters whicl
makes men belittle every attempt in the direction of Evolutional
Ethics as a work of supererogation or as belonging to Theology
rather than to Science. Some have even gone so far as to
that there is a Science of Morals at all. Such failures and denials,
however, are all alike counsels of despair, as will be evident on
brief examination of the main difficulty.
Without doubt the chief stumbling block has been the obscurity
anent " the mutual relations of organisms " a matter agai
and again insisted on by Darwin as of the utmost importance,
though yet one on which, according to him, " our ignorance
as yet profound." Obviously, as stated above, this matter oi
relatedness must involve the beginnings of Ethics ; and Darwin's
pronouncements on the subject ought not to have acted as
deterrent but rather as a spur to further investigation.
Failing the knowledge concerning " mutual relations," th<
only certainty, according to Darwin's authority, is " Natun
Selection," based on " The Struggle for Existence." Had Darwii
possessed different facts, such as have since been ascertained,
to go upon, and in particular more light respecting " mutu<
relations," no doubt he would have presented us with a differenl
account of " The Origin of Species." Could it but have
shown that Symbiosis, i.e.,. useful co-operation, was at worl
from the very dawn of evolution, that, by augmenting divisioi
of labour and by enriching the protoplasm, it directly led t(
modifications of a permanently useful, i.e., successful order,
that it produced the indispensable groundwork for all abiding
physiological and psychological gains what a difference of
biological outlook this would have afforded him. Could it bul
have been shown that very many progressive variations are due
not to hazard but to useful work and to the capitalisation of its
* PROF. H. H. SCULLARD, on Christian Ethics, Hibbert Journal, January, 1917.
THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 49
results under the guidance of a persistent and beneficial bio-
economic principle, namely, Symbiogenesis, the difference of
point of view would have been immense. Nor would the
scientific view of morality have incurred the contumely so
abundantly and undeservedly heaped upon it since the coming
of " Natural Selection." We have already seen in the previous
chapters that most of the aforesaid claims in favour of Symbiosis
as a useful fundamental and far-reaching form of co-operation
can be well substantiated. We found, for instance, that the
earliest unicellular creatures, some of the bacteria, already lived
in symbiotic relations with manifold and truly astounding
success in the way of organic progress. How pertinent were
Darwin's words that much had " as yet remained unexplained
in the origin of species."
And how much has remained unaccounted for, I would add,
in vicarious co-operative sacrifice calculated to support the
advance of life ! How strangely ungrateful it seems for Man, who
has derived immense advantages from the primordial operation
of unconscious sympathetic co-operation, impugning Nature as
wanting in sympathy and without morality as non-moral in fact.
We saw that the very inception of the higher races of plants
and all that it implied, was directly led up to by Symbiosis. In
view of this fundamental fact alone it reads almost like mockery
to find Darwin surmising that in Nature variations useful to each
being's own welfare may be expected sometimes to occur par
hasard. For is not Nature able to produce by accident usefulness
to the creature (so ran the argument) if mere man though by
foresight is able to produce usefulness to himself, as witness the
case of Domestication ?
Usefulness, however, is a relative and not an absolute term.
It cannot be stripped on or off after the fashion of mendelian
" characters." Before we can adequately deal with " usefulness "
we must know whether it is one that avails to life or towards
death. The emergence of viable and really useful variations
is not a matter of mere mathematical or kaleidoscopic proba-
bility , but is due to the usefulness of the organism's own
contributions to the general organic fund of life. Such bio-
economic usefulness purchases the wherewithal for a progressive
endowment of the germ substance. If the organism on the
other hand, indolently plays the losing, i.e., predaceous, game of
life, the proto- and germ-plasm become impoverished.
50 SYMBIOSIS
Again, as regards Darwin's term " the struggle for existence,"
I would point out that the definition leaves a loophole for an
interpretation free from the false bias against the " natural
process " which the term has unfortunately engendered. The
definition, be it remembered, contains the factor of " mutual
relations " as an important component though a mysterious
one, a big X in the problem.
I use this term (says Darwin in the Origin) in a large and metaphoric
sense including dependence of one being on another, and including (whicl
is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leavinj
progeny. The mistletoe is dependent on the apple and a few other trees,
but can only in a far-fetched sense be said to struggle with these trees,
for, if too many of these parasites grow on the same tree, it languishe
and dies. In these several senses, which pass into each other, I use fc
convenience sake the general term of " struggle for existence."
It is not difficult to perceive that all depends again upon
" mutual relations." Given, in any particular case, a symbiotic
nexus, and Darwin's metaphorical blend means nothing more
than progress through peaceful work. Given, on the other hand,
a predatory habit, and it means the law of battle.
As regards " success in leaving progeny," I do not think it
deserves so high a place as that accorded to it by Darwin. The
maintenance of a tolerable degree of evolved Symbiosis in the
world of life matters much more than the expansion or even the
preservation of a particular species, and this in so far as the
welfare of the tout ensemble must always take precedence of all
other things. Reproduction per se is no criterion of success.
On the contrary, it is frequently, i.e., where redundant, a symptom
of decline. We may consider it as part of the constitution of
things that all organisms are, normally, under some restraint
as regards multiplication.
Success " in leaving progeny," therefore, is a factor that nee<
qualification, and we cannot possibly, as consistent qualitative
Biologists, assign to it that unqualified importance attributed
to it by Darwin.
Reproduction being thus relegated to a second place, it becomes
obvious that pride of place in Darwin's formula anent the
" Struggle for Existence " must be accorded to the X factor,
i.e., " mutual relations." And, the significance of X bein^
normally " Government and Co-operation," as the " Laws oi
Life in all things," it follows further that the orthodox meaning
THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 51
of the term " the Struggle for Existence " must be modified.
" Struggle " becomes preponderatingly " peaceful co-operative
endeavour."
Let us then, for the sake of clearness, make the necessary
discriminations in every case by emphasising everywhere the
difference between a life of honest labour and what this involves
in health and in capacity of survival, and a life of mere self-
regarding expediency and what this, contrariwise, involves in
disease, in antagonism, in impoverishment.
Some of Darwin's formulas, therefore, are susceptible of new
or modified interpretations. Indeed, when tested afresh in the
light of the facts concerning Symbiosis, they may be said actually
to provoke those very interpretations for which I have contended.
The " Natural Selection " of " the most favoured races in the
Struggle for Existence " becomes the " selection," or rather
" survival " of " the most useful," when once it is clearly estab-
lished that the balance of " favour " in the cosmic scales inclines
towards those whose protoplasm is the best endowed ; and this
is a consequence of widely useful work and its capitalisation
in the heritage of the germ. My modification of Darwin's theory
thus differs from that of Samuel Butler, who posits an antithesis
of " Luck or Cunning " and also from Herbert Spencer's view
that " inheritance of acquired characters " is an alternative to
crude " Natural Selection " by struggle. I reject, in short,
all " non-moral " hypotheses on the ground that they can at best
give us only very partial presentments of the truth. Neither
" luck," nor " cunning," have, in my opinion, produced the
result of Evolution. Useful work, coupled with the principle of
" live and let live " has been and is the most potent law of
progress. Looking across the ages with a comprehensive glance,
I can detect no other agency capable of such achievements
as we see. A thesis of this character is obviously sweeping and
important enough to deserve further examination. The reader
will indeed demand more evidence to show that this equitable
principle of " live and let live " has really operated throughout
as persistently and consistently as it is here alleged to have
done. He will also urge that there are other criteria of
morality besides those of usefulness, and he will ask whether
they apply as aptly as do those of bio-social usefulness.
The answer in either case is in the affirmative.
For material to go upon we cannot do better than to turn first
52 SYMBIOSIS
to Herbert Spencer, who may justly be regarded as the greatest
pioneer of scientific morality. In his search for the origin of
altruistic sentiments, Spencer begins with group-morality. He
makes no attempt to dig deeper for the roots of morality.
According to him,* the root of all the altruistic sentiments is
sympathy ; and
Sympathy could become dominant only when the mode of life, insi
of being one that habitually inflicted direct pain, became one which con-
ferred direct and indirect benefits : the pains inflicted being mainbj
incidental and indirect.
Here, then, we come across another fundamental criterion
of mutual behaviour, that is of moral conduct, i.e., the habitual
infliction or non-infliction of pain. And here at once we
an opportunity of showing what far more powerful natural
sanctions of morality exist in Nature than those thought of by
Spencer and his contemporaries. Nor can we be any longei
in doubt as to where in Nature these pre-requisites of " sympathy * J
are most ideally present. Surely not in the relation of depreda-
tion ; but certainly in that of Symbiosis, characterised as thi
is by the strictest law of reciprocity, i.e., of " live and let live,'*
or of biological co-operation in the widest sense.
Spencer shared the common prejudice of his time as regards
the inevitableness and compulsoriness of habitual pain at th*
earlier periods of evolution, before the principle of " live am
let live " was introduced by man, as they believed. Speaking
of " Animal Ethics," in Vol. II. of the Ethics, he says that
' ' Carnage and death by starvation have characterised the
evolution of life from the beginning."
It is clear that such views could only have prevailed during
a period of neglect of the study of Symbiosis, which has shown
the principle of co-operation to have long ante-dated the advenl
of man. It is, I maintain, a general and fundamental natui
principle of which the application by man in society is only a
particular phase.
Those views had, however, been accentuated by the false
bias created by " Natural Selection " in its crude and exclusive
form, which committed them to the emphasis of pain and suffering
as the main fountains of happiness, and (inconsistently with the
hypothesis of Evolution) to the postulation of a late and
* Essays. "Morals and Moral Sentiments."
THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 53
quasi-miraculous origin of morality with the growth of human
or at least the higher animal societies.
It is my chief object in this chapter to emphasise the more
hopeful and creditable gospel of evolution as now widely held, in
which the law of co-operation is recognised as equally basic in
nature with that of competition, and as having an equally ancient
and more progressive application, so as to form in the advanced
stages of biological and human development the really and
increasingly predominant factor.
Even in a relatively recent work on The New Scientific System
of Morality by Mr. G. Gore, F.R.S., we find the following :
All kinds of animals, men included, torture, kill, and eat each other ;
the land, sea, and air are one vast shamble ; kill or be killed, and eat or
be eaten are great facts in nature.
Great facts indeed ! But how are we to assess these facts ?
And what becomes of our ideas respecting morality and its basis
in Nature if we consider these facts as representing the norm of
life, when in reality they represent but the degenerative or
abnormal phase of life ? The same writer informs us that " as
pain and pleasure are states of the nervous system, morality is
based upon physiology."
Granted, but is morality to be based on such a physiology as
chooses to look upon Symbiosis as the negative pole and upon
its opposite, namely, depredation as the positive pole ? The
difference matters everything in interpretation, and the reader
will thus catch a glimpse of the vast difference of issues at stake
between the two forms of activity, i.e., of conduct.
It was thus unfortunately held to be an essential of the new
(Darwinian) revelation, that a long protracted, reckless, colossal,
and habitual infliction of pain had directly led to the most exalted
results in the world. Natural Science seemed to support the view
that war, with its tyrannies and brutalities, was the parent of
all progress.
Contrary to this view and to Darwin's opinion, the most
exalted results of evolution are now seen to be directly due to
what was going on in the shape of inconspicuous and thus scarcely
noticed sympathetic and reciprocal processes hidden beneath
the surface with its show of martial activities, which could only
be said at most to have indirectly furthered the cause of progress
in spite of their many and obvious effects in the other direction.
Spencer himself points out :
54 SYMBIOSIS
The pleasures and pains directly resulting in experience from sym-
pathetic and unsympathetic actions have first to be slowly associated
with such actions, and the resulting incentives and deterrents frequently
obeyed, before there could arise the perceptions that sympathetic and
unsympathetic actions are remotely beneficial or detrimental to the actor ;
and they had to be obeyed still longer and more generally before there
could arise the perceptions that they are socially beneficial or detrimental.
So far then from regarding the respective recognitions of
utility as preceding and causing the moral sentiment, he regards
the moral sentiments as growing up pari passu with the social
and anti-social acts, and so as preceding actual intellectual
recognitions of utility. This precedence of the moral sentiments
is quite in keeping with the view of their origin as here presented,
namely, as dating back to primordial economic developments,
the economic and bio-economic problem demanding, of organic
necessity, primitive forms of morality or quasi-morality. Again
I would ask what other principle of organic relations could
well have embodied these requisites of gradual, systematic and
abiding experience in such ideal perfection as the symbiotic
principle ? What other principle could have supplied the
requisite physiological groundwork for the evolution of sympathy ?
Where else in the world of life do we find the requisite " obedi-
ence " to the laws of protracted association so aptly illustrated
as in the integrity of the symbiotic relation however unconscious
the co-operation involved ?
I know well that some writers have spoken of the necessity
of early service " involuntary service " supposed to have
gradually led on to voluntary aid. Such service, however, is
alleged to have consisted chiefly in sacrifice of life to carnivorous
appetites, which are considered " natural " and as justifying the
habitual infliction of pain. Prof. Hervey Woodburn Shimer*
quite recently put forward such a theory. He contends that
service was at first compulsory in the vast majority of plants
and animals the grossest form of such compulsory service
consisting in one organism being forced to yield its body for the
nourishment of another : "All animals and many vegetable
forms are dependent upon the death of other organisms for the
prolongation of their own Hie." " Animals can live only through
the death of other animals or plants." How light-heartedly
such defamations of Nature are pronounced ! Yet, overwhelming
evidence goes to show that the rule of life consists in cross-feeding
* Scientific Monthly, August, 1916.
THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 55
and that the cross-feeding animal does not need to destroy its
food-plants, from which it requires parts only such as can be
spared for the purposes of mutually profitable exchange.
Prof. Shimer takes the usual line of quoting poetry in support
of his propositions, as though to range the " gospel of war and
damnation " by the side of the Muses. But there is a profound
moral chasm there, which no poetry in the world can be found
to span, but which on the contrary all great poetry has always
deeply bewailed. There is an abyss there which suggests the
offering of incense at the altars of Nemesis rather than those of
the Muses Nemesis worship for accumulated biological wrong,
which wrong will infallibly sooner or later result in direful events,
if not in great catastrophes to the respective species or genera.
No poetry can assuage the quakings of the human heart in the
committal of wrongs that are " abhorred by Nature." The fact
that the unperverted human conscience shrinks in the face of
such wrongs, is proof in itself of the strength of the bio-moral
sense and of the categorial imperative of duty which it involves.
Strangely, and inconsistently, Prof. Shimer, who thus defends
the predatory life in one of its phases, yet declares that
Parasites are not now, nor ever were in the distant past in evolving
lines. Parasites (he says) whether plant, beast or human are degenerate ;
the individuals become weaker and weaker and finally the life ends in death.
Are we to understand that only excessive depredation causes
such a decline ? Must we not condemn the principle altogether,
seeing more particularly that the story of an inherent and
universal compulsoriness of depredation is a pure myth ?
If the strength of a parasite is eventually and irrevocably
broken and if such a creature becomes malignant during the
process, is this not due to the fact that the principle involved,
namely, depredation, does not avail towards life ?
The best answer is one which refers to the facts. And this
brings us back to the subject of the physiological basis of morality.
The physiological problem, here, as so often elsewhere, resolves
itself into an economic problem. The study of Bio-Economics
shows and further important evidence will presently be adduced
to confirm it that honest work and genuine improvement of
organisation are not compatible with rich and over-abundant
food and what this implies in more or less predaceous relations.
The direful effects of an almost absolute dependence on such
food are of course more particularly evidenced by the whole case
56 SYMBIOSIS
of Parasitism. The dreadful forms of Nemesis to which Para-
sitism gives rise, are well known ; although the socio-physiological
sequence of cause and effect leading up to the fatal results is
far from being recognised by orthodox Biologists.
But we need not go to Parasitism, the opposite pole of
Symbiosis, in order to demonstrate that predaceous feeding
leads to degeneration and ultimate decline. There is plentiful
evidence to that effect in the extinction of predaceous
species and genera and in the comparatively early senescence of
others.
There are, for instance, the one-time terrestrial mammals, the
Cetacea, such as whales and dolphins, now verging on extinction,
which have carnivorously, and, therefore, in my opinion, retro-
gressively, adopted a marine habitat. A number of zoologists
are inclined to look upon the Cetacea and their equivalents in
degeneracy and monstrosity from the secondary period of
geological time viz., the monstrous marine reptiles, as having
reached a stage of senescence and effeteness. It is recognised
that they are descended from quadrupeds, which formerly lived
on the land, and, therefore, were physiologically superior to their
descendants. The arrival of these monsters in a blind alley of
evolution, which I would explain on bio-economic grounds
namely, as due to their divorce from Symbiosis is otherwise
regarded as a mystery, and Darwin despairingly exclaims : " The
extinction of species has 'been involved in the most gratuitous
mystery." " No one can have marvelled more than I have done
at the extinction of species."
We have as yet to rid our minds of a good deal of prejudice
even regarding our terrestrial carnivora. Some may think of
the lion as a " king of animals," but in reality he is a " sick man "
and has little chance of survival with the advance of " organic
civilisation." He stands for " might is right," and, therefore,
he has to go.
That the principle of depredation is not sanctioned by Nature,
is borne out by a number of important facts. It was held at
one time that wild animals in nature could not harbour disease.
Were they not " naturally selected " ? Had they not been passed
through " the sieve of Natural Selection " ? And was not
" Natural Selection " as rigid in its operations as, say, gravita-
tion ? What are the facts ? There is a wide zoological distri-
bution of disease, and, further, the more predaceous and as a
THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 57
consequence, " kingly " or " majestic " the organism becomes,
the more susceptible it is to infection and disease.
The " huge " and " majestic " sunfish, Orthagoriscus mola,
for instance, is a veritable hotbed of infection. There are,
according to Geddes and Thomson, the tuft of barnacles upon
his back, the biting isopods like enormous fleas upon his skin,
the trematodes sucking like leeches upon his eyes ; and within
we find
not only his alimentary canal crammed with worms more than with food,
and his liver changed from its natural brown almost into the likeness of a
tangle of white worsted, of which each thread is a tape-worm.
We are told that " neither frog nor lizard, serpent nor bird
escapes " infection and disease. More and more it is seen that
disease has largely a biological origin, i.e., that it is due to some
perverted biological relatedness. All of which points to the
explanation here adduced that the origin of disease is to be found
in a divorce from an erstwhile symbiotic relationship. The
parasites infecting the sunfish, or for that matter all parasites,
are liable in turn to still more malignant infections, presenting
many gruesome phenomena of Hyper-parasitism. Such vicious
circles of infection and disease are more frequently met with every
day. I have contended these ten years that there is a biological
causation of disease and that disease is the most general cause of
extinction. I am glad to find this view is borne out by further
facts inasmuch as evidence has quite recently been accumulating
that infection and disease have been widespread certainly in the
early vertebrate periods, with a strong probability that in many
cases disease has been the cause of extinction. There has also
been a widely felt need among Pathologists for a definition of
health in terms of resistance to disease. Here, too, I feel sure
the recognition that health pre-eminently depends upon symbiotic
support will prove of immense help.
Let us here consider another striking example supporting
the important proposition that biological conduct which avails
not towards life, renders the organism both weaker and malignant
and therefore liable to clashes with the interests of truly viable
organisms. Few would have imagined that the case of hay-
fever provides an illustration of the biological causation of
disease, and, more particularly, of the truth that even comparative
improvidence on the part of some organisms contains elements
of danger and of disease to others more strenuously inclined.
5$ SYMBIOSIS
It is as though Nature had set her face sternly against a wide-
spread " lowering of the tone," against an " infection " of good
character by contact with bad, against the application of the
well-known principle Mains malum vult, ut sit sui similis.
Here we have a case of plants, backward so far as symbiotic
relations with the animal world are concerned, whose protoplasm
is so poor in values that a union with that of man, for instance,
produces violent forms of antagonism and even acute disease.
In the absence of active Symbiosis between man and these plants,
the seeds of the latter act as poison to the protoplasm of man.
There is, it would seem, a clash between genuinely symbiotic
momenta upon which health normally depends and momenta
of a totally different, i,e., non-reciprocal order.
From a very interesting article on the subject by Dr. W.
Scheppegrell, A.M., M.D., in the Scientific American, Supp.
No. 2119 (12-8-16), we obtain the following data :
The class of plants whose pollen may cause hay-fever are wind-pollin-
ated, that is, the process of fertilisation is effected by the pollen being
borne by the wind instead of this being done by contact or by insects.
This explains the presence of such pollen in the air. In some cases the
pollen is present in enormous quantities, as for instance in the rag-weeds,
in which it has been estimated that only one in a hundred million pollen
grains is actually used in fertilizing the pistillate flower. The plants that
are responsible for hay-fever are practically all common weeds, such as the
rag- weeds, cockle bur, yellow dock, etc., which are also a source of expense
and labour to the farmer. Their characteristics are as follows : They
are wind-pollinated, without attractive colour or fragrance, very numerous,
and with abundant pollen. The lack of colour or scent is due to the fact
that these plants are wind -pollinated, the qualities mentioned
intended to attract insects for fertilization.
I think it clearly emerges that the culprits are the waywards
amongst plants, those that have not been able to strike up a
useful symbiotic relation with man or beast. Not being able to
render themselves useful, they become impediments and veritable
pests. At the same time we see another illustration of the truth
that absence of a symbiotic relation renders possible or necessi-
tates enormous though often wasteful and inferior reproduction.
We have already inferred that such redundant rates of multipli-
cation are only too likely to be in inverse ratio to biological
utility and really connected with pathological conditions. Here
we have one pathological terminus more specially brought home
to us. We may say that the moderation and restraint incumbent
THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 59
upon the symbiotic organism are as valuable to life as are the
direct benefits bestowed by the symbiotic relation on all
participants. In Nature as in human life it is thus true that
idleness is the end of chastity and that immoral conduct is the
cause of waste and disease to others. Dr. Scheppegrell is very
emphatic that the large majority of the plants whose pollen
give rise to hay fever are worthless weeds, " which are alike an
expense to the farmer and a menace to health."
We are also told that
The indirect reaction of pollinosis is partly due to the absorption of the
protein contents of the pollen, and the toxin formed by the proteolytic
action of the cells.
The protein content of the pollen, in other words, gives rise
in the patient to an " anaphylactic " condition. The subject
of Anaphylaxis and its connections with non-symbiotic methods
and ways has been fully dealt with in my book on " Symbio-
genesis." I think I may fairly refer the reader to that book
without enlarging any further on the subject here.
Reverting now to the way in which Symbiosis from the earliest
times involved the inception of bio-moral relations, it was, no
doubt, the most portentous and the most memorable moment
of time when, in the dawn of life, the " genius " of some unicellular
creatures hit upon the method of systematic biological co-opera-
tion as a means of solving the economic problems confronting
them. There was a very long bacterial stage of life, during which
epoch bacteria-like organisms prepared both the earth and the
ocean for the further evolution of plants and animals. How do
such pioneer organisms live ? They are simple feeders, deriving
their energy and their nutrition directly from inorganic compounds.
There is no need for them to resort to depredation. On the
contrary. And it is more than questionable whether any degree
of depredation would have permitted them to carry on their
indispensable pioneer work as efficiently and as successfully as
it has been performed by them. These primitive workers relied
upon cross-feeding, and, so far from habitually inflicting pain
on any sentient creatures, seem to have painfully indeed, but
without pain to others, produced an all-essential fund of organic
capital for succeeding races of plants and animals. Honest and
harmless toilers these : what grounds have we for alleging that
they were not possessed at least of unconscious morality ? Do
they not fulfil the requirements of morality, as laid down in the
60 SYMBIOSIS
above definitions ? It is probable that such types were thus
capable of living and flourishing on the lifeless earth even before
the advent of continuous sunshine and plant-life.
In previous chapters we have seen how bacterial life provides
evidence showing that the evolution of life depended primarily
upon wholesome industry, associated with non-predaceous modes
of obtaining food. I would emphasise here in particular that
such " legitimate " methods of life alone make possible a fruitful
Symbiosis. Many of these organisms, moreover, do not live on
organic food in any shape or form. They refuse, in other words,
to live indolently or predaceously at the expense of other creatures
such modes of life not being compatible with genuine Symbiosis.
It has been shown that the smallest trace of organic carbon or
nitrogen compounds are actually injurious to them. Where is
there any infliction of pain upon other sentient creatures habitually
resulting, as alleged, from the food requirements of honest toilers ?
And how can it be said in view of these fundamental and far-
reaching facts alone, that the highest results in evolution are
due to warfare, famine, death and unscrupulous exploitation
of one organism or species by another ? Truly, the symbiotic
relation represents, in Ruskin's words, the service of Wisdom,
the Lady of Health Madonna dell a Salute " differing vastly
from the service of Death, the Lord of Waste, and of eternal
emptiness." At the lowliest stage of life, where, according to
current theories, it would appear as foolish to look for morals
or sympathy, where, according to allegations, one should expect
to find " struggle " et preterea nihil ; we find a state of individual
and collective integrity so high as to make one feel inclined to
supplement the scriptural " Go to the ant, thou sluggard " with
the further admonition : " Remember the bacterium."
We find mutual aid based upon mutual trust and this in the
absence of any conditions necessitating antagonism. Emphati-
cally we must repudiate the belief that the habitual infliction of
pain is according to the normal course of Nature. It is, on the
contrary, associated with the abnormal, the degenerative phase
of Nature. If those writers who are so sure in their denials of
morality in Nature, would but ponder these things and the fact
that in their own expositions they can scarcely ever get away
from the use of such all-important terms as " obedience," " duty,"
" good conduct," etc., etc., which do not belong at all to " pure
biology," save in so far as it is duly expanded into Bio-Economics.
THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 61
Many " biological " denials, it is to be feared, are merely the
expression of the difficulty adequately to include Economics
and Morals in a comprehensive system of " Qualitative
Biology." They are counsels of despair, as I have said in the
beginning.
In further proof of my contentions, let us turn to Dr. Ch.
Mercier, who quite recently vouchsafed the following definition
of " function "* : " The duty, office, work or part that is
performed by an organ or tissue."
Whence this " duty," we must ask, and what is its significance ?
And if " function " already implies conscientiousness, how can
life maintain itself for long without a conscience ? How can
there be such a thing as a " pure biology," i.e., alleged to exclude
morality, if the most important concept, the alpha and omega of
Biology, rests upon " duty " ? All health depends on " function,"
and therefore, by definition, upon " duty " on " obedience,"
or " integrity." Evolution itself, we must conclude, inasmuch
as it depends upon health, also greatly depends upon morality.
In short, no Biology can be complete without the recognition
of " the everlasting difference between right and wrong."
It is thus becoming clear that the whole problem of evolution
variation, adaptation and heredity included turns on this :
How best to maintain useful industry and the commensurate
degrees of Bio-morality ? how best to maintain and to augment
fruitful partnerships!; how to perpetuate any new linkage that
has proved itself permanently availing in this double economic
sense and, hence, towards an ampler life ? Work and Symbiosis
are indeed the underlying realities, " variations " and " adapta-
tations," the resulting surface phenomena. Bio-morality, as
here depicted, thus leaves little to be desired as regards criteria
and sanctions. It is our own practice of morality which is so
often inconsistent and deficient, our mal-practices leading in turn
to wrong beliefs concerning " les volontes de la nature."
Huxley apprehended a great truth only too truly when he
stated : " It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational
grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts
to justify our instincts."
Quite recently (24-3-17) a "correspondent" pointed out
* Science Progress, October, 1916.
t According to Geddes and Thomson, protoplasm itself is " an unusually fortunate com-
bination of partners, of inventive, organising, administrating, pushing, competitive and other
geniuses yet working in unity."
62
SYMBIOSIS
in the Times that, the philosophy of Herbert Spencer has gone
out of fashion and this for the reason that there "is no hint or
promise of religion to be found in it." The critic in short hopes
for a salvation of the world from religion " creative religion."
" For what is religion," he says, " but an affirmation of absolute
values."
I sympathise to a certain extent with such " creative religion,"
which would probably have enjoyed the sympathy of Spencer,
too, were he alive to-day, in so far at least as it affirms absolute
values. It is not to be forgotten, however, that, unfortunately,
our religious beliefs are also apt to be coloured by our instincts
to the detriment of conduct. Let us have by all means recourse
to absolute values. But when super-natural sanction, as so
often in the past, does not suffice, let us attempt to supplement
religious by natural sanctions. Spencer emphatically held that
there was a place for religion in the scheme of things. As he
states in Part I., of the " First Principles " :
Religion, everywhere present as a warp running through the weft
of human history, expresses some eternal fact ; while Science is an organised
body of truths ever growing, and ever being purified from errors. And
if both have bases in the reality of things, then between them there must
be a fundamental harmony.
Meanwhile our conclusion is that the highest sanction of
Nature is bestowed upon that biological relation which, whilst
demanding appropriate restraints of the appetites, yet provides
the utmost opportunity that each being may develop for the
good of all.
CHAPTER IV
EVOLUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Creation, freedom, will these doubtless are great things ; but we
cannot lastingly admire them unless we know their drift. We cannot,
I submit, rest satisfied with what differs so little from the haphazard ; joy
is no fitting consequent of efforts which are so nearly aimless. THE
Rx. HON. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR, on Creative Evolution, Hibbert,
October, 1911.
IN the present chapter my object is to show that, in the normal
course of Nature, psychical progress is earned by " right " con-
duct, i.e., by adherence to a " good " and mainly symbiotic
pathway of life. Such biologically righteous conduct tends,
I believe, in virtue of its wide usefulness in the furtherance of
life, to engender new and higher psychic capacities.
As in previous chapters, the guiding idea is that life has always
been faced by the economic, i.e., the food problem, and that for
several reasons a study of the way in which this, the perennial
and central problem", has been attacked and in part solved
will provide the most reliable key to the understanding of
evolutionary developments.
Spencer, more perhaps than any other evolutionist, was
fond of leaning on Economics. There is undoubtedly good cause
for the fascination of economic doctrines upon the pioneers of
" Evolution." It was not enough to have established " Descent
with Modification." It remained to be seen how progress was
mainly brought about. And this question, as the pioneers
keenly felt on more than one occasion, cannot be satisfactorily
answered, unless we know what makes throughout for true
economy in the world of life. It is intelligible, therefore, that
Economics is again capable of inspiring new lines of thought on
the perennial question of evolution.
As regards Psychology, Darwin prognosticated in the Origin
that in the future it would be securely based on the foundations
already well laid by Herbert Spencer, who, in his turn, in " The
Moral Sentiments," refers us to an Economist, Adam Smith,
63
64 SYMBIOSIS
as having already made a large step in advance by accounting
for the evolution of the moral sentiments, as for instance, when
he recognised sympathy as giving rise to the superior controlling
emotions of man. It is no coincidence that economic thinkers
have contributed so largely to the theory of evolution.
Spencer considered that Adam Smith's theory of the moral
sentiments required to be supplemented, for, he says, the
natural process by which sympathy becomes developed into
a more and more important element of human nature has to be
explained ; and there has also to be explained the process by
which sympathy produces the highest and most complex of the
altruistic sentiments that of justice. Respecting the natural
process, Spencer states :
I can here do no more than say that sympathy may be proved, both
inductively and deductively, to be the concomitant of gregariousness ;
the two having all along increased by reciprocal aid.
Having thus emphasised the importance of mutual aid in the
evolution of the moral sentiments, Spencer goes so far as to
state that the respective gregarious creatures must have " kinds
of food and supplies of food that permit association."
We stand here before an all-important convergence of physio-
logical, sociological, and psychological factors, which is well
worth investigating and an understanding of which will serve
as an earnest of much that follows in succeeding chapters. One
might ask, on reading Spencer's passage, whether food is a direct
or merely indirect, an active or merely passive, agent in the
development of gregariousness and in what this entails in fruitful
psychological stimulations. Is it merely that, as Spencer puts
it, certain kinds of food, by obviating conditions which render
antagonism necessary although, of course, this means much
passively " permit " higher forms of associations to be formed,
or is it perhaps a normal function of certain foods actively and
directly to provide useful " influences," sociological and psycholo-
gical ? I think I have made it to some extent clear in previous
chapters that much more is involved in food and food-getting
than is commonly supposed, and that food in general must be
regarded as a very potent determinative and formative agent.
It was there also to some extent shown that whether we can have
food and food supplies essential to successful association depends
upon bio-economic and bio-moral relations as between supplier
and supplied. Here it is the more purely psychological aspects
EVOLUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 65
of the subject that interest us. The connection noted by Spencer
between sympathy, gregariousness and food, is in reality a very
ancient and important one. It existed before " group-morality "
and " group-sympathy " inasmuch as the essential factors
constituting the connection were already present and co-
operating, namely ; in Symbiosis, a most successful association
of biological partners, which, as I have shown, operated with
stimulative, integrative and directive force at the very dawn
of life subsequently contriving to expand its range and to
engender new and more potent forms of protoplasm. Sym-
biosis has been shown to represent the most effective form of
mutual service, calculated to generate ever better means of supply-
ing food pari passu with increasing bio-chemical perfection.
The highly vitalised food in turn engenders increased power
and capacities amongst biological complements or " partners "
and concomitantly stimulates the growth of Sympathy and of
Bio-morality.
Spencer, of course, was not unaware of the great antiquity
at least of the roots of Sympathy. In his Principles of
Psychology he urges that the origin of Sympathy must be
traced back to sexual and parental relations. The sexual
relation, however, according to him, " can be expected to further
the development of Sympathy in a considerable degree only if
it has considerable permanence " (italics mine).
This qualification of " permanence " is of some special signi-
ficance. The need of permanence applies indeed in the develop-
ment of sympathy and of gregariousness quite as much as in
the case of Sex and of Symbiosis. We may conclude that there
is one and the same underlying reason. For, in order to achieve
a wide biological usefulness the requisite of survival and of
success there has to be^ a perennial performance of well-
regulated services and a permanent and complex system of division
of labour ; all of which depends in turn upon the gradual
establishment of commensurate habits, commensurate adaptations
and co-adaptations, involving protracted exercise, protracted
endeavour, and long protracted wholesome intimacy. The
same factors, indeed, that all along have furthered Symbiosis,
also furthered the evolution of Sex and of Sympathy ; and these
factors are in the main : work, coupled with moderation,
restraint with commensurate " sociological" duties paramount
amongst which is the demand for a " live and let live " policy.
66 SYMBIOSIS
Let us recall, as an apt illustration, the case of the lichen.
Here we have a relation, primarily economic, namely, a
systematic co-operation between organisms of different species,
resulting in such mutual stimulation and mutual enhancement
as to produce a new and stable relation, and in general such
fortification of the protoplasm as to lead to considerable per-
manence, to considerable degrees of bio-economic and general
effectiveness and success of the compound organism.
The manner in which alga and fungus have here compounded
their sexual relations following in the wake of economic partner-
ship, and coupled with non-predaceous ways of feeding, is symp-
tomatic of the way in which a desirable and lasting intimacy
together with genuine evolutionary progress are normally
achieved. What it brings out is this : Permanence is contingent
upon right sociological and bio-economic conduct. Given this
conduct, it is not a long step to the establishment of equitable
and lastingly beneficent sexual relations with subsequent
acceleration in the development of Sympathy.
The progressive evolution of Sex itself, broadly viewed,
provides another illustration of the same truth. The duty of
Sex, like that of mind, is, at any rate at the higher stages of life,
generally deputed to a special organ which nevertheless depends
for its perfect working on the fullest co-operation it can obtain
from the other parts of the body. This inner co-operation,
or internal Symbiosis, depends, as we have seen, in turn, in an
important manner, on the external, i.e., " biological," Symbiosis
entertained by the respective species with others. The evolution
of Sex may, therefore, be justly viewed as due to the perfection
and expansion of Symbiosis. The mammalia, the most developed
partners of the plant to whom they owe an enormous debt-
are also the most advanced as regards harmony and perfection
of the sexual life and equally as regards mentality and feeling.
Here too we have a case of permanence of domestic and bio-
logical relations, of mutual forbearance and righteous biological
conduct. Man, the most developed mammal, may be said to
owe his status largely to the fact that he is essentially a symbiotic
cross-feeder and thereby most fitted for permanent reciprocal
relations with the higher plants.
More than one Zoologist has expressed wonderment at the
astounding number of mammalia that feed more or less exclu-
sively on plant products. And these mainly cross-feeding
EVOLUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 67
groups invariably show greater wealth of species than carni-
vorous groups. Even amongst Insectivora and Carnivora,
there are some species which prefer plant food where they can
get it. Orthodox Biology, however, has not yet begun to realise
the importance of cross-feeding and of the symbiotic bond which
such feeding is calculated to maintain.
Biological status, according to Bio-Economics, depends upon
biological service, the highest service producing also the highest
form of Sex. Upon the land, for instance, the Cryptogams,
amongst plants, with the exception of highly symbiotic lichens,
are of comparatively little service to the fauna ; and they are
also correspondingly backward as regards sex and status.
We may, therefore, conclude that the good psychical effects
of gregariousness are due quite as much to the right kind of
sociological as of physiological conditions. Gregariousness is
the efflorescence as it were, of fruitful socio-physiological
relations.
Foremost amongst such relations is the symbiotic relation,
which provides the best ground- work for psychological progress.
It entails a high degree of mutuality and of division of work
together with moderation, which factors ensure viability and
plasticity, whilst they are at the same time the most favourable
to continuous organic elevation. The predaceous habit, on the
other hand, represents the opposite pole the service of death
and of eternal emptiness. The latter, therefore, is incompa-
tible with the principle of Symbiosis and with that of
gregariousness.
In previous chapters evidence was provided showing that the
biological origin of food, i.e., its " nurture," is as important in
the long run as its chemical composition or " nature ; " and
we have further seen that symbiotic food is a medium of pro-
gressive stimulation par excellence. If, as Spencer suggests,
certain foods " permit " associations more than others, we may
now state with more explicitness that the good effects of food
are largely due to the fact of its being normally engendered,
regulated and endowed by protracted bio-economic processes.
Not only is food thus capable of being " standardised " and
fitted to produce maximal harmony amongst inter-related parts,
but it is also capable, as we shall presently see good reason to
suppose, of conveying direct psychic influences.
We look in vain to any of Spencer's writings for an
68 SYMBIOSIS
adequate recognition of the profound integrative and quasi-
genetic role played by food in the evolutionary process.
To him, food plays a subordinate, passive or static role. True,
he sees a sequence between the solitary life and habituation to
flesh-food. But he looks upon it all from the narrow point of
view of individual " profit " accruing to the predatory organism
from solitariness unmindful of the Ruskinian admonition,
which I regard as the general law even in matters biological,
namely, that " it is only in labour that there can be profit."
Spencer does not see that the bonds of social union must
snap asunder from dire " nihilistic " necessity rather than from
choice, as soon as in a species life becomes habituated to depre-
dation, which means irregular and inferior food -supplies. " An
animal of the predatory kind," he says, " which has prey that
can be caught and killed without help, profits by living alone."
(Principles of Psychology.)
Amongst herbivorous animals, he thinks, gregariousness is
general for the reason that the distribution of food is not such
as would make isolation decidedly advantageous, whilst certain
benefits arise from living together ; more especially the benefit
that the eyes and ears of all members of a herd are available
for detecting danger.
With Spencer, therefore, food at best only permits associa-
tion in special cases, subordinate to the requirements the
" profits " in view at the moment. Ignoring Symbiosis, he does
not recognise that the right food imparts harmonious, and the
food of dishonesty disruptive effects. In his Principles of
Psychology, the great synthetic philosopher recognises, at any
rate in the case of man, that predatory activities have retarded
the growth of Sympathy throughout its whole range of evolution.
No doubt the suspicion, expressed by him in the same volume,
that there is still too much predatoriness in the human race,
is only too well justified. As a result of this lingering predatori-
ness, our sympathies, and likewise our reasoning faculties, are
often deleteriously affected.
A brief examination of some of the data of modern Psycho-
logy will enable us to understand more fully the important con-
nections between Psychology and Bio-Economics, which require
to be elucidated before we can progress very far with Evolutional
Psychology. Attention might first be directed to the familiar
phenomenon of the concomitance and co-variation of psychic
EVOLUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 69
and physical elements, the close co-operation existing, for
instance, between body and mind, which work together for a
common purpose, precisely as though they were symbiotic partners
and had in the past been jointly under the direction of one and
the same principle of evolution. Quite recently a book was
reviewed in " Nature " on Man an adaptive mechanism,
in which its author, Professor G. W. Crile, comes to the following
conclusion :
In the web of behaviour, what we call mental and what we call bodily
are inextricably interwoven. More than that, the whole bodily life is
correlated with a subtlety which can scarcely be exaggerated, verifying
St. Paul's remark that the various members of the body work as if they
had a common concern for one another.
I would suggest that the most fitting scientific explanation
is to say that the parts of the body, physical and mental, work
together in internal or domestic Symbiosis correlated in turn,
and in an important manner, with the wider, i.e., biological
form of Symbiosis. Professor Crile favours a mechanistic,
interpretation of mind " I'Homme machine." His views
however, cannot be said in any way to nullify the bio-economic
explanation. What he would leave to the brain as " the
initiator of response " and to " the activation of the brain by the
inner and outer environment," really covers the most important
part of the theory of mind. The brain draws not only mechanical
activation but also inspiration from the environment. And it
does so in virtue of a happy correspondence, a harmonious
relation of the organism with some of the essential factors of the
environment. The relation of the brain with the " inner and
outer environment " corresponds to the organism's relation of
inner and outer Symbiosis. The brain is merely an instrument
in facilitating such relations and in capitalising their results.
According to the reviewer, Professor Crile :
Gives a very vivid account of the physiological linkage concerned
with the transformation of potential into kinetic energy. In this " kinetic
system " the brain is the initiator of response, being activated by the
environment within or without the body ; acting like a storage battery,
it contributes the initial spark and impulse which drives the mechanism.
Although kinetics are, of course, involved, it is yet fairly
obvious that theirs is only a subordinate part in the business of
life. Organisms, high or low, merely make use of various
kinetic systems, such as suit their purposes in life and are possible
or -commensurate with their economic achievements. The
70 SYMBIOSIS
mechanistic explanation, therefore, is incomplete, and it is evident
that this is also the impression left upon the reviewer's mind.
He says that he cannot agree with Professor Crile's view that all
these wonderful attainments and the " registration of adapta-
tions " have been effected by mechanical formulae. " We are
unable to believe," he continues, " and we have found nothing
in this vigorous volume to incline us to transfer the author or
ourselves from the category of organism to any other."
" Organism " we thus still remain and as such we are rather
above the mere chemical or physical system. We are in fact
the controllers or directors of these systems to a considerable
extent, as of all bio-chemical wealth the secret of success in
every kind of wealth being work. In the last analysis, all
bio-chemical stimulation is seen to involve bio-economic
stimulation. That is to say that the compounding of bio-
chemically active substances is essentially due to the operation
of Symbiosis, though its hall-marks may not be conspicuous
on the surface of things. We noticed in previous chapters how
numerous agencies, hitherto believed to be " chemical," are in
reality " biological " ; and, where their work is beneficial, we
have found that it was never a very far cry to Symbiosis.
Organism, then, must be regarded as almost synonymous
with worker, just as metabolism is almost synonymous with
functional activity. It would be as well if in all future biological
dissertations the term " organism " connoted work. Such
connotation would be a good beginning towards the abolition
of the present indeterminateness of biological concepts.
It is a tenet of Psychology that an object must make a
sufficient " appeal " to the attention in order that a " lively "
interaction between mind and object may arise, and a mental
attachment leading to further developments of mind may ensue.
In other words, a living connection re-calling the interaction
of partners in Symbiosis is wanted. The more interaction, the
more progress. " Appeal " suggests the existence of some
latent Sympathy between object and mind. One might ask :
Whence come the possibilities of " lively " interaction and what
is their significance ? Object and mind evidently are of some
importance to each other, and their inter-relation is of importance
also to the world at large. If the mental attachment is to be
fruitful in permanent good effects, there must be fulfilled the
requisite condition of wide biological usefulness, which alone
EVOLUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 71
can provide the necessary support and sanction. How, in the
absence of these, could the union resist the corroding influences
of temptations to less viable purposes, in fact of degeneration ?
Resistance to inferior psychological as to inferior physiological
influences is a most important matter, and in either case it is
connected, I maintain, with the degree of biological sanction,
that a particular species deserves. It is not difficult to see,
that in mental, just as in more purely physiological evolution,
there is a perennial need of a steadying and directive principle,
operating with persistent reference to the maximal good of life,
such as I affirm Symbiogenesis to be. For the mind is proverb-
ially fickle and needs constant restraint and direction from many
sources.
Let us take, as an example of " appeal," the case of the attrac-
tion exerted by seeds and fruits upon the " minds " of animals.
Here we have a case in point of an appeal to the attention with
an often recurring " living " interaction between mind and
object. Let no one say that I am selecting a case which lends
itself more particularly to special pleading. On due analysis,
it will be found that all important Psychogenesis resolves itself
into processes of a quasi-economic character. Psychological
like physiological " processes," involve effort, steady applica-
tion, and capitalisation of results under constant reliance upon
widely and permanently useful correlations and correspondences.
In other words, " acquisition " of mental, like that of physio-
logical or mercantile capital, is due to work, coupled with the
" live and let live " principle. As in the case of the fruit and
the attracted animal, the " object " lending itself to the appli-
cation of the mind, is generally one that has had in many ways
adequate preparation fitting it for reciprocal intercourse with
another being.
Some of the simplest elements are now coming to be spoken
of as " biologically inclined," which is as an earnest of the
primordial and often hidden forms of mutuality on the existence
of which I insist. Quite recently a thesis has been propounded
by an American writer, Professor L. J. Henderson, in his The
Order of Nature to the effect that the properties of the three
elements Hydrogen, Oxygen and Carbon are somehow a
preparation for the evolutionary process.
We may say that even the most difficult psychological " pro-
cesses " are merely complications superposed upon primitive
72 SYMBIOSIS
reciprocal and quasi-economical processes, such as those by
which the simplest elements are held together in protoplasm.
Instead of positing, however, as a correlate of such a view, a purely
teleological order of Nature, as others have done, we shall merely
say that the apparent " preparation " of the life-elements for
*' ultimate purposes " amounted to this : that all equilibria,
systems or unions, came by their properties and permanence
through serviceableness, i.e., in proportion as they availed towards
life in the cosmic scheme of things. The wonderful properties
of the elements, so we shall argue, are the expression of their
wide, cosmo- and bio-economic usefulness acquired during
milleniums of exercise and application in cosmic service, when
they " learned " that they must do unto " others " what they
wished others to do unto them, i.e., to be of service, or, at any
rate, in Kant's terminology, to act according to "maxims "
which in the interest of all alike, required to be universal]' sed,
i.e., according to " duty," in the cosmic sense of the word. The
superficial thinker would see only selfish and purely subjective
interests at play in the case of, say, an animal attracted by a
seed or a luscious fruit, which it forthwith " devours." It is
precisely in pursuance of their selfish interests, so he would say,
that animals have developed their peculiar and " grasping "
mentality, which differentiates them so pronouncedly from the
meek flower.
But the case is not so superficial as this. Had it not been for
the operatisn of primordial forms of Symbiosis and the capital
and momenta thereby established, the useful differentiation
between plant and animal, as we know it to-day, and the con-
comitant bio-economic exchange of substances and services
between the " kingdoms," would never have been possible.
A common descent, protoplasmic kinship, ever renewed by
continuous Symbiosis, and a persistent common cause, these are
the powerful and perennial forces behind the mutual " interest,"
the mutual " appeal " and the mutual stimulation between
plant and animal. Wherever' we find latent possibilities of
" appeal " and in especial of " lively " interaction, we may
conclude that they are similarly to be accounted for by previous
history and by correlated evolution.
The superficial thinker overlooks these important data and
the further fact that, in the normal growth of biological mutual-
ity, a kind of collective usefulness has become operative. The
EVOLUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 73
ensemble of plants acts as a useful and indispensable com-
plement of the ensemble of animals. Once such collective
usefulness was soundly established, its very success led to many
temptations. It became possible for some species to abandon
the road of biological rectitude and for a time to flout the bio-
moral principle of co-operation. Yet the mere possibility of such
a disastrous course is no justification, as I believe I have shown,
for the view that non-reciprocal methods are in any real sense
successful or superior methods.
Considering that the truly integrative, i.e., symbiotic, prin-
ciple has so long been overlooked, it cannot cause wonder that
a most vital question of Psychogenesis has not even been mooted,
namely, as to whether our physiological complement, the plant,
acts also in an important manner as our psychological complement.
Are we in any sense plant-inspired, just as we are to a large
extent plant-fed and plant-" respired ? " Is our thinking to any
important degree directly determined by the plant ? There seems
no lack of evidence to show that there is a profound connection
between brain and food. According to Bechstein,* in Germany,
young bull-finches that are to be taught to sing particular tunes,
must be taken from the nest when the feathers of the tail begin
to grow, and must be fed only on rape seed soaked in water, and
mixed with white bread. Instruction is said to succeed best
when infused, as it were, with such food. The finches learn
those airs most quickly and remember them best which they
have been taught immediately after eating their special food
(cross-food).
The honey-bee, a symbiotic cross-feeder par excellence, with
a relatively high development of intelligence is a further example
of what I mean. It seems to draw in its " wisdom "with the
food. There is also the case of the honey-ants.
These ants (says Mr. P. Leonard in the Scientific American, Supp.
gth December, 1916), do not display such a wolfish eagerness to acquire
chance scraps of food, as is shown by other species, who live from hand
to mouth. Theirs is an inoffensive character. Mr. Leonard goes on to say
that whilst among the solitary insects, such as the flies, the moths and
beetles, only a very small percentage of their numerous offspring ever
reach maturity, owing to parental neglect, " among ants, under favour-
able conditions, the infant mortality is practically nil.
We are further told : The " ants have shown the possibility
* " Habit and Instinct," Lloyd Morgan, P., 176.
74 SYMBIOSIS
of a perfect communal life, and have proved that individuals
can be incited to the maximum of effort with the minimum of
personal advantage, and that the little states, based upon unsel-
fish sisterhood, are supremely fitted to survive in the struggle for
existence." What Mr. Leonard has entirely overlooked, is that
the good results emphasised by him are incompatible with any
other basis but that of cross-feecjing. He speaks of the " dis-
solved " personality of the ants, which reminds us of the late
Professor W. James's suggestion that reality exists distributively.
Professor James borrowed his idea as regards the distributive
existence of reality from Fechner, who, as we saw, regards the
earth as the grand matrix of all organic life and reality, and looks
upon the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms as indissolubly
inter-evolved and interlinked and forming with the inorganic
systems of our globe a purposefully inter-linked whole. We
found that there is indeed good reason to see a double concord
between man and the earth, and between man and the plant
an essential and orderly inter-linking of life, organic and
inorganic, in cosmic evolution. We found, on the other hand,
that a divorce from Symbiosis cuts off a species from this
essential order of Nature. There seems to be justification for the
view that such a divorce cuts off a species also from reality,
i.e., from its natural psychological and moral sources. We shall
thus indeed reach a similar view to that entertained by the
Stoics, namely, that the reason in man's soul is all of one stuff
with the Reason governing the universe the chain of trans-
mission being provided by Symbiosis.
Reverting now to the science of Psychology, it was quite
recently stated by Dr. G. W. Cunningham in his Creative
Will that our aims and tendencies dig the channel in which
the stream of conscious experience flows, which is not a bad
metaphor to use, in so far as it at least calls to mind the need
of steadj' effort in the accomplishment of progressive Psycho-
genesis. Again it must be urged, however, that there must have
been throughout the ages some tendency or principle which kept
the aims and tendencies of organisms mainly on the path of
useful conduct conduct, that is, which in the widest sense avails
towards life. What a woe-begone entity our consciousness would
be, were it at the mercy of aims and tendencies irrespective of
such usefulness. Samuel Butler, who looked upon mind as the
cement in the succession of generations, insisted on the
EVOLUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 75
existence of some definite principle capable of acting as a rudder
and compass to the accumulation of variations. He would, no
doubt, were he still alive, be one of the first to welcome the
principle of Symbiogenesis as capable of accomplishing such
direction of evolution, both physiological and psychological.
Again, Psychologists consider that " perceptions " are the
result of " acquisitions." " There is every reason to suppose "
says Professor James Sully in his Outlines of Psychology,
" that this simple act of referring impressions to things or objects
in space is the result of a long process of acquisition or learning
by experience."
Sensations are interpreted by an act of perception, or, in other
words, they are " worked up " as an element into that compound
mental state which is called a percept.
There obtains in fact, as has sometimes been remarked, a
kind of mental " alchemy." This " alchemy " I affirm, is
intimately connected with "industry." I look upon mental
acquisitions as a kind of funded wealth, built up by mental
work and the capitalisation of its results. The legitimacy of the
"capitalisation" depends upon bio-economic and bio-moral
factors.
The mind is said to grow by what it assimilates. I would
urge in this connection that the symbiotic relation with its need
of industrious habits rivets the attention of the mind upon
reciprocal activities and thereby tends to fix a corresponding
state of mind a socialised mind, as it were, which we have
already found to be the sine qua non of psychological progress.
There is nothing like symbiotic endeavour to feed the mind and to
regulate mental developments in a sahitary and permanently
useful manner.
It was shown in a previous chapter that a great deal of
prejudice had yet to be got rid of as regards the best methods
of feeding plants, particularly if we wish to aid the real welfare
and evolution of the plants rather than merely exploit them for
our immediate purposes. In the past, anything seemed good
enough for the plant so long as it afforded stimulation for rich and
luxurious productions, irrespective of the ultimate interests of
the plant. " Was gut stinkt, dasgutduengt." Only recently it
has dawned upon us that a plant is, like ourselves, under delicate
laws of life and of health, and, further, that in its " assimilations,"
as in ours, it is quality rather than quantity that counts. This
76 SYMBIOSIS
case of assimilation is somewhat similar to that of mental
assimilations. No doubt, discrimination must be increasingly our
watchword in the future. It cannot be insisted upon too much that
symbiotically disposed organisms enjoy an immense advantage
over non-symbiotic in that they receive the best regulated,
the most directly effective, pabulum for body and mind, which
not merely sustains the life of the species, but assists also pro-
gressive evolution. This is quite the opposite to what happens
in the case of non-symbiotic species. The fact is incontestable
that, other things equal, the symbiotic everywhere vastly
outstrip the non-symbiotic and predaceous organisms in those
mental, moral, and aesthetic achievements that count in pro-
gressive evolution. In our climate, for instance, the chances
of survival are infinitely better for these animals that rely upon
the surplus stores of the plants than for those that seek their
provender predaceously among living organisms. In the
winter time, as Mr. G. G. Desmond lately reminded us, insect
fare being " off," the animals that feed on insects are palpably
worse off than those that feed upon hard fruits and grain.
The latter have made their winter store, and may remain awake
and active enough to go out and about on fine days.
Surely the chances of fruitful social and mental life are,
therefore, higher amongst cross- than in-feeders. From the
storage of food-supplies for the winter it is not a far step to the
formation of intellectual habits, which, as Professor Sully tells
us, aid in their turn the increase of facility in acquiring and
reproducing new knowledge. The cross-feeders, therefore,
other things equal, must excel in " Plastic power of the Brain."
Their brain is healthily occupied and is fed in accordance with
the requirements of wholesome and widely useful efficiency,
whilst that of carnivores is occupied with theft and murder and
fed in accordance with the requirements of selfish efficiency,
which is productive of lop-sided developments, such, for instance,
as disproportionately long fangs, which may require such extra-
vagant supplies of blood for their maintenance as to inhibit
valuable supplies from reaching the brain as they otherwise
might have done. It would be strange, moreover, if the fruits
of genuine biological partnership, e.g., the spare food-substances
of plants, were not also instinct with many direct and wholesome
psychic influences, which carnivores are obliged to forego.
To take another tenet of Psychology : We are told that as a
EVOLUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 77
condition of the reproduction of mind-images there must be
" depth of impressions," and there must also exist a further
circumstance, known as " the force of association." " Most
of the events of life," so we are told, " are forgotten just because
they never recur in precisely the same form. The bulk of our
mental imagery answers to objects which we see again and again,
and events which repeatedly occur." " The more frequently
an impression is repeated, the more enduring will be the image.
Where the repetition of the actual impression is impossible, the
repeated reproduction of it serves less effectually to bring about
the same result."
Again we meet with the important pre-requisite of " per-
manence " in the growth of mind. As before, it clearly emerges
that social interaction is the most effective means of building
up mind. We may once again conclude that nothing so much
as systematic biological co-operation could have produced the
right psychological foundation of the human mind. Repeti-
tions and mere frequency of impressions per se cannot be looked
upon as sufficient ; for they are not by themselves guarantees
of survival capacity. It is necessary that the respective activ-
ities be of a " right " kind, i.e,, sanctioned by the biological
use they serve. We shall see presently that not only regular-
isation and due frequency, but also due limitation of sense
impressions is necessary to produce desirable permanent effects,
and this precisely as though the conditions generally desirable
to achieve really " good " psychological results in the case of
man were also those required for the purposes of Symbiosis, with
its sine qua non of moderation. Obviously again, the hazards
and vicissitudes of the savage and predaceous life cannot supply
conditions the equals in general beneficence of those furnished
by the symbiotic life with the regularity, health and security
that it entails.
The increase of brain power is recognised to be due to exercise,
and this, according to Professor Sully, implies two things :
(1) All brain activity reacts on the particular structure engaged,
modifying it in some unknown way and bringing about a subsequent
physiological disposition " to act in a similar manner.
(2) In the second place we have to assume that different parts of the
brain which are exercised together acquire in some way a disposition to
conjoint action.
78 SYMBIOSIS
Again we get effort, specialisation and capitalisation the
solution of the economic problem in the psychic sphere of life.
Something of value is to be acquired, to be increased and pre-
served entailing labour, division of labour, avoidance of waste,
summation of powers, capitalisation and values. The brain is
known to be the seat of important bio-chemical " processes,"
and these may be viewed as having the effect inter alia of fitting
all parts of the body increasingly as bio-economic agents. When
we get " exercise " and resulting " disposition " we are not far
from " right " exercise and " right " disposition, in accordance
with the bio-economic explanation so far adduced. The dominant
bio-chemical directions are always those given by Symbio-
genesis. That is to say, that work and mutual evolution are the
secrets of bio-chemical potency, and a common organic or cosmic
interest is the secret of the dominance of " right " exercise and
" right " disposition.
We can trace in the laws of pleasure and of pain the same
sequences as in the development of mind. This is what Professor
Sully says :
Psychologists have long endeavoured to bring all the varieties of
pleasure and pain, bodily and mental, under certain laws. Although they
cannot as yet be said to have perfectly succeeded, they have formulated
one or two principles which appear approximately correct, and which
are of some practical consequence. Of these the principal law may be
called the Law of Stimulation or the Law of Exercise. All pleasure is
the accompaniment of the activity of some organ which is connected
with the nerve centres, or the seat of conscious life. Or, since this activity
has its psychical concomitant, we may say that all pleasure is connected
with the exercise of some capability, faculty, or power of the mind. And
it will be found in general that all moderate stimulation of an organ, or all
moderate exercise of a capability, produces pleasure. (Italics mine.)
I have already alluded to the operation of a law of " sym-
biotic moderation " and to its importance in life generally. Here
we have further confirmation of its importance from the sphere
of Psychology. We see how fundamental and essential indeed
is the factor of moderation, which, surely, must never be left out
of account in Qualitative Biology. It now becomes more
emphatic that all successful association indispensably requires
moderation. Adequate stimulation, moderate exercise,
moderate appetites, yet continuous application withal, " Ohne
Hast und ohne Rast" these are the qualifications needed for
EVOLUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
79
a healthy, pleasurable and successful life, as for a successful
accumulation of variations.
Samuel Butler was among the first writers on Evolutional
Psychology to adumbrate the " thoughtfulness of food." If
it was not given to him to reach the bio-economic interpretation
of evolution, he at any rate hinted that evolution had a moral
basis. Just as he declared, respecting the pioneers of " Evolu-
tion," that they had been too busy proving that organisms had
descended with modification at all, to give due attention to the
particular factor of mind, so it may be said of him, that he was
loo busy vindicating the general claims of mind to go beyond
this task and tackle the matter of the needed qualifications.
It became clear, however, from his contribution to the subject
that a vast array of facts concerning mental evolution remained
to be deciphered. There was, first of all, the great question
of memory, of the mechanism of handing on habits and instincts,
a subject to which Butler more particularly addressed himself,
and which may be fitly touched upon here.
Sir Francis Darwin, as President of the British Association,
1908, conceded that
A plant has memory in Hering's and Samuel Butler's sense of the word,
according to which memory and inheritance are different aspects of the
same quality of living things.
This view of memory gains in exactness if we supplement
it by bio -economic considerations. For, is it not that the
fundamental quality in virtue of which the plant " stores "
memory, pari passu with other important organic capital, may
justly be viewed as an essentially economic quality, ' which,
moreover, was never totally unconnected with the needs of the
biological community ? The storing of even the most funda-
mental sense impression for racial purposes entails work ; and
it is the capacity to perform such work which really lies at the
root of other useful qualities, of memory and of heredity generally.
The psychic life of the plant is, therefore, pre-eminently bound
up with work, which is the grand regulator of all consciousness,
and which provides certainly one of the keys to an understanding
of the phenomena of memory. Once mind is thus conceived
as correlated with work, it is possible to amplify considerably
Sir Francis Darwin's further statement, made on the same
occasion, that " Evolution now becomes definable as a process
80 SYMBIOSIS
for drilling organisms into habits and eliminating those which
cannot learn."
We might ask this : Who are those " which cannot learn ? "
Are they such as have never " learnt," whose ancestors had never
" learnt ? " Or have they at one time or, another stopped
" learning," thus coming through disobedience to a sociological
and quasi-moral law, under the penalty of elimination ? Thanks
to Bio-Economics, we can now say with a clear conscience that
evolution is a process for drilling organisms into " good " habits
and disqualifying and penalising those which, in disobedience
to the bio-moral trend of things, nevertheless allow themselves
to lapse into " bad " habits. " Learning " depends upon the
power of profiting by, and storing up the results of, experience ;
on the power of forming " perceptions " of some kind ; all of
which in turn depends upon the " working up of sensations,"
the pre-requisite throughout being : definite, moderate, and
systematic activities of the nature of industries, and a faithful
maintenance of wholesome activities. All of which, again, requires
definite economic and biological associations of a permanent
character, which, as we have seen, only widely useful organisms
can afford to entertain.
Our assumption that the plant plays an important role in
the evolution of mind, gains in strength with every fresh dis-
covery of substances potent in animal life and co-evolved by
the plant in the course of co-operative evolution. Such dis-
coveries are multiplying fast and coming to the front, similarly
to the way in which the importance of the biological as the
chief causative factor in evolution generally may be said to have
come into prominence. There can no longer be any doubt
that a wholesale re-interpretation of Biology is rendered necessary
by the discovery, for instance, of such important symbiotic
agents as the body-defending Phagocytes, of the agriculture-
sustaining, nitrifying Bacteria, of the " disinfectant " micro-
organisms, of the indispensable, life-giving Vitamines all anti-
thetic in action to the non-symbiotic or pathogenic micro-
organisms, or to the death-dealing alkaloid substances, for
instance. The number of " deficiency diseases," due to the
absence of Vitamines in the diet, is seen to be greater than at
first thought. Says Dr. F. M. Sandwich in the Lancet (23rd
October, 1915) : " Slowly and laboriously, we have learnt that
under the essential needs of an animal's diet are organic
EVOLUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 8r
substances, so small in amount that they may be easily over-
looked by the chemist and wholly unsuspected by the physician."
The plant alone possesses the secret of the manufacture of
Vitamines. A vast amount of the right kind of experience
and of the right kind of " learning " must have preceded the due
establishment of the plant's subtle bio-chemical and psycho-
genetic powers.
CHAPTER V
THE "INTELLIGENCE" OF PLANTS
Plants have a logic of their own and act on it, just as we do, so that
we cannot dispute their intelligence. Le Dantec.
How then are we to assess the plant's part in Psychogenesis ?
What, first of all, are the achievements of the vegetable world
in the way of " mind " ? There exists but scant literature on
the subject. Fechner has written some good chapters in estima-
tion of the plant's general status, conceding a relatively high
place to its " mentality." More recently, Prof. Henri Bergson
has expressed the view, now widely entertained, that the plant
is characterised by a consciousness asleep and by insensibility ;
the animal showing by contrast sensibility and awakened con-
sciousness. Some fifty years after Fechner, however, M.
Maeterlinck published a stimulating essay on L 'intelligence
des Fleurs, which, based as it is on the most up-to-date knowledge
of plant life, lends itself well to an examination of the subject.
Maeterlinck, be it premised, as he is at pains to insist himself,
has written according to evidence, and by no means according
to romance. True, he has taken up a subject long left to imagina-
tion, but he wishes above all to appeal to reason. It would be
difficult to realise, he tells us, unless one had studied Botany a
little, how much of imagination and of genius lies hidden amidst
all that verdure of plant life which is so pleasing to the eye. The
more we study the doings of the plant, he continues, the more
we find that it sets a prodigious example of self-reliance, courage,
perseverance and ingenuity. He thinks that plant intelligence
arose out of the need of movement and out of the " appetite
for space." In his own words :
This need of movement, this craving for space, amongst the greater
number of plants, is manifested in both the flower and the fruit. It is
easily explained in the fruit, or, in any case, discloses a less complex
experience and foresight. Contrary to that which takes place in the animal
kingdom, and because of the terrible law of absolute immobility, the chief
and worst enemy of the seed is the paternal stock (" souche "). We are
in a strange (" bizarre ") world, where the parents, incapable of moving
82
THE " INTELLIGENCE " OF PLANTS 83
from place to place, know that they are condemned to starve or stifle
their offspring. Ev;ry seed that falls to the foot of the tree or plant is
either lost or doomed to sprout in wretchedness. Hence the immense
effort to throw off the yoke and conquer space. Hence the marvellous
systems of dissemination, of propulsion, and navigation of the air which
we find on every side in the forest and the plain ; amongst others, to
mention in passing only a few of the most strange, the aerial screw or
Samara of the Maple ; the bract of the Lime tree ; the flying machine
of the Thistle, the Dandelion and the Salsify ; the detonating springs of
the Spurge ; the extraordinary squirt of the Momordica ; the hooks of the
eriophilous plants ; and a thousand other unexpected and astounding
pieces of mechanism ; for there is not, so to speak, a single seed but has
invented for its sole use a complete method of escaping from the maternal
shade.
There is, no doubt, a great deal of truth in Maeterlinck's view.
Necessity, i.e.., the elementary need of the plant, has been the
mother of its inventions, and such necessity has proved a most
auspicious opportunity for the inauguration of a method of
organic reciprocity which again has been the origin and the
mainstay of the greatest goods and blessings of life. Great as
are the mechanical achievements of the plant, so eloquently
acknowledged by Maeterlinck, greater far, and more important,
are those which may fitly be called its bio-economic achievements,
however accidental the causes that gave them birth. For it was
the latter kind cf achievement which equipped the plant for a
high position in life, far transcending in importance the conquest
of space, namely, the position of indispensable pioneer and main
supporter of organic civilisation. More particularly, if we
remember that the primitive bacteria already made use of the
method of Symbiosis, and that this rendered possible the appear-
ance of the higher plants, there seems to be every justification
for giving pride of place to the bio-economic rather than the purely
mechanical achievements of the plant, wonderful though these
be. Nay, we are justified in assuming that the organic and
psychical funds necessary for the engendering of some of these
inventions, have to a large extent been derived from biological
reciprocity. This undoubted symbiotic origin of many plant
capabilities must not be overlooked. It is a case of " inheritance
affording the means by which inheritance is improved," a state-
ment that I have culled from a review by Prof. J. Arthur
Thomson of a book on animal behaviour, by Dr. S. J. Holmes
(Nature, 24-5-17).
We have seen that plants relatively backward in Symbiosis,
84 SYMBIOSIS
like some of the wind-fertilised weeds, for instance, are apt to
be noxious, though, no doubt, they still fill an important place
in the Economy of Nature. Whether a plant relies upon physical
or biological agency for the conquest of space, its chief reliance
must always be upon service. It is this alone which gives
sanction and status. Ability to rely upon duly remunerated
biological agency, moreover, makes possible a progressive avoid-
ance of waste of energy on the part of the plant and a corresponding
better endowment of the protoplasm and the seed both for " home "
and for " export " purposes. We may, therefore, amplify
Maeterlinck's remarks thus : Plant-intelligence arose out of a
double necessity (i) to provide for its own immediate needs and
(2) to supply at the same time, and in a progressive manner, the
needs of " organic civilisation." This explanation will be seen
to remove much of the apparent " strangeness " of the plant's
world. The plant's limitations may now be viewed as those of
a specialist in division of labour ; they are seen to be essential
to the success of the whole organic family, and thus to entail
in the end great compensations to the plant. The very limita-
tions of symbiotic partners, as we have recognised, in the end
make for psychical progress. It cannot be emphasised enough,
therefore, that the achievements of the plant, referred to by
Maeterlinck, as well as the apparently strange vicissitudes of the
plant world, must be viewed in the light of Bio-Economics.
Maeterlinck speaks of a mysterious law of " destiny," or of
" fate," by which, he thinks, the plant is ruled. I should say,
on the contrary, that the plant is exemplary of the way destiny
should be controlled by the organism, though in obedience to
the bio-moral law. My interpretation sees in the momenta
created by symbiotic systems the main directive force of pro-
gressive evolution, towards the establishment of which force all
organisms, though in different degrees, contribute their quota.
There is no need to postulate any " destiny " or " fate " on this
view. Organisms which weary of service or flout the symbiotic
relation, are themselves to be blamed, as it were, for th
degeneracy.
Again, what are the circumstances under which, as Maeter-
linck says, a plant may " lose its head." They are precisely
those equivalent to a loss of " symbiotic sense," which sense is
the source of all orientation and of all knowledge of relatedness
in the world of life. I have shown in previous chapters that
THE " INTELLIGENCE " OF PLANTS 85
Dorr estication and Cultivation, in so far as they cut off the
organism from its natural symbiotic bonds very generally induce
a " misere physiologique." It is not surprising to find that the
respective symptoms are often attended by those of a " misere
psychologique." This is how Maeterlinck puts it : "On dirait
que la plante cultivee perd un peu la tete si Ton peut s'exprimer
ainsi, et qu'elle no sait plus au juste ou elle en est."
The explanation of a loss of " symbiotic sense," however, will
be found to be more scientific and more exact.
An example from animal life, showing a psychological
misere arising from illegitimate biological relations, is presented
by the case of the hermit crab, infected by the parasite
Sacculina. It was shown by the late lamented Geoffrey Smith
that in crabs of both sexes so infected the cyclical changes of
reproduction and of growth occurring normally in animals do
not take place. Such crabs neither grow, moult nor reproduce.
There is sterility and apparently loss of proportion generally
caused by the predominance of a parasitic relation. The
psychological " yield " here obtained is one the opposite of that
obtained under a symbiotic relation. And it is the same with
over-exploited plants.
My repeated emphasis of " symbiotic disposition " and
" symbiotic sense " might well have caused the reader to reflect
on the evidence of the alleged endowment of organisms. I
maintain that there is abundant evidence showing the existence
cf such a sense. The various " instincts " : of association, of
reciprocity, of self-sacrifice, of parental care of offspring, of
solidarity and of altruism, all, I claim, are to be classed under
this heading.
It is customary to speak of the primordial distinction between
plant and animal as due to the " choice " made by the plant in
favour of an energy-storing life whilst the animal is represented
as having " preferred " the life of mobility. One might think
that mutuality had played no part in this alleged " separation,"
which is yet no separation, but only a more extended union a
more extended Symbiosis, which has led to all that is great and
desirable in our lives. I see in the retention of the vital con-
nection between the kingdoms, above all, evidence of the symbiotic
sense, the natural development of which favoured the widest
forms of reciprocity and of division of labour as betweer plant
and animal. And how otherwise than actuated by the symbiotic
86 SYMBIOSIS
sense have the bulk of strenuous orders, genera and species of plants
kept to the path of bio-economic usefulness difficulties and bio-
logical temptations notwithstanding, and have made their great
sacrifices for the attainment of cross-fertilisation, by means of
which they have achieved not only a higher status for them-
selves but also conspicuous service to the world of life ? How
have they " learnt " to " recognise," as Maeterlinck puts it, that
self-fertilisation conduces to degeneracy ?
a la suite de quelles exp6riences innombrables et immemoriales ont-
elles reconnu que 1'auto-fecondation, c'est-a-dire la fecondation du stigmate
par le pollen tombe des antheres qui 1'entourent dans la meme corolle,
entraine rapidement la degenerescence de 1'espece ?
It is begging the question, as Maeterlinck rightly insists, to
say that the force of circumstances has eliminated those plants
that did not do what was somehow required of them. Even
though we give some place still to " chance," it is necessary to
recognise that there must be a reason for the rise of some species
and the fall of others. The explanation, on my view, is none
other than that some species did, and others did not, preserve
the integrity of the symbiotic sense the necessary endowment
of a useful member of a co-evolved biological community. To
say that the plants have recognised nothing and that the force
of circumstances has eliminated some in favour of others, is halving
and unduly externalising the problem of survival. To say that
the plants recognise everything and that memory is everything,
is equally halving the problem by undaly internalising it. What
the plants have experienced in constant laborious contact with
the environment, they have capitalised in the form of symbiotic
sense. The behaviour of plants thus has to do with consciousness,
though they be not directly conscious, as we sometimes are of
our doings, of all they do ; it has similarly to do with Bio-
morality, though they be not consciously moral as we are.
What is required of the plants, in the interest of organic life,
is that they follow in the main the guidance of their symbiotic
sense, i.e., that they retain a tolerable degree of co-operative
usefulness. Such obedience to bio-economic law, and not the
uninspired weeding out by " Natural Selection," assures their
continuance.
The case of disobedience to the bio-economic law of Symbiosis,
as instanced by Degeneration and Parasitism, clearly shows a
isintegration of the symbiotic sense. Sir E. Ray Lankaster
THE " INTELLIGENCE " OF PLANTS 87
long ago pointed out that in Degeneration the suppression of
form corresponds to the cessation of work, that the " lower "
condition incidental upon Degeneration is due to the organism
being fitted for less complex action and reaction in regard to its
surroundings and that the " habit " of Parasitism, for instance,
clearly acts upon animal organisation in the same way as we see
an active, healthy man sometimes degenerate, when he becomes
suddenly possessed of a fortune, or as Rome degenerated when
possessed of the riches of the ancient world. He adds that
wherever we see symptoms of parasitism and of sluggishness, as
expressed by " habits," we are justified in applying the hypothesis
of Degeneration. I have italicised some of Sir E. Ray's remarks
to indicate that the identical economic and psychological sequences
apply universally and above all that we have in Degeneration a
disintegration of a previous sense of work, of service, of orientation
and of " responsibility." Maeterlinck expresses wonderment
at the essential knowledge, evidently engendered by the symbiotic
relation, thus :
Shall I speak of the seeds which provide for their dissemination by
birds and which, to entice them, as in the case of the Mistletoe, the Juniper,
the Mountain-ash, lurk inside a sweet husk ? We see here developed such
a powerful reasoning faculty, such a remarkable understanding of final
causes that we hardly dare dwell upon the subject, for fear of repeating
the ingenious mistakes of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. And yet the facts
can be no otherwise explained. The sweet husk is of no more use to the
seed than the nectar, which attracts the bee, is to the flower. The bird
eats the fruit because it is sweet and, at the same time, swallows the seed,
which is indigestible. He flies away and, soon after, ejects the seed in the
same condition in which he has received it, but stripped of its case and
ready to sprout far from the attendant dangers of its birth-place.
I shall be glad if anyone will produce a better and more rational
interpretation of these phenomena than the socio-physiological
one for which I contend. This interpretation, moreover, enables
one to understand how the plant is able to communicate a share
of its vital psychic equipment to the animal, fitting it in many
ways for the purposes of organic progress. When so much that
is good is seen to arise from the symbiotic relation, and when the
plant in particular is seen to be, not only the fundamental
capitalist, but also the fundamental inventor and contriver of
service, the assumption is by no means fanciful that the plant
is also a direct sustainer of animal intelligence. The animal
takes in " knowledge " with its food, as it were essential
88 SYMBIOSIS
" knowledge "which is " pre-digested " by the plant. What
is the essence of this " knowledge " ? Is it sense-knowledge ?
It is ; but of sense tempered by service and, hence, making for
vital perceptions and vital knowledge. We can thus see reason
for the observation made by an American writer, John Dewey,
that " it is not we who think in any actively responsible sense ;
thinking is rather something that happens in us." Some thinking
at any rate, I should say, somewhat passively happens in us ;
for thought processes would seem to begin with the plant, to be
carried a stage further by the animal. A great deal of essential
thinking in the world would seem to be performed distributively
as between symbiotic partners.
The idea of this dependence of mind upon the co-operation
of the lowly plant, of course, is one apt to grate on our pride.
But we must not allow pride or prejudice to deter us in our quest
of truth.
I have been told recently by a critic that Prof. Bergson has
given a much clearer exposition than is to be found in my book
on Symbiogenesis of the relations between the plant and the
animal kingdoms. That may be so. One thing, however, is
certain, namely, that Prof. Bergson's is not a bio-economic
interpretation of evolution. Far from it. He is, of course,
obliged to admit the existence of various systems of mutual
service between plant and animal, and between higher plant and
bacteria. He specially repudiates, however, the term " division
of labour " as giving no exact idea of evolution, such as he
conceives of it. Bergson thinks that harmony between plant and
animal existed only at the start of evolution, which subsequently
was " discontinuous " so far as complementary processes are
concerned ; and, in his opinion, sexual generation is perhaps
only a luxury for the plant though he is willing to admit that
it was a necessity to the animal. Evidently this is disregarding
the whole significance of bio-economic services and of the vast
system of inter-action upon which evolution is based. It was
shown in Symbiogenesis that sexual reproduction represents
the highest form of domestic Symbiosis, that it in turn depends
upon the highest forms of biological Symbiosis, and further,
that we have to regard the sexual generation of the plant not as
a luxury, but as an important and indispensable forward step
progressive evolution. It was shown at the same time that the
economic laws of Nature are eternal, and that the only luxury
THE " INTELLIGENCE " OF PLANTS 89
she sanctions is, in Ruskin's words, an innocent but exquisite
luxury, namely, luxury for all by the help of all.
The harmony which Prof! Bergson thinks existed only at the
beginning, has, in my view, never been discontinued. On the
contrary, it became eVer more effective though under different
forrrs. The more perfected partners merely betook themselves,
as advanced " specialists," to wider fields of action. They
" relied " in the main upon the integrity of the symbiotic sense.
What Maeterlinck calls the " foresight " of the plant is thus a
close associate of the symbiotic sense equipped with which the
plant is able to gauge the needs of the partner by " intuition "
as it were a direct way of the " mind " to arrive at conclusions.
The case here made out for Plant Psychosis may not inaptly
be summarised by the German saying : " Wem Gott ein Amt
giebt, dem giebt er auch Verstand." Maeterlinck almost hints
that animal intelligence may have been derived from plant
intelligence, as the more fundamental and original of the two.
He says this :
In a world which we believe unconscious and destitute of intelligence,
we begin by imagining that the least of our ideas created new combina-
tions and relations. When we come to look into things more closely, it
appears infinitely more probable that it is impossible for us to create any-
thing whatsoever. We are the last comers on this earth, we only find
what has always existed and, like astonished children, we travel again
the road which life has travelled before us.
Every flower has its idea, its system, its acquired experience which
it turns to advantage. When we examine closely their little inventions,
their diverse methods, we are reminded of those enthralling exhibitions
of machine-tools, of machines for making machinery, in which the mechan-
ical genius of man manifests all its resources. But our mechanical genius
dates from yesterday, whereas floral mechanism has been at work for
thousands of years. When the flowers made their appearance upon the
earth, there were no models around them which they could imitate ; they
had to derive everything from within themselves.
The latter part of the statement is, of course, challengeable ;
for we know row that the higher plants were preceded by bacteria
which at any rate devised many primitive mechanisms of work
.and even the methods of Symbiosis, in virtue of which they
could supply a prime need of higher plants, namely, Nitrates.
The plants, therefore, did not devise everything spontaneously
from within themselves. They derived inspiration from helpers.
Maeteilinck has, however, a special passage in which he
shrewdly hints at the existence in Nature of some such principle
90 SYMBIOSIS
as the bio-economic law of Reciprocity. Speaking of the lucerne's
" search to ensure its future," he says that the plants having been
deceived in the spiral, the yellow lucerne added pits or hooks
to it, " saying to itself, not unreasonably, that since its leaves
attract the sheep, it is unavoidable and right that the sheep
should assume the care of its progeny."
" And lastly," he continues, "is it not thanks to this new
effort and to this happy thought that the lucerne with yellow
flowers is infinitely more widely distributed than its sturdier
cousin whose flowers are red ? "
I would only add the explanation that the fact of the lucerne's
leaves being attractive to the sheep is not an accident, but is
closely connected with those fundamental symbiotic amenities
that keep going the life of plants and animals alike. We need
not impute Maeterlinck's identical reasoning to the plants, so long
as we make allowance for the existence in plants of a symbiotic
sense, with all it entails in Bio-morality.
Again, in the case of the lettuce, Maeterlinck adduces an
example showing how essential is the recognition of the concepts
of biological " right " and biological " duty." The cultivated
lettuce is one of the plants that have ceased to defend themselves.
In its wild stage, if we grow a stalk or leaf, we see a white juice
exude from it, the latex, a substance formed by various matters,
which vigorously defend the plant against the assaults of the
slugs. On the other hand, in cultivated species derived from the
former, the latex is almost missing, and they fall a prey to
slugs.
Shall we not say that it is indeed the duty of the cultivator
to defend the cultivated " specialised " form in return for extra
services received and in accordance with the unwritten laws of
Symbiosis ? Every new symbiotic relation, I contend, requires
new and redistributed services, as it brings in its train new
organic forms. The case is not dissimilar to that ot new dis-
coveries by man, which, as Prof. Bergson believes, are often
instrumental in producing new types of humanity.
Although more than once approaching the recognition of a
bio-economic law of reciprocity, Maeterlinck however does
not see dearly enough to follow up the threads consistently. He
goes off instead at a tangent, identifying the sober symbiotic
needs of cross-fertilising insects with the " passions " cf others,
and interpreting the laws of " organic civilisation ' as " destiry."
THE " INTELLIGENCE " OF PLANTS 91
Speaking of the wonderful mechanism for cross-fertilisation in
the case of the Orchid Coryanthes macrantha, he tells us :
Here, then, we have a flower that knows and plays upon the passions
of insects. Nor can it be pretended that all these are only so much more
or less romantic interpretations ; no, the facts have been precisely and
scientifically observed and it is impossible to explain the use and arrange-
ment of the flowers' different organs in any other way. We must accept
the evidence as it stands. This incredible and efficaceous artifice is the
more astonishing inasmuch as it does not here tend to satisfy the
immediate and urgent need to eat that sharpens the dullest wits ; it has
only a distant ideal in view ; the propagation of the species. But, why, we
shall be asked, these fantastic complications which end only by increasing
the dangers of chance ? Let us not hasten to give judgment and answer.
We know nothing of the reasons of the plants. Do we know the obstacles
the flowers encounter in the direction of logic and simplicity. Do we
know thoroughly a single one of the organic laws of its existence and its
growth ?
As I have said before, I do not think that the glory of the
romance involved in the mutual relations between plant and
animal, is in any way lessened by the discovery that the plant
in no way lives by itself or to itself, and that the great majority
of its wonderful contrivances are " designed " to effect a bio-
economic utility whilst subserving at the same time the more
self-regarding purposes of Nutrition and Reproduction.
Maeterlinck commits himself to the following statement :
The flowers came on our earth before the insects ; they had, therefore,
when the latter appeared, to adapt a totally new system of machinery
to the habits of these unexpected collaborators. This geologically incon-
testable fact alone, amid all that which we do not know, is enough to
establish evolution ; and does not this somewhat vague word mean, after
all, adaptation, modification, intelligent progress ? It would be easy,
moreover, without appealing to pre-historic events, to bring together a
great number of facts which would show that the faculty of adaptation
and intelligent progress is not reserved exclusively for the human race.
I have already pointed out that the plants were not so
unprepared as Maeterlinck imagines, and that above all, they
were, in virtue of their past, equipped with a strong symbiotic
sense, which is vastly more important than any other inheritance
that can be suggested from geological data. The plant's proto-
plasm was already used to biological co-operation, or
" collaboration," as Maeterlinck has it, and it merely developed
steadily if gradually along the path of increased collaboration.
The plants merely learnt to extend the range and efficacy of
92 SYMBIOSIS
Symbiosis pari passu with the growing " beneficent " necessities
of " organic civilisation," and they merely helped to " create "
the animal kingdom in their own " symbiotic likeness/' i.e.,
according to useful reciprocal differentiation.
There was nothing " unexpected " or sudden in the coming
of the animal. Moreover, if the plant had to adapt itself pro-
gressively to the rising animal world, so the latter had to adapt
itself increasingly to the laws of Bio-morality, conformed to
already by the plant, i.e., mainly symbiotic morality. Granted
that evolution means inter alia intelligent progress, this does
not make the term " Evolution " by any means a synonym for
" adaptation " and " modification/' The latter may be, and
often are, the reverse of progress. The vagueness of the term
" Evolution " is precisely due to the sophism which I have always
combated, of synonymising it with " adaptation " and
" modification."
Failing to obtain the concrete footing of Bio-Economics
Maeterlinck is inclined to postulate the existence of a " Demi-
urgos " a " genie de la Terre," or " Erdgeist," a similar
conception to that which attracted Goethe, Fechner, J. S. Mill
and William James. This " Demiurgos " would stand in a kind
of paternal relation to all of us.
II use des memes methodes, de la meme logique. II atteint au but par
les moyens que nous emploierons, il tatonne, il hesite, il s'y reprend a
plusieurs fois, il ajoute, il elimine, il reconnait et redresse ses erreurs comme
nous le ferions a sa place. Notre esprit puise aux memes reservoirs que
le sien. Nous sommes du meme monde, presque entre egaux.
As regards intelligence and its distribution, we get a pan-
psychic view thus :
It would not, I imagine, be very bold to maintain that there are not
any more or less intelligent beings, but a scattered, genera], intelligence,
a kind of universal fluid that penetrates diversely the organisms which
it encounters according as they are good or bad conductors of the under-
standing. Man would then represent up till now, upon this earth, the
mode of life that offers the least resistance to this fluid, which the religions
called divine.
Be this as it may, one thing is certain in whatever sphere of
life we choose to look, namely, that, other things equal, the best
results in evolution accrue from a symbiotic vitalisation of the
protoplasm. Just as the symbiotic lichen is capable, in pioneer
THE " INTELLIGENCE " OF PLANTS 93
fashion, of dissolving the hardest rocks, so the method of
biological righteousness generally is the best means of solving
the problems of existence. It is as though one could say : Seek
ye first this righteousness and all the powers of body and of
mind shall be added unto you. Emitur sola virtute potestas.
CHAPTER VI
LIFE AND HABIT
That Butler's genius gave him insight into evolutionary problems has
been generally, though tardily, recognised. PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON,
Nature, loth May, 1917.
IN previous chapters it became to some extent evident that
there is a substratum of truth in the Pan-Psychism of Fechner,
James, Maeterlinck, and in that of more recent writers, more
especially in view of the symbiotic inter-relatedness of beings,
which seems to me to represent a very real form of Pan-Psychism.
That there is a concrete form of Pan-Psychism, wholesome
or morbid, and of great importance in our daily life, is now more
fully to be inferred from a critical examination of Samuel Butler's
work on Life and Habit, in which he endeavours to propound
a pan-psychic view of life.
Butler contends that " Personal Identity " does not exclude
the idea that each individual may be manifold in the sense of
being compounded of a vast number of subordinate individual-
ities which have their separate lives within him, with their
hopes and fears, and intrigues, being born and dying within
us, many generations of them during our single life- time. In
order to support this proposition, he has recourse to the illus-
tration of the micro-organisms which live within us and which
seem, in a general way, to form a part of us and even to deter-
mine many of our activities. This is what he says :
These parasites are they part of us or no ? Some are plainly not so
in any strict sense of the word, yet their action may, in cases which it is
unnecessary to detail, affect us so powerfully that we are irresistibly
impelled to act in such or such a manner ; and yet we are as wholly
unconscious of any impulse outside of our own " ego " as though they were
part of ourselves ; others again are essential to our very existence, as
the corpuscles of the blood, which the best authorities concur in supposing
to be composed of an infinite number of living souls, on whose welfare
the healthy condition of our blood, and hence of our whole bodies, depends.
We breathe that they may breathe, not that we may do so ; we only
care about oxygen in so far as the infinitely small beings which course
up and down in our veins care about it ; the whole arrangement and
mechanism of our lungs may be our doing, but is for their convenience,
94
LIFE AND HABIT 95
and they only serve us because it suits their purpose to do so, as long as
we serve them. Who shall draw the line between the parasites which
are part of us, and the parasites which are not part of us ? Or again,
between the influence of those parasites which are within us, but are yet
not us, and the external influence of other sentient beings and our fellow-
men ? There is no line possible.
This passage, then, raises the all-important question of bio-
logical relatedness, and it is well calculated to show how greatly
the understanding of Pan-Psychism depends upon " Qualitative
Biology." I have already emphasised the need of a qualitative
Biology and in particular of the inauguration of a standard of
biological usefuless with the aid of which to sift the grain of
wholesome from the chaff of morbid relations. It is evident
that the same reasoning will again prove helpful in dissipating
the doubts so widely and keenly felt regarding the nature of our
connections with those invisible " parties " and their apparently
intangible influences, beneficial or detrimental, to which Butler
here refers. First of all, as Qualitative Biologists or Bio-Econo-
mists, we shall not fall into the error of applying the term
parasite at all in the case of organisms, be they never so small,
which contribute in a direct and vital manner to our own health
and to the common good of organic civilisation. We shall on the
contrary refer to them as symbiotic agents or Symbiotists
sharers in a wholesome Pan-Psychism. We shall discriminate
between organisms which, as scavengers, remove the offal of life,
rendering themselves indirectly useful, and between rank parasites
which lead a wholly non-reciprocal life, living merely destructively
on the substance of others sharers in a more or less morbid
Pan-Psychism. Not that we shall lay down any rules of con-
duct for organisms to obey ; but we shall point out the conse-
quences of every method of life, its value in organic civilisation,
and we shall discriminate accordingly. The directly useful
organisms, be it re-emphasised, flourish and survive in virtue of
their continuous usefulness and indispensability which guarantee
a super-adequacy of biological supports. Theirs is the method
of advance by the summation of powers, of Symbio-Psychism
as it were. The survival of scavengers and parasites, on the
other hand, is supported only by inferior connections, giving
them diminished powers of resistance to disease and lessened
survival capacity. Owing to the frailty of life, such organisms
as these ever recruit themselves from the ranks of the true
96 SYMBIOSIS
Symbiotists in order to live by the principle of short cuts, which
is, however, economically and therefore, in my sense, morally
unsound, rendering them liable to the aforesaid weaknesses and
to extermination wherever there arises a serious clash of interests
with the faithful Symbiotists.
Those beings, then, are truly " part of us " which stand in
a directly useful reciprocal relation to us, which relation alone
can assure sufficiency and permanence of association. Scavengers
are only slightly " part of us " and must not, by over-indulgence
or over- work, be allowed to increase their hold upon us.
Parasites are but morbidly " part of us," apt, owing to some
weakness on our part, to determine us bodily and mentally in
a pathological direction. That is to say that beings are " part
of us " in very different degrees, from exceedingly wholesome
to exceedingly noxious ; and it is of vital importance that these
differences should be clearly recognised. Contrary to Butler's
opinion, it is quite possible to draw the line between real and
fictitious partnerships. Butler observes rightly, though but
in a general way, that we are to a large extent impelled by our
associations to think and to act in their own rather than our
interest. Surely then it is incumbent upon us to discriminate
between good and bad associations. A man is known by his
friends (" Tell me with whom thou hast intercourse and I will tell
thee who thou art"). Organisms are largely determined by
habits, notably feeding habits, a fact to a certain extent acknow-
ledged by Butler himself when he says, in " Luck or Cunning,"
that " Eating is a mode of love ; it is an effort after a closer union ;
so we say we love roast beef." Was it not Plato who spoke
of the " love affairs " of the body as determining our health,
our mental and moral disposition and, ultimately, in the aggre-
gate, the welfare of the city ? Was it not the view of the most
sagacious of Greek thinkers generally that states perish by
various forms of that " excess " which is universally fatal to
prosperous action ? Has it not been said that " on est aisement
le dupe de ce qu'on aime ? " And is it not indeed precisely, as
Butler almost suggests, that certain feeding-habits involve
wrongful biological intercourse ?
What is it that can guard us against being " duped " and
demoralised by " liaisons " of a biologically undesirable kind ?
Had Butler been able to answer this question, he would no doubt
have given a more practical turn to his Pan-Psychism.
LIFE AND HABIT 97
My answer is that our best safeguard is the symbiotic sense,
the sense of biological propriety, implanted in us by Nature,
which sense ever impels us towards moderation and integrity
in all our doings. It is the sense of proportion and of justice,
which fundamentally arises from the Psychism peculiar to the
symbiotic life. This important sense may be seriously inter-
fered with or jeopardised by false feeding habits. These, as
shown before, tend to encourage the idlers and would-be
parasites amongst the world of micro-organisms at the expense
of strenuous and moderate partners. They tend, in other words,
to create a soil favourable to " infection," to distract the exist-
ing wholesome influences and in the end to give a new, a path-
ological turn to our actions and thoughts distorting them in many
ways. " For the good which I would I do not : but the evil
which I would not that I practise." Once loosened from sym-
biotic bonds, our former modest associates develop more and more
insatiable appetites, the need for the satisfaction of which drives
the unfortunate " host " to otherwise involuntary excesses,
which render his life increasingly unbalanced and precarious.
The unhappy " host " may thus be morbidly impelled, as Plato
would say, towards the tyrannical disposition a curse alike
to himself and to the " City." Good health in the case of such
a " host " would often seem to depend upon abundant feeding,
a " Royal diet," which inference, however, may easily be
deceptive, as great supplies are wanted to feed his associated
parasites alone. So disgracefully have we, however, become
habituated to associate health and even distinction with a
pampered state of the body, that we think it most natural for a
" fat " man to maintain at the highest pitch the unholy " love-
affairs " of his unregulated body. Such and similar discre-
pancies are in keeping with our social and mental backwardness,
related in turn to our false feeding habits, which rob us of the
fruits of a healthy Pan-Psychism. It may be considered as
a concomitant of our faulty mentality that orthodox science
cannot even tell us what is a standard metabolism or a standard
biological relation. Many nutrition experiments produce ficti-
tious results, the appearance of health being falsely taken for the
reality, the abuse for the use observations provoquees, as
Claude Bernard would say. It is futile, for instance, to expect
that a species long used to biological abuse and false feeding
and, hence, to many concomitant " special " influences, cravings
gS SYMBIOSIS
and secondary needs, can be found to be happy at once with
a suddenly changed diet, however otherwise ideal. The new
diet may fail of its usual good effects for no other reason than
that it does not provide for the exorbitant " special " or fasti-
dious tastes or " needs " of parasites or quasi-parasities with
which the life of the species has, more or less avoidably, and more
or less pathologically, become associated. It is necessary to
recognise the relative indispensability of these doubtful ' ' helpers "
to their host, who can no more shake them off than do without
them, and who, whilst having to provide for their needs, real or
unreal, is being slowly transformed into another being : one
of special and abnormal appetites and one involved in the
meshes of a morbid Pan-Psychism. " Die Geister die ich rief
werd' ich nun nicht los." What we should ask ourselves before
experimenting with an organism with a view of establishing a
standard metabolism, or a standard food requirement, is this :
Who is who ? with special reference to associations. In fur-
nishing the pabulum, are we providing for real or for imaginary,
for primary or secondary needs, for the needs of a dependent
or of an autonomous organism ? Surely we cannot take any
and every appetite, any and every association for normal ! We
must recognise, on the contrary, that many relations, however
compatible and even indispensable in appearance, are yet unreal
inasmuch as they are of a retrogressive nature. The large fangs
of the carnivora may be said to be quite indispensable and even
congenial to their proprietors, yet by their excessive demand
upon the blood-supply, they damage the brain and inhibit
progressive evolution and are pro tanto (for want of a better
term) " diabolically " indispensable or useful. And it is the same
with regard to biological relations, many of which are really
injurious and belonging to the pathological order, though
.apparently indispensable to the particular organism.
When one considers how much mankind has yet to learn
as regards relatedness and values, one is indeed reminded of the
saying of LaoTzu, which seems to have been in Butler's mind
often enough, namely, that the truest sayings are paradoxical.
The great Chinese sage observes, for instance, that it is the Way
of Heaven to take from those who have too much, and give to
those who have too little. " But," he continues, " the way
of man is not so. He takes away from those who have too little,
to add to his own super-abundance. What man is there that can
LIFE AND HABIT 99
take of his own super-abundance and give it to mankind ? "
There is still a lack of righteous and knightly spirit amongst
us, and there prevails instead a dangerous tendency to pro-
nounced social antitheses a world " festering with selfishness,"
as an American writer recently put it. I believe these short-
comings to be largely due to a false biological basis of life, result-
ing in a morbid Pan-Psychism, and in a deeply-felt despondency
as regards the chances of social salvation by the means that our
instincts allow us to command. The Heavenly Way indicated
by Lao-Tzu seems beyond our possibilities, because we are not
sufficiently inspired from the best, i.e., symbiotic, sources.
What man is there indeed amongst us to take of his own super-
abundance and give it to mankind ?
These are some of Lao-Tzu's recommendations which
are well worth re-emphasising : " Those who follow the
Way desire no excess." " In governing men and in serving
Heaven, there is nothing like moderation. For only by
moderation can there be an early return to man's normal
state. This early return is the same as a great storage of
Virtue. With a great storage of Virtue there is naught which
may not be achieved." The great seer of the past thus fore-
stalled the law of symbiotic moderation and distinctly hinted
at the truth that the greatest results of evolution spring from
symbiotic integrity. By ruling himself frugally and wisely,
man determines not to be pathologically, and hence tyrannically,
" determined." Man at any rate has it in his power consciously
to seek that biological and pan-psychic association, which
produces the maximum of individual and social health. He can
adopt the standard biological relation. In so doing alone can
he, in Lao-Tzu's words, encourage the creation of a great storage
of " Virtue," i.e., of cumulative symbiotic sense and lay the
foundation for further elevation of the human race. I cannot
concur with Samuel Butler in his almost fatalistic resignation
on the score of our liability to morbid influences. I cannot
agree that we are as helpless or as irresponsible in the matter as
he would appear to think. I am not over-awed by the powers
of mischief, great though they be, of the micro-organismal world.
It would seem to be with the conception of the absolutely small
" spirits " as it is with the absolutely large spirit, the " Absolute "
of Philosophy. Either is apt to make a bad companion of
morality, for this reason, that they make our autonomy look
ioo SYMBIOSIS
either too hopelessly susceptible to haphazard interferences
or else too hopelessly insignificant by comparison with the
will of the Infinite. Fatalism on these scores, however, is no
more justified than are the nightmares, or " night-views," as
Fechner would say, anent the inevitableness of the " struggle
for existence."
It was seen in previous chapters in the case of scientific
agriculture, how it becomes increasingly our business in life
and one in which we have every reason to anticipate a fair share
of success to encourage Symbiosis at the expense of its
opposite : Parasitism. It is what we are required to do in the
interest of our bodily, mental and social health : to encourage
Symbiosis rather than Parasitism.
In the case of agriculture we are dealing with vast popula*
tions of the soil who are sufficiently inter-dependent with us t<
allow them to be considered " part of us." Their welfare is
important to us as ours is to them. Here too we have a mutu
responsibility, and from this case it is perhaps more generally
to be concluded that it is man's true office in the economy of
Nature to be in sympathy and in symbiotic league with all
" good " beings. As Seneca taught : Ubicumque homo est, ibi
beneficii locus est.
Butler's treatment, then, of " Our subordinate personal-
ities " requires some essential bio-economic addenda in ordei
to be adequate and complete, and the same must be said regard-
ing his consideration, from his special mnemic point of view,
of the " Assimilation of outside matter," on which subject he
nevertheless expresses himself with considerable confidence.
He states that
As long as any living organism can maintain itself in a position to
which it has been accustomed more or less nearly both in its own life
and in those of its forefathers, nothing can harm it. As long as the
organism is familiar with the position (he goes on to say) and remembers
its antecedents, nothing can assimilate it. It must be first dislodged
from the position with which it is familiar, as being able to remember
it, before mischief can happen to it. Nothing can assimilate living organ-
ism. On the other hand, the moment living organism loses sight of its
own position and antecedents, it is liable to immediate assimilation, and
to be thus familiarised with the position and antecedents of some other
creature.
This can only mean that a species which has strenuously made
a place for itself in the world of life and continues with tolerable
LIFE AND HABIT 101
faithfulness to maintain a useful relation with other beings,
stands in no danger of being " pensioned off." It will not do to
set down race preservation to any other cause than " good "
custom, i.e., service and symbiotic integrity, which are the sole
guarantees of " good " memory.
Whether or not an organism can maintain itself in a customary
position, may be said, in a sense, to depend upon memory, but
it must be understood to be a memory instinct with essential
knowledge, such as we have seen symbiotic knowledge to be.
It is the substance that is wanted and not the shadow, the
knowledge and the character rather than the mere remembrance
of the past. So in our national life it is the retention of the high
character of our forbears that is all-important and not merely
the recollection, and glorification of, their deeds of prowess.
To say that extinction of species is due to loss of ancestral
memory, conveys not much more than the idea that mind must
have had some share in the fate of the organism. Let us take a
concrete case : the extinction of the sabre-toothed tiger, which
had destroyed its customary prey, the giant armadillo, and had
become too fastidious to live on any other. Are we to set the
fatality down merely to a loss of " memory " ? Must we not
rather concede that the species, all the time it was indulging
in armadillo-feasts, was undergoing a loss of " essential "
memory, i.e., the memory of former non-predaceous mammalian
food-getting which alone could assure genuine survival ? Or could
it be argued that the tiger had lost an erstwhile arithmetical
rule of its ancestors which consisted in sparing just sufficient
armadilloes to prevent their becoming extinct ? Who is he who
will propound the thesis that a relation so non-symbiotic as that
between tiger and armadillo ever has any chance of permanence ?
In the evolutionary sense, " to thine own self be true " means
true to the virtues of an essentially symbiotic character coupled
with cross-feeding habits, which alone avail towards life. The
" mischief " which Butler says may " happen " to a species is
chiefly one which follows upon disobedience to bio-moral laws.
It may involve a dissolution which is apt, in one way or another,
to give back the constituent parts to the common organic fund
of life. It is clear, however, that species faithful to a good
ancestral character, are not so to be dissolved and, therefore,
not to be " assimilated " by others. Species may well be con-
ceived as standing for a definite idea in so far as they have an
102 SYMBIOSIS
indispensable bio-economic part to play ; and, in so far as this
is the case, they have a special viability much the same as
good ideas have. Useful species are thus resistant to corroding
influences. Their resistance is based on physical strength and
on the strength of the idea for which they stand a double-
barrelled strength. The indiscriminate " assimilation," however,
of one organism by another is " abhorred by Nature." The
common prejudice, shared by Butler, that the " assimilation "
of one organism by another represents the norm of life is, in
my opinion, one of the most monstrous aberrations of the human
mind. Instead of saying that " nothing can assimilate living
organism," I should say that living organism exists not to be
" assimilated," but, on the contrary, to be spared and supported
au fur et d mesure as it is useful and its presence is desirable.
That organisms must not allow themselves under various
penalties to be caught napping, follows, therefore, far more
rationally and consistently from a practical than from an abstract
pan-psychic view. The merely abstract pan-psychic view
fails to take into account the responsibilites and the " rights "
of organisms, which must be fully considered in all questions of
permanence. Clearly, in an evolutionary sense, " not to
remember antecedents " can only mean that the organism has
become untrue to an erstwhile useful bio-economic function,
that it has violated the " contrat bio-social," that it must coi
sequently suffer retrogression loss of symbiotic support wit!
resulting loss of health and of status. The term " familiarity,'
used by Butler, cannot be meant to apply to trifling mattei
but must concern the most important relations of life. Tc
cease being " familiar " with work, that is the besetting sii
We saw that the plant which fails to draw mineral salts from the
earth is unable to form regular fibrous tissue of any value. It has
evidently lost vital " antecedents " whilst indulging in new
and non-symbiotic feeding habits. We may conclude that it
is for the same reason that it will forget other important ante-
cedents. It will gradually lose the power, for instance, of
stimulating the animal for healthy work and healthy " thought,"
rendering confusion worse confounded. We have seen in the
case of certain wind-fertilised weeds how actual and real is the
damage arising from bio-economic inferiority to the strenuous
biological community. That " temptations " are a great cause
of the " dislodgment " of organisms from an erstwhile high
LIFE AND HABIT 103
and useful status, and that this frailty of life must be taken
into account, can hardly be denied. Nor is the " dislodgment "
of an organism in Nature performed by any special artifice such
as we might employ in the laboratory say by cutting a parti-
cular nerve or by using a particular sleeping-draught. We
know, moreover, that some organisms are more resistant than
others as regards temptations. Man, for instance, cannot tempt
wild animals at will into increased fertility, as recorded by Seton
Thompson in the case of the blue foxes of Alaska, which are so
strictly monogamous as to make it extremely hard to get a
widowed fox to mate. The blue fox is evidently not inclined
to be " dislogded " from sober " antecedents." It is also well-
known that many plants and animals will not reprcduce in
domestication, even though individually vigorous ; whilst others,
though weak and sickly, breed freely. There remains to be
written, therefore, a big chapter of Natural Philosophy anent the
" nature of the organism," i.e., concerning biological character.
Butler supposes that when a cross is too wide so that sterility
or sterility of hybrids so produced ensues, this is due to the fact
that the offspring would be " pulled hither and thither by the
conflicting memories or advices " distracted by the internal
tumult of conflicting memories.
There is (he says) a fault in the chain of associated ideas. I think
(he continues) we may also expect that no other force, save that of associa-
tion, should have power to kindle, so to speak, into the flame of action
the atomic spark of memory, which we can alone suppose to be transmitted
from one generation to another.
My comment is that before a cross can be of any real avail,
a number of definite physiological and biological requirements
has to be fulfilled. These requirements are mainly of the
symbiotic order and, ipso facto, preclude a promiscuous mixing
of conflicting memories. Before any association, physical or
mental, can be fruitful in a real sense, can take root and status
as a new form, there must exist above all the conditions for a
continuance of biological service. " Conflicts," " tumults,"
" distractions," and " faults of associated ideas " must arise
where there is a lack of reciprocal differentation, where associa-
tion unsanctioned by Nature makes inter alia for reproductive
weakness, an instance of which we saw in the case of the Crab
infested by Sacculina. Such weakness is really equivalent to
disease, testifying to the lack of viability on the part of
104 SYMBIOSIS
non-symbiotic associations. One might, in a sense, regard the
lichen as a hybrid between a fungus and an alga. This association,
because of its great bio-economic usefulness, has the fullest
sanction of Nature, which fact is expressed in health and in every
kind of viability without any symptom of " sterility of hybrids."
Everything in nature thus depends upon discriminative, i.e.,
" right " association.
The " atomic spark of memory," spoken of by Butler, is
safely supplied in Nature by symbiotic stimuli, in the case
of the animal, for instance, by plant-manufactured Vitamines,
which Dr. Funk, their discoverer, regards as the mother-sub-
stance of ferments and hormones, i.e., the regulators of health,
of growth and of reproduction.
Once the physiological connections are understood, we shall
cease to over-emphasise, with Butler, the merely psychological
factor, and to expect too much from a mere artificial cross.
Nature cannot be supposed to be after mere crossing or mere
multiplication, any more than after mere modification or mere
" familiarity." Nature is after values in the widest sense of
the word. The most desirable " familiarity " in Nature is that
between symbiotic partners, which complement but do not
devour each other, and in so doing are able to form permanent
and lastingly fruitful intimacies.
A writer so conscientious as Butler does not hesitate to admi
failures of theory. He would have considered it more par
cularly to the glory of his mnemic theory, had it accounted
satisfactorily for the difficulties presented by the problems of
hybridisation which so greatly puzzled Darwin. Whilst examin-
ing Darwin's account of these difficulties, Butler concedes that
his mnemic theory appears inadequate.
This is one of Darwin's statements from Plants and A nimals
under Domestication, referred to by Butler :
Finally, we must conclude, limited though the conclusion is, that
changed conditions of life have an especial power of acting injuriously on
the reproductive system. The whole case is quite peculiar, for these organs,
though not diseased, are thus rendered incapable of performing their
proper functions, or perform them imperfectly.
This guarded statement shows the difficulties Darwin had
with hybridisation all the greater as the rationale of health
and of disease was not clearly seen or defined in his day. We
have seen, however, that incapacity of an organ to perform
;nt
:
LIFE AND HABIT 105
its proper " function " or " duty " constitutes the very essence
of disease. Darwin at least suspected food as making a difference,
whilst Butler, failing in this instance to apply his inspiration as
regards the " thoughtfulness of food," is inclined to think that
the blame rests " with the inability on the part of the creature
reproduced to recognise the new surroundings and, hence, with
its failing to know itself," which may be quite true, so far as the
mental unfitness goes, but fails to adduce the reason for it.
Both Darwin and Butler, I believe, expected too much from a
mere cross, as though " crosses " did not depend above all for their
results on " moral signs " attached to them, i.e., on the degree
of their bio-economic sanction. The mysterious " factor,"
accounting for the reproductive weakness, for which many have
searched, whether connected with food or with memory, or with
one of these more than with another, is pre-eminently a bio-econ-
omic factor.
More signally still Butler's explanation breaks down in the
case of hybrids " which are born well-developed and healthy,
but nevertheless perfectly sterile."
Here, he thinks, it is less obvious why, having succeeded in
understanding the conflicting memories of their parents, they
should fail to produce offspring, and he is thus actually driven
to attempt what might well be called a qualitative explanation.
' There must be," he says, " on either side a very long series
of sufficiently steady memory."
The hybrid, continues Butler, may find " one single experi-
ence too small to give it the necessary faith, on the strength
of which even to try to reproduce itself." In other words, there
is a lack of orientation due to an " incompleteness " somewhere
probably in the relation with the environment. The case
thus recalls the need in health and growth generally of a
" complete diet," which need, as we have seen, has a special
bio-economic significance. The idea of " mind- vit amines,"
possibly associated with " food-vitamines " here suggests itself.
It would harmonise with Butler's contention that the organism,
in order duly to know itself, must be instinct with a deep know-
ledge of surroundings.
Butler further thinks it probable " that all our mental powers
must go through a quasi-embryological condition," which, if
true, would make it appear all the more likely that Vitamines
are required for mind as well as body. To say this is to assert,
io6 SYMBIOSIS
in so many words, that the mind, like the body, requires to be
recurrently subjected to a refining process, which is best per-
formed whilst body and mind are in the plastic state. In that
state they can best receive those subtle stimulations which we
may suppose Vitamines capable of conveying which, with the
concurrence of all organisms, tend to produce an effective and
well-balanced biological citizen. Needless to say, the view here
expressed is calculated to open up new lines of thought alike
for Philosophy and for Science. For, if it be, indeed, that in the
plastic state body and mind receive essential preliminary
cosmo- or bio-economic " education," it follows that our minds
are not so purely or exclusively human in bias as has been
supposed by some thinkers. Though it be true that, as Poincare
says, " we can only think our own thoughts," yet our obliga-
tions in the matter are more profound than he assumes. And
our minds are not so exclusively anthropomorphic in origin,
character and a^m, as a recent writer, Professor J. B. Baillie,
Hibbert Journal, April, 1917, basing himself on Poincare, assumes.
Butler was unable to carry the embryological analogy far
enough because the full significance of Fertilisation was scarcely
realised in his days. Although he is aware that Reproduction
entails a strenuous business, and that if we do not improve,
we grow worse, he fails to realise that such vital processes as
Fertilisation and Nutrition serve quite as much as safeguards
of racial and bio-economic integrity as they serve the multi-
plication of the species.
It must be admitted (Butler says), that when we come to consider
the structures as well as the instincts of some of the neuter insects, our
difficulties seem greatly increased. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten
that bees seem to know secrets about reproduction, which utterly baffle
ourselves ; for example, the queen-bee appears to know how to deposit
male or female eggs at will ; and this is a matter of almost inconceivable
sociological importance, denoting a corresponding amount of sociological
and physiological knowledge generally. It should not, then, surprise
us if the race should possess other secrets, whose working we are unable-
to follow, or even detect at all.
Finally he gets over his difficulty by saying that structure
and instinct are alike due, if not to mere memory, then, at any
rate, to " medicined " memory. He discerns at last that
memory requires appropriate food symbiotic food, as is so well
borne out by the case of the bee. I have elsewhere pointed out
that the notorious ill-effects of felonious honey-getting upon
LIFE AND HABIT 107
the bee are typical of the misere attending the non-reciprocal
life generally, though the symptoms be not always as pronounced
as they are in this case. That Butler saw the same sequence
much in the same light as I do, at least in the case of the bee,
follows from what he says on page 240, namely, that owing
to temptations bees may quit their " grave, prudent and
mercantile character " and become " exceedingly profligate
and debauched," eating up instead of saving their capital, resolved
to work no more.
According to the bio-economic view, we have here a distorted
and incomplete Symbiosis, leading, by way of reaction, to
incompleteness in the physical and mental equipment of the
bee. The case is typical of the way in which transgression
against bio-economic law in the end produces diminution, or
stoppage, of essential supplies with resulting degenerative effects
upon structure. It is possible that in their normal state the bees
know how to " handle " the Vitamines and other subtle ingredi-
ents of the food, such as are ever at the command of the symbiotic
cross-feeder. And this would indeed constitute, in Butler's
words, a matter of " almost inconceivable sociological importance"
so far as the bees' commonwealth and their business in life are
concerned. Obviously, moreover, the " knowledge " of the
bee includes the understanding of an adequate limitation of
reproduction in accordance with bio-economic contingencies.
Doubtless, the secret of the portentous " knowledge " of the
bee lies in Symbiosis, which, as we have seen, precisely provides
" well-connected " and " well-inspired" knowledge. " Complete
memory," " complete inheritance " " complete diet," and
" complete Symbiosis," thus go together.
It is clear, however, that Butler felt obliged to circumnavigate
the subject of food and feeding. As I have stated above, it was
not given to him to raise the study of food to the platform of
Bio-Economics. He confined himself instead to pointing out
the portentous importance of the subject and throwing out valuable
suggestions as to how the difficulties might one day be solved.
With his usual candour he makes further admissions of failure,
as when he says :
I grant, however, that it is hard to see how change of food and treat-
ment can puzzle an insect into such " complex growth " as that it should
make a cavity in its thigh, grow an invaluable proboscis and betray a
practical knowledge of difficult mathematical problems.
io8 SYMBIOSIS
But the resources of Nature are equal to such tasks.
Butler was not one, however, long to remain felix errore suo.
With the aid of fresh inspirations, he makes further suggestions
approaching the symbio-psychic view and visualising the quasi-
genetic value of food.
This is what he says :
The line, again, might certainly be taken that the difference in struc-
ture and instincts between neuter and fertile bees is due to the specific
effects of certain food and treatment ; yet, though one would be sorry to
set limits to the convertibility of food and genius, it seems hard to believe
that there can be any untutored food which should teach a bee to make
a hexagonal cell as soon as it was born, or which, before it was born, should
teach it to prepare such structures as it would require in after life. If,
then, food be considered as a direct agent in causing the structure and
instinct, and not an indirect agent, merely indicating to the larva that it
is to make itself after the fashion of neuter bees, then we should
bear in mind, at any rate, it has been leavened and prepared in the stomachs
of those neuter bees into which the larva is now expected to develop
itself, and may thus have in it more true germinative matter gemmules,
in fact than is commonly supposed. Food, when sufficiently assimilated
(the whole question turning upon what is " sufficiently ") becomes stored
with all the experience and memories of the assimilating creature ; corn
becomes hen, and knows nothing but hen, when hen has eaten it. (Italics
mine.)
All that is necessary to harmonise these highly suggestive
views with Bio-Economics and to overcome at the same time the
discrepancies so keenly felt by their author, is to allow that the
chief and prime " tutoring " of the food takes place at the hands
of symbiotic nature. Butler overlooks the fact which is not
without pan-psychic importance, that the bee is a symbiotic
cross-feeder, in virtue of which it receives specially prepared
surplus capital from a partner, from one who, as a result of
primordial symbiotic intimacy, has a sense of awareness concern-
ing the needs of the bees and is ideally fitted to supply these
needs. It is quite probable that the neuter bees " know " how
to supplement the natural " tutoring " of the food by some
further elaboration, in accordance with special circumstances.
Given a good fundamental biological orientation, however
unconscious, it should not be difficult for either partner in
Symbiosis to make further progressive recognitions of social
and bio-social importance. The " maturation " of the food
is commenced by the symbiotic plant. It may be carried a step
further by the animal for special purposes. And thus, in the place
LIFE AND HABIT 109
of Butler's " convertibility of food and genius," we get, more
soberly and more consistently with the hypothesis of evolution,
and even with pan-psychism itself, co-operation between animal
and plant and mutual elevation by work food being an important
medium of mutual stimulation. Instead of making the relatively
katabolic organism, the animal, perform the chief endowing of the
food, Butler should have made the relatively anabolic organism,
the plant, responsible for the chief endowment of the food.
It is quite evident, particularly from the last sentences in
Butler's suggestive passage, that there had to be a deadlock in
his mnemic theory, as indeed in any other theory of evolution,
pending the elucidation of the problem of " digestive transforma-
tion," than which there is scarcely one more important. The
difference of point of view between the one adopted by Butler
and that which I commend, is all-important. It is as one between
Nihilism on the one hand, and " Co-operation and Government "
on the other.
The whole matter is so important that a digression on the
subject will not be out of place. Butler, in common with other
writers, shows himself a " Nihilist " in so far as he assumes that
" devouring " and complete " assimilation " of one organism by
another produces the good effects, which are really due to
Symbiosis. The animal, according to the " nihilistic " view,
has a genius peculiar to itself, and, in devouring the plant, or the
corn, " dislodges " and " annihilates " the plant genius, " con-
verting," or " assimilating " it at the same time. But the case
does not stand quite so nihilistically, and there is far more
co-equality of genius and also of service between plant and
animal than we are led by him to suppose. The contribution
of the plant to animal endowment, which is of course very con-
siderable, is by no means a one-sided and arbitrary business,
based, as it is commonly thought, upon depredation. It is rather
one of mutual penetration the best balance being struck when
" corn " becomes as much " hen " as " hen " becomes " corn " ;
the resulting mutual " understanding " being essential to, and
collectively benefiting, the welfare of plant and animal kingdoms.
We have quite recently obtained some light as regards the
mechanism of " digestive transformation " characteristic of animal
life. In the main what information has been gained, tends
to confirm my generalisation concerning the superiority of cross-
over in-feeding and to corroborate my contention concerning the
no SYMBIOSIS
wholesome, energising, regulating and restraining role played
by symbiotic food. Just as in the case of plant nutrition,
treated of in the second chapter, so as regards animal nutrition,
we have learnt that it is the simple materials which chiefly
count. Though we use proteins for instance, it is their con-
stituents, the amino-acids, which are really wanted. These
are the indispensable " building-stones " in animal nutrition
and they are for the most part manufactured by the plant. They
are produced not only for the support of the plant's own off-
spring, but also for the purpose of " export," i.e., the support of
the animal as the biological partner of the plant.
From a paper on The Bio-chemical Analysis of Nutrition,
by C. L. Alsberg (U. S. Bureau of Chemistry) in the Scientific
American, Supplement, 24th March, 1917, we gather the follow-
ing : In Liebig's time proteins were regarded as that element of
the food which supplied the material for growth, tissue main-
tenance and repair, as well as for most of the energy. It was
however soon demonstrated that while proteins did and could
furnish energy, under ordinary conditions this was supplied in
the main by sugar and other carbo-hydrates and by catabolised
fats [i.e., the materials chiefly drawn from cross-feeding]. For
long it was held that one protein was of about as much dietary
value as another, which, however, was found to be an erroneous
notion. Then a startling discovery published in 1901, by Loewi
tended to show that it was not absolutely necessary to life that
protein be an element of the diet at all. What is really indis
pensable is a suitable mixture of " building stones," i.e., amino-
acids ordinary organic acids in which one or two hydrogen
atoms have been replaced by the amino group NH 2 . The
proteins are combinations of a number of these amino-acids
with one another. It should be theoretically possible, says
Dr. Alsberg, to supply the " so-called " protein needs of animals
by wholly artificial substances, such as the seventeen or eighteen
pure crystalline amino-acids that we knew of. [This I venture
to interpret as meaning that normally the animal can well be fed
by the surplus " building stones " of the plant.]
On the matter of the " conversion " of proteins by means of
digestion, it will be best to quote Dr. Alsberg in extenso : This
is what he states :
Whatever may be the ultimate practical significance of the observa-
tions that animals can supply themselves with most or all of their nitrogen
LIFE AND HABIT HI
needs by means of synthetic amino-acids, these experiments have led
to investigations that have explained much that has been obscure in
the physiology of nutrition. Formerly it was believed that proteins when
ingested were digested by the enzymes of the intestinal tract and con-
verted into simpler substances in the main albumoses and peptones,
which were absorbed. These albumoses and peptones, while simpler
than most food proteins, are nevertheless, still very complex substances.
It \\ as believed that they are absorbed and then converted by the animal
into the protein characteristic of that particular animal. How that con-
version was accomplished was not understood. Now every species of
animal and plant has its own characteristic proteins. The proteins of
even closely related species are different. The proteins of the food supply
are quite different from those of the animal taking that food. Much work
was done to explain how the proteins of the food were converted into
proteins of the body and where this conversion took place. At first it
was believed to occur in the blcod. Later a difference of opinion arose
as to whether it took place in the tissues or in the intestinal wall. As
food proteins could be demonstrated in neither place, the matter remained
unsettled. We know to-day that neither hypothesis is tenable. Proteins
are not ordinarily absorbed as such. They are completely dismembered
within the intestinal canal into their component amino-acids and these
are absorbed. As long as it was not known that an animal can be main-
tained upon pure synthetic amino-acids, no one had any reason to believe
that proteins were completely digested before absorption. (Italics mine.)
These explanations should do away with the theory pro-
pounded in all seriousness by some writers that the most ideal
food is that obtainable through in-feeding, and that in the case
of man, for instance, the ideal diet would be human flesh.
It should do away with the more widely held absurdity that one
organism inevitably needs to kill, to absorb, and to " assimilate "
another in order to satisfy its real food needs. The fact that
proteins are completely digested, i.e., broken up before absorp-
tion, moreover, is not only interesting in connection with the fact
that an animal can be maintained upon pure synthetic amino-
acids. It also shows, in my opinion, that highly complex proteins
are not really wanted as food. True, it is part of the function
of the digestive tract to get rid of impurities and non-congenial
substances. But we must not abuse our digestive and elimina-
tive powers by food that is too rich, i.e., too complex. The best
materials that our diet can ever furnish are the " building stones "
coming originally from the plant, and these make no undue
claims on digestion and elimination. The really vital and
abiding union sought after in animal nutrition, is between the
amino-acids of the plant and the blood of the animal. It is in
conformity with the principle of reciprocity or reciprocal
differentiation that we want in our diet " quite different proteins "
H2 SYMBIOSIS
to those forming our own bodies. We want in fact symbiotic
cross-food or spare-food capital, which contains the vital ammo-
acids fit for reciprocity in ideal association with other indispen-
sable " export " material of the plant. It is partly because of
our long-standing transgression against the norm of feeding that
we are provided with the cumber of a long digestive tract, which
serves the secondary purpose of separating the useful from the
unnecessary in our diets.
Elimination and the further fate of the absorbed ammo-
acids is thus described by Dr. Alsberg :
As ordinary diet may contain more nitrogenous material than is
needed by the organism, a part of the amino-acids is changed within the
walls of the intestinal canal by the removal of the amino-group to form
ammonia. As this takes place in the presence of carbonic acid, ammonium
carbonate and ammonium carbamate are formed. It has recently been
found that there is an equilibrium between these two substances, so that
where one is present in solution there is also found a definite amount
of the other. It is an easy step from ammonium carbamate to urea.
Thus the amino-group split off from the amino-acid in the intestinal wall
or elsewhere is ultimately converted into urea and excreted. There are
probably other methods of the formation of urea, as, for example, by
cleavage from arginine which contains a guanidine grouping closely related
to urea. After the removal of the amino-group from the amino-acids
there is left a carbonaceous residue which may be burned to furnish
energy, perhaps directly, perhaps after conversion into sugar. A portion
of the amino-acids absorbed by the intestines is not, however, deprived
of its nitrogen, [it is only the " too much nitrogen " that we are to be
safeguarded against as long as possible], but passes into the blood stream
from which it is absorbed by each individual cell according to that
cell's particular needs. [Real or pathological needs, I should, however,
add, for it is a notorious fact that as Emerson has stated, we breed men
with too much " guano " in their composition, which is saying in other
words that many cells have developed exorbitant nitrogen appetites.]
The cell then reconstructs from these amino-acids its own characteristic
protein. [The reduction process being accomplished with more or less
efficiency, the animal cell at last obtains a modest portion of indispensable
" cross-food " and can now, thus impregnated, " generate " its own
characteristic, yet in a sense " heterozygous " proteins. " Crossing,"
in the wider sense, is thus again seen to contain a secret of evolution.]
Thus it is possible to explain in a comparatively simple manner how, for
example, wheat protein [cross-food] when fed to an animal is converted
into the characteristic protein of that animal. It is done by the cells
of the tissues from amino-acids supplied to the cells by the blood, the
blood receiving the amino-acids from the intestinal wall.
I should say, however, that the animal receives the amino-
acids from the laboratory of the plant by reason of the
LIFE AND HABIT 113
Symbiosis existing between plant and animal. Their ultimate
conversion by the blood and the tissues traced by modern
science represents but a final phase of the real Bio-chemistry
of food.
It is not " wheat," therefore, or " corn," that become " hen "
in the sense that the individualities of the herbs find their
consummation by being taken up into that of " hen." It is
only the amino-acids manufactured by these herbs in their
bio-chemical laboratory for " export " that go to form the
characteristic proteins of the " hen, "yielding all the while to the
latter a number of indispensable good influences, which go to
" convert " the animal, so far as its character and its " psyche "
are concerned, quite as much as the amino-acids of the plant
are eventually converted into the characteristic protein of the
animal. It is a case of the digestive transformation of special
substances in the ordinary course of Symbiosis far from
inevitably necessitating the devouring of producer by consumer.
The animal, Dr. Alsberg tells us, is incapable of manufactur-
ing for itself certain amino-acids [which it yet requires]. The
plant, however, is capable of making all the amino-acids
necessary to support its own life [and, I should add, enough
to spare]. Whether or not an animal can build up its own tissue
protein depends upon the supply of amino-acids. Failing these,
it suffers a kind of starvation.
The importance of other influences conveyed by symbiotic
food may be seen from the further fact communicated by Dr.
Alsberg to the effect that lime juice, for instance, which is a valu-
able anti-scorbutic, contains unusually stable Vitamines : " It
has been suggested " he says, " that the free organic acid present
in the lime juice protects the anti-scorbutic substances."
Evidently the most ideal substances for animal diet and the
most ideal blends of substances are to be found amongst the
spare foods of plants, which foods are distinguished from the
" untutored " food spoken of by Butler in that they are derived
from an adequate symbiotic relation between supplier and
supplied. " Untutored " food, in the sense of lacking such
essential bio-economic qualification, i.e., special preparation
and maturation by a willing partner, is unsuitable food apt
to be the cause of disease and of a morbid Pan-Psychism.
Butler, as the champion of Lamarck, whose leading ideas,
according to him, had been much used though with anything but
ii4 SYMBIOSIS
due acknowledgment, took exception to the following, oft-
quoted passage from the Origin :
In the case of the mistletoe, which draws its nourishment from certain
trees, which has seeds that must be transported by certain birds and
which has flowers with separate sexes absolutely requiring the agency
of certain insects to bring pollen from one flower to another, it is equally
preposterous to account for the structure of this parasite with its relations
to several distinct organic beings by the effect of external conditions, or
of habit, or of the volition of the plant itself.
Certainly it would not do to account for this case with any
one of these factors alone. We require an explanation that does
justice to all the factors. The question, however, is, to which
of these factors we are to assign chief importance. In my
opinion, it is to" sociological "or bio-economic factors standing
out prominently even in Darwin's account that the chief
importance is due.
Butler protests that Darwin makes the case of the mistletoe
look more formidable than it really is. Yet, it is clear that he
himself cannot here fully meet the difficulty. He says this :
Neither plant nor bird knew how far they were going or saw more
than a very little ahead as to the means of remedying this or that with
which they were dissatisfied, or of getting this or that which they desired ;
but given perceptions at all, and a sense of needs and of the gratification
of those needs, and thus hope and fear, and a sense of content and dis-
content given also that some individuals have those powers in a higher
degree than others given also continued personality and memory over a
vast extent of time and the whole phenomena of species and genera
resolve themselves into an illustration of the old proverb, that what is one
man's meat is another man's poison.
A critic might justly say that this explanation is too purely
psychological, that it fails to do justice to the biological (bio-
social) factor, and that the answer that " what is one man's
meat is another man's poison " provides too superficial an
account of the diversification of species and genera with their
manifold and important correlations. This proverb furnishes
far too bald a statement of the biological law, which, according
to Butler's own subsequent inspirations, involves a number of bio-
or quasi-moral obligations on the part of the organism.
The bald explanation merely slurs over inter-connectedness.
It may be true in a sense, in the case of the mistletoe, that plant
and bird (and cross-fertilising insect) each and all merely stumbled
upon their special relation, which yet proved of great mutual
LIFE AND HABIT 115
benefit. But it must be borne in mind that similar inter-
connectedness has always been the law of their being, and that
their special inter-connectedness, therefore, is by no means so
casual a matter as at first glance it looks. The special case of
the mistletoe merely consists in this : that we have here a partial
loss of the symbiotic sense, a retrogression from an erstwhile
purely symbiotic relation, inasmuch as the plant draws non-
reciprocally on another organism, namely the tree. The mistle-
toe presents an instance of a striking concomitance of a parasitic
with a symbiotic relation and of corresponding anomalies of
structure. It is this concomitance which introduces the com-
plexity and which is responsible for the difficulties of interpreta-
tion which baffled Darwin and many others.
In the case of bio-economic retrogression, a kind of imbrioglio
is sure to arise in the constitution of the organism. The com-
ponents introduced by degenerative tendencies become variously
blended with, and superposed upon, the components of health.
The result may be a very heterogeneous mixture, a condominium
of components good and bad, ancient and modern. It may be
said that the very capacity for progress acquired painfully during
millenniums of symbiotic evolution, may come to be employed
by the organism retrogressively in accordance with a lazy
compliance with low conditions rather than in accordance with
progressive efforts. I consider the case of the mistletoe to be one
of this kind a case of partly disintegrated symbiotic integrity.
The mistletoe has by no means descended to the depth of a rank
parasite. The fact of the green colouration of its leaves alone
shows that this plant is not entirely devoid of wholesome bio-
economic activities. How are Biologists to distinguish what
is due to Symbiosis in an organism from what is due to parasitic
influences ? The reading of the respective symptoms will be
done by each according to his abilities of diagnosing Health and
Disease, according to the distinctions he is wont to draw as regards
values generally. So long as in the absence of agreement as to
" values," we have no definite biological analysis, the case of the
mistletoe of course, must remain perplexing.
The need of tackling anew the problem of Variation in this
connection, has caused Butler to expand his " Mnemo-Lamarck-
ism " into an interpretation more specifically sociological, and
hence more satisfactory, than his previous view to the effect
that the saying that "what is one man's meat is another man's
n6 SYMBIOSIS
poison " provides the best key to an understanding of " modi-
fication " and species-formation. Variations, he says, are pro-
bably less blind than we think, "if we could know the whole
truth," and he proceeds to connect the trend of variations with
the gradual growth of " organic wealth " through work. Limbs
or instincts, all alike, he would but regard as the things that
organisms " have bought with their money, or with money that
has been left them by their forefathers, which, though it is
neither silver, nor gold, but faith and protoplasm only, is good
money and capital notwithstanding."
Butler does not think that the desire of the organism is the
sole cause of variations, but, in a passage which may be regarded
as an attempt at a blend of Lamarckism with Darwinism, h<
suggests that there is a mutual determination of some sort between
organism and "environment." He admits readily that
The common course of nature would both cause many variations to arise
independently of any desire on the part of the animal and would al
preserve and accumulate such variations when they had arisen. Bu1
(he goes on to say), I can no more believe that the wonderful adaptatioi
of structure to needs, which we see around us in such an infinite numbei
of plants and animals, can have arisen without a perception of those needs
on the part of the creature in whom the structure appears, than I cai
believe that the form of the dray-horse or greyhound so well adaptec
both to the needs of the animal in his daily service to man and to the
desires of man, that the creature should do him this daily service can
have arisen without any desire on man's part to produce this particular
structure, or without the inherited habit of performing the corresponding
actions for man, on the part of the greyhound and dray-horse.
There is then something of importance attributable to the
"common course of nature" whatever this course may be.
This something operates over and above volition, over and above
memory although it is not unconnected with either. I think it
is now evident that Symbiosis with its momenta provides the best
clue to an understanding of the mysterious influence, not dis-
sociable from volition and memory, yet inherent in the " common
course of nature." It is in Symbiogenesis that I believe we have
an explanation of the way in which the tendencies of the organism
are being made use of in the preservation and accumulation of
variations in accordance with their merits. We can believe this
without having in any way to deny the concurrence of mind and
of volition on the part of the organism. How otherwise puzzling
the subject of variations remains may best be seen from a.
LIFE AND HABIT 117
statement by Geddes and Thomson in their little work on
Evolution (pp. 141, 142). They tell us that it is quite impossible
at present to say how variations arise.
We know very little, they say, that is certain in regard to the origina-
ting factors in evolution. We must still confess, with Darwin : " Our
ignorance of the laws of variation is profound."
Weismann has suggested that the oscillations and changes in the
blood and other nutritive fluids may stimulate the germ-plasm to a new
departure. It may also be that important changes in the environment
may saturate through the body and provoke the germ -plasm to vary.
There are other " may be's."
The suggestions thus thrown out are not antagonistic to the
symbiogenetic view. It is only necessary to realise the quasi-
genetic value of food and its role as mediator between organism
and the environment in order to understand how the symbio-
genetic and symbio -psychic complex of life produces an urge
consistent only with the highest good of the organic world, which
urge is enough to call forth and to direct variations as required
in the normal course of life.
After telling us that Lamarck's theory fell into disrepute,
partly because his ideas were too startling to be capable of ready
fusion with existing ideas, Butler asserts that the main cause
of evolution must be looked for, as Lamarck insisted, in the
needs and experiences of the creatures varying, and in this
connection he attacks once more the problem of Variation
thus :
Unless we can explain the origin of variations, we are met by the
unexpected at every step in the progress of a creature from its original
homogeneous condition to its differentiation, we will say, as an elephant ;
so that to say that an elephant has become an elephant through the
accumulation of vast numbers of small, fortuitous, but unexplained,
variations in some lower creatures, is really to say that it has become an
elephant owing to a series of causes about which we know nothing whatever,
or, in other words, that one does not know how it came to be an elephant.
But to say that an elephant has become an elephant owing to a series of
variations, nine-tenths of which were caused by the wishes of the creature,
or creatures from which the elephant is descended this is to offer a reason,
and definitely put the insoluble one step further back.
A good beginning towards explaining the origin of variations
is undoubtedly made by pointing to the volition of the original
creature. But it is only a beginning, and it does not go far
enough.
It is well to go back for a clue to the " original creature " ;
but the volition and interests of one organism are constantly
n8 SYMBIOSIS
met by those of others, and there is, therefore, a perennial need
of harmonious mutual accommodation and a commensurate
eternal obligation of good biological conduct all progressive
evolution being in accordance with such conduct.
Variations may be viewed as procreations owing everything
to biological support and dependent in turn upon biological,
i.e., bio-social sanction. The elephant, no doubt, is a " mighty "
creature. It must have had a very viable protoplasm to star/t
with, as indeed we should expect in the case of a cross-feeder.
It is possible that it is the yearning of every species to become
mighty, to replenish and inherit the earth. Such yearning,
however, is futile if the commensurate fundamental conditions
have not first been supplied through adequate cross-feeding and
adequate Symbiosis. This is the great law of which Butler
evidently had a presentiment. Seeing how great is the number
of species that have failed and that the elephant itself is a failure,
in as much as it verges as a species on senescence, I would
correct Butler by the addendum that the norm of variations
is due to " healthy " volition. The elephant, though a cross-
feeder, has yet become highly predaceous and destructive vis-d-vis
to plant-life, and has therefore failed to make right symbiotic
use of its powers. The eventual attainment of monstrous size
by this species, therefore, is a poor achievement of " appetency."
In my opinion it has been attained somewhat pathologically.
Malformation and monstrosity may arise simply from absence
of certain essential ingredients of the food. I consider mon-
strosity of species to be due to a gradual evolutionary form of
giant's disease, a fact upon which I have insisted in all my writings.
The plant yields a " complete diet " only to those animals which
are restrained and industrious in their habits and treat it with
symbiotic forbearance. Predaceous animals must be satisfied
with what I believe is inferior pabulum, which may be the cause
of disease.
Butler's suggestion, therefore, that nine variations out of ten
are due to " appetency " is an exaggeration ; or at any rate
it needs the qualification that only healthy wishes can be fruit-
ful. We get, however, once more, from Butler the important
recognition that there are " f good " ways and " bad " ways of
living , it being left to the reader's judgment to supply the
necessary distinctions and criteria. We are told : "An animal
which discovers the good way will gradually develop further
LIFE AND HABIT ng
powers, and so species will get further and further apart."
The " bad " so we are left to infer, are left behind or eliminated.
In the place of Darwin's statement that although he (Darwin)
sees no good evidence of the existence in organic beings of a
tendency towards progressive development, yet this necessarily
follows through the continued action of natural selection,
Butler will have it simply that plants and animals have only
an innate power to vary slightly in accordance with changed
conditions. Butler further says that they have an innate
capability of being affected both in structure and instinct, by
causes similar to those which we observe to affect ourselves.
The case of Lamarckian " appetency " is put more forcibly still
in the following passage, which may be said to foreshadow the
coming of a theory of conduct pure and simple :
One neither finds nor expects much a priori knowledge, whether in man
or beast ; but one does find some little in the beginnings of, and through-
out the development of, every habit, at the commencement of which,
and on every successive improvement in which, deductive and inductive
methods are, as it were, fused. Thus the effect where we can best watch
its causes, seems mainly produced by a desire for a definite object in
some cases a serious and sensible desire, in others an idle one, in others
again, a mistaken one ; and sometimes by a. blunder which, in the hands
of an otherwise able creature, has turned up trumps. In wild animals
and plants the divergences have been accumulated, if they answered to
the prolonged desires of the creature itself, and if these desires were to its
true ultimate good ; with plants or animals- under domestication they have
been accumulated if they answered a little to the original wishes of the
creature, and much to the wishes of man. As long as man continued
to like them, they would be advantageous to the creature ; when he
tired of them, they would be disadvantageous to it, and would accumulate
no longer. Surely the results produced in the adaptation of structure
to need among many plants and insects are better accounted for on this,
which I suppose to be Lamarck's view, namely, by supposing that what
goes on amongst ourselves has gone on amongst all creatures, than by
supposing that these adaptations are the results of perfectly blind and
unintelligent variations.
What emerges is this : the accumulation of variations is
according to " values " rather than " wishes." The clause
" if these desires were to its ultimate good " gives away the case
for mere " wishes." Moreover, if, by hypothesis, we are to credit
creatures with little a priori knowledge, we could scarcely credit
them with profound enough wishes to procure the great end of
their " true ultimate good." Something bigger than mere
wishing is wanted to obtain this. And this something, I contend.
120
SYMBIOSIS
is the co-operative urge of things. It is Symbiogenesis, more
precisely, that directs the long protracted gestation processes
of Nature and thereby also determines the preservation of the
most widely useful variations.
Butler saw that Domestication presents a narrower, more
casual, arbitrary and lopsided biological relation than is
presented by the case of species under Nature. Evidently
creatures or races obliged to submit too exclusively and too
one-sidedly to the desires and whims of others, lose thereby the
power of determining their own good. Too occupied with
merely expedient necessities, they are virtually slaves. Slavery
cannot breed healthy wishes in master or slave ; and for this
reason alone it could never obtain the sanction of Nature. Hence
it is that in the past all civilisations, organic or human, based
upon the principle of slavery, have ended in failure. Just as
Nature abhors perpetual in-breeding, and I believe also per-
petual in-feeding, so I believe she " abhors " slavery. The
reason is the same in every case : What is really wanted is the
maintenance of bio-economic integrity, independence of every
species though in due inter-dependence with others the very
antithesis of slavery. The conclusion is that the evolution of
life is indispensably connected with Bio-Economics and Bio-
Morality.
PART II
CHAPTER I
" NORMALS "
DR. J. S. HALDANE and other eminent physiologists have insisted
that recent study of " normals," i.e., the persistent and constant
behaviour shown by the parts of the body in all important life-
functions, makes for an entirely new interpretation of Physiology.
Dr. Haldane tells us that physiological study and biological
study generally seem to make it clear that throughout all the
detail of physiological reaction and anatomical structure we can
discern the maintenance of an articulated or organised normal.
There is, for example, as he points out, an almost incredible
constancy in the composition of the blood, and there are similar
constants or normals with regard to our body temperature and
with regard to respiration and nutrition. Were it not for these
normals, Dr. Haldane tells us, the reactions of the cells would
become chaotic, and their structure would be completely altered
if not destroyed. Living organisms, according to Dr. Haldane,
seek to meet all disturbances imposed upon them in such a way
as to maintain the " normal " in essential points. Wherever
we look we find " normals " to which return is made with sur-
prising persistence and accuracy. By " normal " is meant
' ' not what is average, but what is normal in the biological sense
(italics mine). Dr. Haldane speaks of the condition in which
the organism is maintaining in integrity all the inter-connected
" normals " which manifest themselves in both bodily structure
and activity. The " normals " indeed, he avers, are the
expression of what the organism is.
Now, in my opinion, the study of " normals," especially
when duly expanded to comprise " causes," is of almost incon-
ceivable importance, as I hope to have to some extent shown
by my repeated demonstration of the " normal " of feeding
and of its importance in determining normal, i.e., physiological
^growth and normal or physiological evolution, as distinguished
122 SYMBIOSIS
from abnormal or pathological growth and evolution. Such
study is apt to reveal not only a few diagnostically interesting
data, but, what is more, it reveals the fundamental Economy
of Nature, with its demand for definite duty, definite constitu-
tion, and definite integrity, a demand made on all participants
in the cosmic scheme, organic or inorganic, in the interest of ?]1.
The " normals " may thus be viewed as an expression of the
requirements of mutual accommodation of all systems in the
cos os. Biological " normals " in especial may be viewed as
connected with biological accommodation, past and present,
of the organism.
Let us take as an example the " normals " of respiration
and of feeding. So far as respiration and nutrition are con-
cerned, as is well known, plant and animal to a certain extent
mutually complement each other. It is a case of past mutual
evolution, of simple and collective Symbiosis. Without the
symbiotic share of the plant and without adequate degrees of
symbiotic reaction on the part of the animal, the normals of
respiration and of nutrition existing in the physiological economy
of the animal could never have been evolved or maintained.
I go further and declare that without Symbiosis nothing but
chaotic action and reaction could have taken place. We have
seen that but for the restraints entailed by the symbiotic
regime, the conduct and the feeding methods of organisms are
apt to become chaotic, whilst the organism itself becomes
debauched and tends towards monstrosity and general abnor-
mality.
The breathing, so Dr. Haldane tells us, " is more or less
regulated to correspond with the consumption of oxygen and
the production of carbon dioxide in the body." It is thus obvious
that the " normal " of respiration is intimately connected with
work, with the general biological activities and the biological
relations of the animal. Symbiosis, as we have seen, implies,
systematic and constant though modest and wholesome activity,
which means regular and wholesome exercise for the lungs, thus
enabling them to regulate breathing in an economical manner.
It is also evident that the supply of carbo-hydrates by the
symbiotic plant must largely determine the carbon dioxide
production of the animal. The capacity of the plant to supply
carbo-hydrates depends in turn upon the treatment and the
general support it receives from the animal as the biological
"NORMALS" 123
partner. The important fact of such partnership, however, is
generally overlooked.
An example of the way in which Symbiosis is under-estimated
even by the most broad-minded of Biologists may be gleaned
from Dr. H. F. Osborn's recent essays on The Origin of
Evolution and of Life. He admits that plants establish a
marvellous series of life environment interactions, but says
that this is done first with the developing insect life, and
" finally " with the 'developing bird life. It must be clear by
now that these interactions by no means cease with birds.
They embrace all the highest types of life as well, and, the higher
we ascend in the evolutionary scale, the more vitally important
they become. The development of the mammals, for instance,
would have been quite impossible without an adequate supply
of Vitamines. What supplies these Vitamines ? The plant.
The plant alone (though in many ways symbiotically supported
by the animal) is capable of manufacturing Vitamines.
I would point out, moreover, that it is not only amongst
birds but more particularly amongst mammals that adaptation
to a fruit diet has reached striking degrees of perfection, which
shows that Symbiosis with plant life represents the norm of
animal life.
CHAPTER II
LA VIE NORMALE
LONG before I began writing on " Evolution " I had satisfied
myself by years of observation that there existed amongst
organisms, including man, a vast amount of pathological develop-
ment connected with change of form, with outgrowths and
excrescences of all kinds, and, particularly with abnormal or
" teratological " increase of size, affecting not only single organs
or individuals, but in the end even whole groups, species and
genera, and diminishing their chances of life.
Naturally I sought for the cause of the phenomenon. As
a medical student, it struck me that it would be of the utmost
importance if an inquiry into these matters were to bring out
as I believe it has brought out the exact separating lines
between Physiology and Pathology.
As a result of many years of investigation and after carefully
checking and counter-checking my results, I have arrived at
the conclusion that the general cause of pathological change
of form is ill-feeding and a consequent diathesis a predisposi-
tion to a well-marked pathological process. It remained to be
seen, however, why some feeding habits, more than others, produce
pathological increase of size, augmenting with a kind of arith-
metical progression with every succeeding generation. There
was moreover the geological fact, that side by side with the
monsters there had remained those types a kind of normal
kin which have not undergone a startling increase of size nor
developed a tendency to disease and early senescence. What
kind of good fortune, of virtue or integrity, has been theirs to
differentiate them so favourably from the monsters ? My
analysis has brought out the fact that the normal kin are those
which have remained tolerably faithful to a mode of feeding
which is bio-economically sound, entailing forbearance with
life, i.e., the live-and-let-live principle such as that governing
the relations between partners in Symbiosis. The normal organ-
ism, in fact, is that which is a symbiotic cross-feeder, though
it be not physically attached to the biological partner. The
124
LA VIE NORM ALE 125
verdict of geological history in these matters is this, that con-
stitution, health and form of organisms are pre-eminently
determined by bio-economic factors, demanding above all recipro-
city and moderation from all forms of life. The evidence of the
rocks, re-inforced by clinical experience, bears witness to the fact
that there is a normal life, i.e., one characterised by normal
industry, normal nuirition and normal form. These conjoint
normals I have found owe their existence to a normal, i.e.,
mainly co-operative or symbiotic relation as between organism
and biological community at large. The non-symbiotic relation,
on the other hand, being apt to lead to unrestrained and
unredemptive self-indulgence, easily tends to pervert and to
undermine those " normals " with the result of comparatively
licentious growth. The organism lives for self rather than for
the common good. What it gains on the one hand, it loses,
however, on the other. That is to say, its gains of size are at
the expense of biological support and sanction and of survival-
capacity. Here then we have the dividing line between phy-
siological and pathological development. In my books on
Nutrition and Evolution and Survival and Reproduction I
have treated of teratology and monstrosity, and of sexual
dimorphism (antithesis of size) from the same point of view as
here set forth. The subject is dealt with more particularly
from the medical point of view in my little work on Evolution
by Co-operation (1913), where special references may be seen
on pages 6, 64-6, 69, 77-79, 171, 186-7. On P a g e 66 of that book,
moreover, attention is specially called to the deterioration of
character as a concomitant of the acromegalic diathesis. As
instances of pathological increase of size in Nature, I have
mentioned the dinosauria, the living and extinct monstrous
birds, the whales and elephants, the monstrous insects and
monstrous plants. I have also tried to show that the more
intense the degree of " in-feeding," or of depredation on the part,
of a species, the more pronounced is the (parasitic) diathesis
and the resulting monstrosity.
I have further demonstrated (p. 79) that inversely, with a
return to a more symbiotic mode of life, i.e., with a re-conversion
from in- to cross-feeding, the diathesis may be reduced, the
organism returning to a more normal condition of size. The
acromegalic diathesis, however, is hereditary, and, though a
cure by reconversion be possible, in the majority of cases found
126 SYMBIOSIS
in Nature, the acromegalic organism is past praying for, i.e.,
the diathesis has too far progressed for cure. In my paper
before the British Association, Section I., 1912, I pointed out
that " in-feeding " and the ensuing metabolic abnormality are
the causes of antithetic and teratological developments, of sexual
dimorphism, female preponderance in parthenogenesis, and of
those phenomena of increase of size during palaeontological
periods which Cope's law takes into account.
Unfortunately the reviewing of my books in Nature is
generally done with others en bloc. Mr. A. E. Crawley, to whose
lot it fell to report on Evolution by Co-operation (iQth March,
1914) in company with five other volumes, merely contented
himself (in a quite sympathetic report) with the statement that
my book contained " interesting observations on the fallacy
of in-feeding, which is parallel to in-breeding."
Now, however, according to a full-dress review in Nature,
19th July, 1917, by Professor A. Keith, another writer,
Dr. Rene Larger, has come forward with a theory of contre-
evolution, purporting to show that
Gigantism and acromegaly may attack not an individual here and there
.as among mankind, but may break out in a whole species or genus, so
that all the individuals become affected, at first with a moderate degree
of acromegaly, but finally with an unrestrained pitch of gigantism, in
which condition the whole race or family finally perishes. He is of opinion
(the reviewer continues), that this theory explains many facts, which now
seem obscure to those who are studying living and extinct forms of animal
life. He selects his examples from the great dinosaurians, the living and
extinct great birds, and whales, elephants and anthropoids as mammalian
representatives.
Dr. Larger apparently connects the pathology in the case
of animals (to which it is by no means confined) with a disordered
state of the glands of the body, in particular the pituitary gland.
Whilst claiming priority for the application of a comprehen-
sive pathological theory to the extinction of species, I welcome Dr.
Larger's version as a kindred theory to mine, though one that does
not seem to go far enough into the true causes of the disease. I
hope that his work will help to call attention to " Evolutional
Pathology," a chapter of Evolution which I have never tired
of stressing as of the utmost importance. I have no fault to find
with Dr. Larger, who seems to have developed his theory quite
independently of my writings. I could wish, however, that my
principal theses had not been slurred over in scientific reviews.
LA VIE NORMALE 127
where a little information about the contents of the books would
have been appropriate. I would further point out that, as a
scientific thinker, I cannot countenance the view that a species
has been " attacked " by a disease, leaving the matter at that.
I hold that every effect, physiological or biological, good or
bad, has had a commensurate cause, and, hence, that a disease
so serious as acromegaly must originate in some serious trans-
gression against natural law. This, I know, is a novel and
therefore strange point of view, but one, nevertheless, which
must prevail.
We have seen that function rests on " duty " and that even
the so-called " physiological economy " of the body is governed
by strict laws of biological co-operation. The activity of the
glands in particular depends primarily upon food which either
makes or mars the organism in accordance with the biological
equity of its food-getting. To see that this is so, requires nothing
more than a quite legitimate expansion of the principle of cause
and effect to the subjects of physiological and biological
" economy."
Having reluctantly said so much pro domo, I would once
more emphasise the fact that the normal and ideal life is never
the life of indulgence. This truth may be said to be the bio-
logical counterpart of the Christian teaching that it is easier for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich
man to enter into Heaven.
The rich man is the most apt to be tempted to self-indulgence
which leads to physical and mental perversions detrimental to
ultimate survival. And this is also why the vox populi may at
times be worth listening to. It may, and frequently does,
represent the wisdom of " la vie normale " and as such proves
a valuable corrective of " acromegalic " tendencies in politics, etc.
We can thus better understand Ruskin, whose paramount teaching
was that the increase of both honour and beauty is habitually
on the side of restraint, declaring that
Out of the peat-cottage come faith, courage, self-sacrifice, purity and
piety, and whatever else is fruitful in the work of Heaven ; out of the ivory
palace come treachery, cruelty, cowardice, idolatry, bestiality whatever
else is fruitful in the work of Hell.
It has been said that the fat man knoweth not what the
lean man thinketh ; and if, as is evident from history and
from biology, a kind of diathesis may slowly spread amongst
128 SYMBIOSIS
whole groups of organisms, including man, we may conclude
that such a calamity is apt to lead in turn to serious mutual
" misunderstandings," to incompatibilities, and even to deadly
antagonisms between normal and abnormal classes or races of
men. It will be found that the acromegalic class increasingly
embraces a philosophy of life akin to one we have lately heard
a good deal of, namely, that of the " superman." These
" philosophers " will insist on the superiority of their acromegalic
instincts and appetites, despising the mentality of the moderate
classes as one needing " vertebration."
I have hinted in Chapter IV. at the danger of a perversion of
true thought by bad instincts, ^sop in his fable of the Wolf
and the Lamb, seems to have clearly realised already that the
Philosophy of the in-feeder is different from, and incompa-
tible with, that of the cross-feeder. After all the cross might
not be a bad symbol for Biology.
CHAPTER III
THE VALUE OF ABSTEMIOUSNESS
PROFESSOR C. M. CHILD has recently brought out a remarkable
volume entitled Senescence and Rejuvenescence, which,
according to Nature, provides " strong biological argument
for asceticism."
For fifteen years Professor Child has been making researches
upon the age changes of lower animals. His results go to show
that fasting and periodic starvation are fairly generally con-
ducive to rejuvenescence. With abundant food, so he tells us,
some species may pass through their whole life history in three
or four weeks, but when growth is prevented through loss of
food, they may continue active and young for at least three
years.
Partial starvation inhibits senescence. The starveling is brought back
from an advanced age to the beginning of post-embryonic life ; it is almost
re -born.
It must at once be said that with the higher forms of animals
the possibilities of rejuvenescence are more narrowly limited
than with the lower forms, amongst which it is quite a feature.
Nevertheless, according to Professor Child, it can be stated that
in the organic world generally rejuvenescence is just as funda-
mental and important a process as senescence. In the Planarian
.worms which formed the chief subjects of Professor Child's
experiments, it was found that the animals reduced in size by
starvation resembled the young animals. It is as though these
organisms were able to make use of their surplus material by
turning it into a new source of energy, thus regaining j^outh.
Most readers will be familiar with the phenomena of seedless
propagation, which method is involved in Professor Child's
experiments. It is a form of propagation very common amongst
plants, as when we propagate them by " cuttings," or " buds/*
or " runners," for instance. There is nothing new in the fact
that parts of a plant or of a primitive animal are able to recon-
stitute the whole organism. The novel point is that such
" reconstituted " organisms are, according to Professor Child's
129 10
130 SYMBIOSIS
tests, " physiologically younger " than those from which they
came. " The degree of rejuvenescence," so we learn, "is in
general proportionate to the degree of re-organisation in the
process of reconstitution of the piece into a whole."
There is good reason to believe, even apart from this evidence,
that the virtue of the processes of re-organisation and reconsti-
tution here concerned lies in the fact of a simultaneous reduction
of what is best described as a " nutritive overflow." For under
what circumstances do such modes of propagation as usual with
these Planarians occur in Nature ? They occur chiefly among
parasites whose existence depends upon over-abundance of nutri-
tion and on sluggishness of life. A fair amount of biological
observation goes to show that in nearly all such cases good
results ensue from a reduction of conditions favourable to surfeit.
A return to moderation, be it voluntary or involuntary, may
have the effect, for instance, of bringing back the higher forms
of propagation conjugation or sexual reproduction proper
in the place of asexual reproduction. It may have the effect,
in other instances, of bringing back the male after many
generations of Parthenogenesis. Moderation, in short, is seen
to make for virility and health throughout the animal and
vegetable kingdoms.
Evidence of similar good effects of abstemiousness in the
case of man was produced a few years ago by another investi-
gator, Professor Carlson, also of the Chicago University. He
tried on himself the effects of a protracted fast, and felt at the
end of it as if he had had a month's vacation in the mountains.
The mind was unusually clear, and a greater amount of mental
and physical work was accomplished without fatigue. A five
day's starvation period increased the vigour of the gastric
hunger contraction to that of a young man of twenty to twenty-
five (the age of the experimenter being thirty-eight). This
increased vigour was retained for at least three weeks after the
hunger period. A distinct rejuvenescence was thus observed
to result from a fast. Nor were the experiments confined to a
single individual or left unconfirmed by ordinary scientific
tests.
CHAPTER IV
PARASITISM v. SYMBIOSIS
THE conclusion is unavoidable from all the foregoing that Para-
sitism presents an " immoral " relation, the " bad " and truly
" diabolical " feature of which consists precisely in the deadly
way in which it antagonises the " moral," or " spiritual " prin-
ciple of " live and let live." In his little work on Plant Life,
Professor J. B. Farmer, F.R.S., tells us that some of the non-
green plants show " an almost diabolical ingenuity of physio-
logical action, as, for example, when some of the parasites, by
emitting an attractive excretion, cause their victims to actually
grow towards them."
This being the case, it is all the more curious that Biologists
fail to recognise that the principle of Parasitism differs toto
coelo from that of Symbiosis. Professor Farmer, for instance,
although conceding that Symbiosis may be a means whereby
different species of plants achieve mutual benefits, economic
and otherwise, and hinting even that it may be one of the
" secret " methods and processes by which progressive evolution
has been brought about, yet provides the following, almost
paradoxical, definition of Symbiosis :
There are many other instances of remarkable associations of two or
more plants, in which each is in turn more or less parasitic on the other
or, at the least, lives on the waste products formed as the result of the
chemical life processes of its associate. Such an association is often spoken
of as symbiosis, but it is evident that the transition from symbiosis to parasit-
ism is only a matter of degree. (Italics mine.)
This exposition is inadequate and misleading. It is putting
the " good " symbiotic on the same level with the " bad " para-
sitic principle, which is far from satisfactory. Surely if waste
products or, for that matter, any surplus products whatever
come to be exchanged between " associates," this does not
constitute a case of Parasitism, though there be otherwise in
Nature a frequent occurrence of the transition from Symbiosis
to Parasitism. Such an exchange, however crude at first,
forms, on the contrary, the most essential basis of the " good,"
132 SYMBIOSIS
" moral," reciprocal and healthy life of organisms. Shall
we for ever continue to interpret Nature in terms of the chaotic,
the diabolical and abnormal rather than in terms of the indus-
trious, moral and normal relations of life ? If one organism
exploits another without any counter-service, this is Parasitism
the definition is clear and unequivocal. As a result of such
exploitation there is ultimately weakness and loss of viability
on both sides, and the biological community, too, is a loser
thereby. If a relation long held to be parasitical, on closer
examination is yet discovered to exhibit an appreciable amount
of counter-service and of avail towards life, such relation should
pro tanto, if not altogether, be considered as symbiotic. The
wisest course will be to give a suspect species the benefit of a
doubt. Prof. Farmer takes the view that the widespread and
important relations between fungi and the roots of flowering
plants, for instance, represent a " not very one-sided parasitism/'
In my opinion the relation constitutes, on the contrary, a case
of Symbiosis, though partially marred by abuse, by the recurrence
of depredation. Inasmuch as the relation is thus marred, there
is failure of permanence. The same botanist tells us that this
association of the root with a fungus is a very intimate one in a
large number of instances, and that it occurs in a very great
number of plants which would never be suspected of parasitic
habits.
Obviously the general character of the plants concerned is
too high to warrant a sweeping indictment. The further facts,
communicated by the same author, may be said to speak for
themselves :
The roots of many of our forest trees produce few or no root-hairs.
Instead of this they are closely invested with a hairy coating of fungal
hyphae. Not only do these hyphae ramify in the soil, but they also enter
the root itself. Sometimes, as in the pines, they only pass between the
cells, and do not enter them, but in other cases, as for example, in orchids
generally, they pierce the cell walls and enter the living cells. In both
of these types of mycorhiza the fungus is doubtless attracted to the root
by substances which have a food value for its hyphae, just as parasitic
fungi are induced to enter the bodies of their victims. But in a mycorhizal
association the cells of the root control the degree of invasiveness which the
fungus can manifest, and not only so, but they often proceed to actually
digest the fungus itself after it has flourished within them, and at their
expense for a while. We have here, then, a beautiful example of two-
sided parasitism, in which the final balance of profit very clearly lies with
the flowering plant. It is practically certain that the fungus obtains
PARASITISM v. SYMBIOSIS 133
some carbohydrate food, at first at any rate, but in return for k this the
plant acquires mineral substances in solution, which the fungus absorbs
from the soil. A considerable number of flowering plants are unable to
thrive unless their roots become infected in this way. (Italics mine.)
Evidently we have here a relation of immense mutual advan-
tage, entailing immense benefits also to the biological community
at large. The relation involves sacrifices and risks such as the
frailty of life everywhere entails. The sacrifices on the part
of the fungus do not appear to be excessive, if we consider its
low status and the concomitant inability to serve in more perfect
ways. Having lost chlorophyll, and, hence, the secret of the
essential photosynthetic industry of plants, the fungus has, in
its own interest, to be useful as best it may and as its powers allow
it to be. The status of the higher plant, fortunately, is in itself
a certain guarantee against excessive exploitation of " helpers "
the conspicuous industry and vigour of which (relative to their
lowliness) is the best testimonial to the forbearance of their
" employers." Obviously the benefits conferred by the relation
upon the flowering plant and the world of life generally are very
great. The benefits which the fungus receives may be greater
than we at present know. The fungus certainly stands in urgent
need of Carbohydrates, which an adequate exchange relation
with the higher plant can best supply. The fungus pays the price
for what it receives. I would here point out that though the
" employment " of the fungus be characterised by considerable
degrees of compulsoriness, it is a very different thing to be con-
strained to industry, to mutual aid, and to " fair " service by
strenuous and cross-feeding organisms, so modestly and symbio-
tically disposed as our higher flowering plants, from being forced
to yield to totally one-sided " diabolical " exploitation, as, for
example, in the case of the crab parasitised by Sacculina. In
this sense, too, I am willing to believe that service was at first
compulsory or obligatory. After all, service is the most beneficial
necessity the sweetest of luxuries. But service is a different
matter from slavery, and there is a vast difference in results.
The " beautiful example of two-sided parasitism," therefore,
on due analysis, emerges as an example of Symbiosis, with mutual
service and general avail towards life well accentuated in strong
contrast to what results from Parasitism.
So in the case of the leguminous plants, the associated bacillus of which,
when provided by the pea or the clover with carbohydrate food, is able to
134 SYMBIOSIS
manufacture the essential nitrogenous compounds " necessary for the
production of protoplasm, by utilising the free nitrogen of the air." (Italics
mine.)
Bacillus radicola (says Prof. Farmer), is one of the very few organisms
capable of performing the really stupendous task of forcing the very inert
element nitrogen into combinations, provided that it is supplied with the
means of obtaining the energy required for the process in the form of appro-
priate carbohydrate nutrition. (Italics mine.)
All of which provides an account of genuine work and industry,
of mutual effort, mutual stimulation, and mutual elevation
of a desirable kind the very opposite of what is ascribable to
Parasitism. Obviously " Capital " and " Labour " have here
found a fairly satisfactory modus vivendi having regard more-
over to the existing inequalities of status.
We are told that the Leguminosae have by no means abandoned
the absorption of nitrates from the soil. They are far from
showing symptoms of degeneration. It even becomes almost
unthinkable, according to Prof. Farmer, that degeneration of
leaf structure could occur,
inasmuch as the continuous supply of carbohydrates from the green
parts is a prime condition of the nitrogen synthesis.
The importance to the organic world of these plants which bring
nitrogen into combination (Prof. Farmer continues) in a form that can.
be utilised by living beings is overwhelming. For apart from some means
of maintaining the supplies of nitrogenous food, life itself would ultimately
cease to be possible in the world.
The interests of the " associates," as of the world at large,
therefore, make it imperative that essential industries shall not
be interfered with to any large extent. The industries of the
bacillus and of the plant are inter-dependent in the building up
from the raw materials of " the stuff from which protoplasm itself
can be made." That is to say, that protoplasm itself owes its
existence and maintenance to Symbiosis. The object of Para-
sitism is to obtain supplies of protoplasm by stealth and murder
instead of honest toil, and thus it is really countervailing the
central industry of life and constituting the opposite pole to
Symbiosis.
Again, when Prof. Farmer, speaking of what he conceives to
be true Symbiosis, namely, in the case of the Hchen, tells us :
The symbiosis only continues to pay as long as the alga is properly
exposed to light, and for so long as it is properly supplied with water,
together with the small amount of mineral food it requires
(the latter offices being largely discharged by the fungus), this
PARASITISM v. SYMBIOSIS 135
need by no means to be read as in any way derogatory to the
high function of Symbiosis. On the contrary. The writer has
merely demonstrated in other words that the requirements of
Symbiosis in the vegetable world are : work, photosynthesis,
reciprocity and commensurate " cross-feeding." Now Para-
sitism antagonises every one of these factors. How can it be said
to approximate to Symbiosis ? Evidently the most essential
industry of all, that of photosynthesis, imperatively demands
cross-feeding, as a guarantee of continuity. Shall we then be so
ill-advised as almost to identify Symbiosis with Parasitism because
at the lower rungs of evolution, or in associations comprising the
most primitive of organisms with little development of
" character " the risk is that the delicate requirements of
Symbiosis may be occasionally infringed ; because abuse of power
is a common occurrence, and because transitions from a life of
strenuous labour to one of unholy idleness are always possible ?
Though it be quite true that any infringement of its rules
interferes with Symbiosis and makes the association pro tanto
" unpayable," yet we have seen that permanence of healthy
association is in the path of Symbiosis and of Symbiosis alone.
There is, of course, more or less " payability " in the different
forms of Symbiosis, and the least " payable " forms may be said
to approximate the least offensive forms of Parasitism. But,
as I have said before, we should not confine our attention to those
cases of Symbiosis which hover on the borderland of Parasitism.
We should study Symbiosis in its unattached and collective forms
in order to obtain a just and comprehensive estimate of its
significance, its value and of the way it is sanctioned by Nature.
What Prof. Farmer says on another page respecting the immense
importance of the elaboration of chlorophyll, that it is " fraught
with consequences to the whole organic world compared with'
which all the other structural products of evolutionary change
sink into insignificance and obscurity," applies with equal force
to the importance of organic reciprocity and of the necessarily
implied cross-feeding.
Work, reciprocity, and cross-feeding, these are the factors
constituting " la vie normale," notwithstanding all interferences
to the contrary. We may glean further confirmation of this
truth from the following of Prof. Farmer's statements :
Lichens (he says) are particularly instructive in showing that the
form assumed by an organism is in the long run determined by the chemical
136 SYMBIOSIS
reactions [work, domestic and bio-economic] that have gone on and are
still going on within it. These reactions are nicely adjusted, and are
readily interfered with or encouraged by the conditions under which they
take place. The result is perceived in a delicate adjustment of growth
whereby the different parts are so correlated to each other [complete
domestic and biological reciprocity] that excessive development of one
part carries with it its own order of arrest [moderation a condition of
reciprocity] whilst deflection of nutrition to or from any part will, of course,
correspondingly effect growth in that region [the avoidance of antithetic
developments of growth depends upon the earning of such food as is most
calculated to maintain the utmost unity in the diversity of parts].
I should say that the instructiveness of the case of the lichen
consists in the proof it affords of the truth that only the right
kind of work can produce the right kind of reaction, both chemical
and biological, and, further, that the right kind of work requires
the right or ideal kind of food, namely, such as is non-perverting,
having regard to efficiency and permanence of effort and to
the delicate requirements of mutual accommodation by the
method of reciprocal differentiation.
In telling us of the dreadful ravages of parasites amongst
plants, Prof. Farmer points out that we know very little, as yet,
about the nature of " constitutional " resistance (to disease or
infection), which nescience is not surprising failing the important
recognition that health and disease follow in the wake of two
antagonistic forces, represented by Symbiosis and Parasitism
respectively. Prof. Farmer further says that the environment
plays a part in increasing liability to infection, without, however,
attempting to specify this part, or to tell us what may be due to
" sociological " action and reaction as between organism and the
bio-social environment. We are merely told that " presence
of nitrogenous manure in excessive quantities " is a " predisposing
cause of fungal attack." " It operates in several ways, but often
indirectly by causing an undue accumulation of soluble nutritious
substances in tissues and cells, the walls of which are imperfectly
thickened " (a kind of "osteoporosis," in fact !).
I would, however, point out in this connection that we have
here precisely an illustration of the general ill-effects of " in-
feeding," with its exaggerated reliance upon organic, and more
particularly, nitrogenous material obtained in the majority of
cases by the lazy method of " short cuts," i.e., without due work
and exercise and without due biological forbearance, such as are
entailed in genuine organic reciprocity. We may conclude that
PARASITISM v. SYMBIOSIS 137
a method of life which is sociologically inferior, in the end leads
to many deleterious reactions, to physiological weakness, to
susceptibility and to disease.
It is highly suggestive in this connection that, as Prof. Farmer
says, the predisposition to infection in plants is probably connected
with a disturbance of the photosynthetic processes, i.e., socio-
logically speaking, an interference with an essential and widely
useful industry, and further, that the " whole matter of immunity
is evidently very closely related with nutrition," which again
cannot surprise us, as we have now fully seen that a disturbance
of nutrition may throw out of gear what is all -import ant, namely,
the highly specialised system of mutual industries upon which
is based " organic civilisation."
As Prof. Farmer himself says in the case of flowering parasites,
which have lost their chlorophyll : " There is the strongest
possible evidence that the change has come about in correlation
with the altered conditions of nutrition."
The chief correlation in this connection, in my opinion, is
the sociological correlation, which means loss of biological support
and of biological sanction. Nor is it that Prof. Farmer is
entirely blind to sociological correlations. As a broad-minded
observer, he at least calls attention to the existence of sociological
sequence on one or two occasions. The tacit implication, how-
ever, is that such occasional sociological illuminations are to be
regarded as ornamental rather than real an undue limitation, it
seems to me, of the application of Science.
The following passage bears out my remarks, whilst it may be
said at the same time to afford an excellent illustration of the
strength and persistence among plants of what I have termed
the " symbiotic sense " :
It is not a little curious that in a large family of plants like the Loran-
thaceae, to which both Loranthus and the Mistletoe belong, some species
should not have advanced still farther in the parasitic direction. But
although nearly all of them draw their water supplies from another plant,
they have never taken the final step of absorbing from it the organic food.
They have consequently, or perhaps one should say correlatively, retained
their leaves, and all the complexity of structure which, as we have seen,
the presence of the green leaf entails.
Evidently the retention of some degree of status by a plant
is not compatible with large steps in the parasitic direction, with
lazy indulgence in food, or with a surrender of the strenuous
symbiotic sense which at the same time makes for forbearance
138 SYMBIOSIS
with associated life. More pronouncedly " sociological " still,
Prof. Farmer continues thus :
The parasitic habit has appeared independently in a number of other
families of flowering plants. In some of them it is characteristic of practi-
cally all the members, just as in the Loranthaceae mentioned above. As
a matter of fact, in very many of the larger natural orders or families we
also find species which have more or less broken away from the ranks
of typical green plants in connection with their assumption of saprophytic
or parasitic habits. Sometimes we can construct, within the limits of nearly
related groups, all the stages, starting from a sort of dalliance with
robbery which is hardly betrayed by any essential structural change, but
culminating in species which, so far as their vegetative structure is con-
cerned, have lost all resemblance to the forms of higher plants. Thus
in the alliance or family to which the snapdragon belongs, the familiar
little Eye-bright (Euphrasia), abundant on grassy downs, the pink Louse-
wort (Pedicularis) of the marshes, and the yellow Cow-wheat (Melam-
pyrum) of the woods, all have begun to supplement the legitimate stock
of food which they manufacture for themselves by stealing from adjacent
plants. (Italics mine.)
We have seen that the saprophytically inclined fungi amongst
plants may yet, by hard physical work, as humble wage-earners
(though somewhat precariously) redeem their existence and play
ft useful part in organic civilisation. Their lowliness of disposition
does not, however, entitle them to a high kind of partnership.
What emerges more particularly from considerations such as
these is this, that the science of Biology could and should
become of immense value as an aid in the conduct of life. It
could and should show abundantly, what is of the utmost impor-
tance to know, that it is the conscientious organism alone which,
strictly pursuing a legitimate pathway of life, and refusing to
dally with evil, in the end achieves successful survival.
CHAPTER V
THE LAW OF SYMBIOTIC MODERATION
THE application of the important law of symbiotic moderation is
strikingly shown in the phenomena of sexual Symbiosis, as will
be seen from a brief consideration of some of the data of Vege-
tative and Sexual Reproduction, to be gleaned from Prof. J. B.
Farmer's Plant Life.
Reproduction, in its simplest and most primitive form,
according to this Botanist, is one of the most obvious results of
growth. "It represents, after a fashion, and in a certain tangible
form, the balance of profit over expenditure on the part of the
individual, which is applied to the extension of the business of
the species or race."
This commendable attenpt at an economic interpretation
of the reproductive process, is yet, in my opinion, rather incom-
plete. It does not allow for the difference between a. false and a
genuine " business," a false or genuine " profit," which difference
yet exists and depends upon "sociological" or bio-social factors,
analogous to those governing the growth of wealth in human
societies.
The nutritional processes (so we are told) which enabled growth to
proceed have prepared the way for, and have then given way to, a new
set of chemical processes, and these result in the cleavage of the mass into
smaller parts. (Italics mine.)
Here again we have a confirmation of the fact that bio-
chemical processes are anything but primary determinants in
organic developments. They are, on the contrary, themselves
determined by nutritional processes, which, as we have seen, are
in turn regulated by ps3^chical and bio-economic factors, i.e., by
the use the organism makes of its powers of autonomy and of
industry. With these qualifications, it may be said that nutri-
tional processes, by directing the bio-chemical processes, determine
the phenomena of reproduction, simple or complex, as Prof.
Farmer insists they do. Simple cell -multiplication, according
to Prof. Farmer, is most often determined by "an abundant
supply of nutrition."
139
140 SYMBIOSIS
Multiplicative processes, however, as we are soon reminded,
are not identical with those of growth, and, " both in the fungi
and in other lowly plants, nutrition sets other processes in action
which lead to the formation of various sorts of specialised
reproductive cells." (Italics mine.)
What emerges is this : great abundance of nutrition sets in
action chemical processes favourable to mere multiplication, to
mere reproduction rather than higher-production. The pro-
duction of the " higher " i.e., more specialised, reproductive cells
requires a new kind of chemical processes. Who or what is it
that sets these new chemical processes into action ?
Prof. Farmer simply says nutrition. But this reply sets
us asking how is it that nutrition, or nutritional chemistry, are
able to determine both, mere redundant cell-multiplication, and
the almost opposite result of the formation of highly specialised
non-redundant reproductive cells ? How is it in particular
that a strictly limited nutrition seems more apt to conduce to
progressive chemical processes with commensurate progressive
effects upon reproductive specialisation and evolution generally
than almost unlimited nutrition ? In order to answer these
important questions, we must get behind nutrition as it were,
and discover how it becomes capable of influences other than
merely sustaining.
Obviously, in the choosing, earning and using of food, the
factor of autonomy comes into play. Though this autonomy be
incipient on the lowest rungs of evolution, and apt to be at the
mercy of many foreign influences, yet it is a quantity by no means
to be despised one indeed of increasing paramountcy with every
forward step of evolution. Moreover, the organism as a member of
the biological community, is activated also by a kind of corporate
autonomy, which is of some considerable significance and must be
taken into account. The corporate autonomy represents the
greater experience, the maturer wisdom of the race. It is apt to
direct choice of food material, and, in general, use of ways and
means, towards communal and co-operative purposes suiting as
far as possible the wider ends of life. " Private " autonomy, owing
to the frailty of life, is often at variance with corporate autonomy,
opposing and frustrating its ends. Harmony between the two
autonomies produces the best results in evolution, such results
expressing themselves in gains of individuality, in gains of
chemical powers and of status. Given such harmony, food and
THE LAW OF SYMBIOTIC MODERATION 141
nutrition may be said to play the role of servants rather than of
masters. Indulgence is avoided, and choice and use of food are
so regulated as to serve the highest ends of the community pan
passu with those of individuality rather than those of the opposite
purpose, of mere sense gratification with unrestrained multiplica-
tion. Such is the way in which genuine " profits " are arrived
at in evolution. The way involves the roots of honour. Dis-
harmony of autonomies, on the other hand, leads, by way of a
loss of sense of proportion, to more or less " extreme determina-
tion " of the organism by the environment. Food and nutrition
become, as it were, the masters, at the expense of autonomy and
of progressive evolution. Notwithstanding superabundance of
nutrition, there is no genuine profit. There is, on the contrary,
a loss. Everywhere we get a contrasting evolutionary result in
accordance as to whether nutrition is the servant or the master
of the organism. It may be said, therefore, that the adage
" noblesse oblige " is as old as the hills. " Private " autonomy
has had to submit to limitations, to the superior demands of
communal autonomy from the first, and this in view of the
interdependence of life, and inasmuch as a gain of individuality
could only have been accomplished with the aid and sanction
of others of biological helpers, as instanced by the phenomena
of Symbiosis. We have seen that the system of natural ethics
as entailed by Symbiosis is all-important to life. We are
warranted, therefore, in interpreting the almost universal need
of restraint of feeding, characteristic of the reproductive period
of higher organisms, as typifying the law of " symbiotic
moderation."
Such, then, is the secret of the mysterious protean power of
nutritio-i a power varying in evolutionary effects with auto-
nomy, with conscience, with honour, with duty. More often
than not, the important " geistige Band " (spiritual nexus), as
Goethe would have termed the relation of individual to communal
autonomy, is overlooked, with the result that the true and
complete significance of nutrition is lost sight of. Specialists
abhor inter-connections, and the specialists of inter-connection
itself are few and timid. To put the case of nutrition differently,
we may say that if the " business " of a species is at all needed
in the organic world, there have to be furnished adequate supplies
of food energy from the common fund of life, both for
maintenance and for reproduction. A species may be considered
142 SYMBIOSIS
as a branch of the tree of life, the branch receiving its main
directions of growth from the tree, which in the first place furnishes
pabulum and restraints adequate to the widest contingencies of
life the autonomy of the branch being subordinate to that of
the tree. The well-being of the tree depends in turn upon the
work of its branches ; tree and branches mutually determine each
other. That individuality looms behind the processes of
Nutrition and Reproduction, is adumbrated by Prof. Farmer,
when he says, for instance, that :
In the evolution of the more complex plants, the cells the primitive
individuals become organised into a higher individuality, or when he
shows that the nucleus, the true determinator of hereditary qualities and
of the chemical changes proceeding within the protoplasm, is the seat of
individuality.
To make individuality the starting point of our investigations,
is undoubtedly the best method of obtaining light on the other-
wise mysterious ways of nutrition. Such method enables us
to transcend the narrow confines of physical, chemical and
physiological divisions and leads to a comprehensive view of the
matter without injustice to any one associated factor. It throws
light on the great significance of food habits for instance. It
enables us better to realise how it is that different food habits
must eventually entail different lines of evolution.
Prof. Farmer recognises that there is a great change of point
of view if instead of thinking of the multiplication of cells as
reproduction in the abstract (irrespective of individuality), we
think of the unit organism (the individual) undergoing trans-
formation . The latter point of view he would apply more specially
to the higher, i.e., more complex forms of Reproduction, e.g.,
when new colonies of cells, and not new cells merely, are started ;
that is to say, when individuality and the necessarily implied
autonomy come more pronouncedly into purview.
Coming to sexual reproduction proper, we learn that it
occurs in almost all the divisions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms,
although it has not as yet been detected in some of the lower groups.
These consist either of organisms of extreme simplicity, or of those in which
we have grounds for believing that sexuality has been lost, probably in
connection with special conditions of nutrition. In some of the higher
plants the sexual function has degenerated, though we cannot clearly
trace the loss to any definite cause.
Bio-economically speaking, the loss referred to in this passage
is one that has to do, I believe, with bad methods of food-getting,
THE LAW OF SYMBIOTIC MODERATION 143
rendering the " business " and " profits " of the species illegitimate,
and virtually constituting a divorce from biological Symbiosis,
with the result of a distortion of domestic and sexual Symbiosis.
It is clear that a considerable degree of co-ordination, of co-
operation, of dutiful and complete performance of function,
is required from every part of a complex organisation in order
that it may duly procreate the polity as a whole a process which
probably, as Darwin suggested, and recent research seems to some
extent to confirm, involves a complicated method of Pangenesis,
together with other complicated processes entailed in fertilisation .
Sexual reproduction, in other words, in order to be successful,
requires the co-operation of all the conditions favourable to a
high degree of reciprocity, such as effort and adequate moderation
and restraint in fact the identical conditions which we have
found to be indispensable to successful biological Symbiosis.
The " reduction " processes characteristic of fertilisation may be
viewed as purporting in part the return to conditions of
simplicity and of moderation in the very constitution of the
organism ; and fertilisation itself may be regarded as in part a
process of rejuvenation by means of a riddance of superfluous
material superfluous " profits." The organism is passed through
the unicellular stage so as to be equipped (so that the race may
be restarted) with all, but with no more than what is strictly
necessary, for perfect socio-physiological function. Where surfeit,
i.e., over-feeding, occurs, fertilisation is altogether impeded. A
fast is often the equivalent of fertilisation in restoring rejuven-
escence to the species . Evidence of this effect may be abundantly
culled from Prof. Farmer's pages, who also notes in this connection
the antithesis on which I have insisted between individuality and
redundancy, as when he says that
The sexual act itself stands in strong antithesis to vegetative propa-
gation, for it does not directly involve an increase, but a reduction in the
number of cells. Two cells which we may call the gametes, are concerned
in the process, and they invariably coalesce to form one the zygote.
The uniting cells, I would add, stand in a relation of reciprocal
differentiation to one another, that is in a symbiotic relation a
truth which needs emphasising over and over again. The
behaviour of the uniting cells warrants the inference that they
conform to the rules of Symbiosis. On any other explanation
their behaviour is quite unintelligible and mysterious, as the
144 SYMBIOSIS
following passage abundantly, confirms. Thus in the case of
Chlamydomonas media, we are told :
It is possible to maintain the plant, apparently for an indefinite period,
in a state of vegetatively active growth. On the other hand, it may with
almost equal certainty be compelled to enter on the sexually reproductive
phase of its life. A sudden starvation, if previously well nourished, and
so long as the organisms are exposed to light, will at once bring about
the change that leads to the formation of gametes. But we may at once
confess that we do not as yet understand how these conditions work in pro-
ducing the observed effects. Nor are we able to form a clear idea as to why
the addition of nutritive salts to the water in which the chlamydomonas
is living suffices at once to arrest sexual development, and to switch the
life processes back on to the vegetative course ; so much so, indeed, that
even gametes can develop independently, and in a vegetative manner,
i.e., without any sexual union. But the effects of sudden starvation on
previously well-nourished organisms are well known to conduce [as long
since laid down by Herbert Spencer] to the development of sexual repro-
ductive organs. In a chlamydomonas, the organism and the sexual cell
are practically identical, and it is in the highest degree suggestive to find
that what stimulates the production of sexual organs in a complex and
highly differentiated plant, will also cause the undifferentiated primitive
one also to enter on a sexual condition or phase. Moreover, the converse
is also true, though it is often less easily demonstrated. For a reversal
of the conditions that led to the development of the sexual state will
arrest it, and cause not only lowly, but many of the higher plants to resume
their vegetative growth. Some of the malformations often seen in flower-
ing plants, as the consequence of injudicious manuring, represent the
results of the antagonism between the sexual and vegetative functions.
(Italics mine.)
And what is it that these typical phenomena are so highly
suggestive of ? It is this : that the requirements of inter-
dependence are such as to impose upon organisms the necessity
of strict limitation of sense gratification contrary to the current
idea that all appetites are equally normal and equally sanctioned
in Nature. The proviso, " if previously well nourished," signifies
that at one time there was an impeding overflow of nutrition,
due to indulgence. - With a return to a tolerable physiological
rectitude of life to symbiotic moderation the sense of proportion
reasserts itself, and the organism, duly receiving again support
and sanction, progresses along the path of increased individuality
and increased biological specialisation. The return of sex proper,
with its normal proportions of numbers, coincides in every case
with the return of the species from a career of non-symbiotic
indulgence to one of symbiotic rectitude. A plant injudiciously
manured, is a plant injudiciously fed, and, hence, interfered
with in its general integrity, with the result of pathological
THE LAW OF SYMBIOTIC MODERATION 145
development such as malformation or monstrosity. I would
recall the famous experiments of Maupas with a common infusorian
(Leucophrys patula), showing that with plant food (cross-feeding)
the rate of asexual reproduction is much less than with animal
food (in-feeding), reproduction tending towards conjugation
the higher mode rather than towards fission the lower mode.
In the same way, Yung, who fed tadpoles alternatively on beef,
fish and frog's flesh (note the gradual intensification of the in-
feeding), obtained the following results as regards the ratio of
male and female : first brood percentage of females, 54-78 ;
second brood, 61-81 ; third, 56-92. (The tadpole in the normal
state is a cross-feeder ; but such considerations are usually entirely
disregarded.)
As soon as we recognise that normal life is characterised by
symbiotic proportions, the mystery of not a few experimental
results is easily solved. Invariably it will be found that the
lower forms of propagation are associated with lower forms of
Symbiosis, and that the respective inferior bio-social methods
of life lead to various incompatibilities, as between the contrasting
interests of the lower and the higher orders of life. The
antagonism between the reproductive and vegetative functions
is an fond the antagonism between progressive and reactionary
bio-social tendencies within the great world society formed by
plants and animals on our globe. The " sociological " interpre-
tation of nature is thus congruous with common sense, with
observed facts, and congruous also with our best knowledge.
CHAPTER VI
THE BIO-ECONOMICS OF INTERNAL SECRETIONS
THE subject of internal secretions is coming into great prominence
in Physiology. Mr. P. G. Stiles tells us in the Scientific American,
Supplement, No. 2,169, that it will doubtless occupy a larger
and larger place in future expositions of Physiology. This is
what we are told by way of introduction to the subject :
One need not be a profound student of science to appreciate that
the co-ordination of activities is a most striking fact of animal life. What
happens in one place is adapted to what is occurring at another. It may
fairly be claimed that each part acts more distinctly for the good of the
whole than for its own advantage. Clearly, this could not be the case
if there were not some mode of transmitting influences from organ to organ.
When one considers the possible means of such transmission, the nervous
system is at once suggested. This wonderful structure is so fashioned
that, conceivably, any part of the body may definitely affect any other.
It is in this respect like a telephone exchange which affords to each sub-
scriber the opportunity to communicate with any other. The nervous
system has long been looked upon as the essential instrument of co-ordina-
tion. A second possibility has lately become unexpectedly prominent.
It is the transmission of chemically active products through the medium
of the circulation. Such products of the tissues are usually called internal
secretions. A compound added to the blood by one organ, will, within
a minute, be quite uniformly diffused over the whole body. There is no
way to limit its distribution and bring it all to bear upon a restricted
portion of the system. In this respect the interchange of influences by
means of internal secretions lacks the refinement and precision which
characterise the nervous correlation. We have to do with a set of drugs
which, like those administered by the physician, must be offered to all
the tissues to those which seem indifferent as well as to those which
are evidently responsive.
It is clear that Mr. Stiles visualises the internal or " physio-
logical " economy of the animal as constituting essentially a
case of Symbiosis. There is at least in normal days, we may
assume, a pronounced systematic reciprocity between the parts.
If it can be said that " each part acts more distinctly for
the good of the whole than for its own advantage," then we
have here, not a mysterious altruism, but a symbiotic sub-
ordination of minor autonomies to superior autonomy. The
146
BIO-ECONOMICS OF INTERNAL SECRETIONS 147
greater good of the community takes precedence. The principle
involved implies that no part or organism can afford to be riotously
indulgent in any of their ways, lest this lead to serious clashes
in the shape of antagonism, warfare, infection and disease. The
significance of internal secretions, therefore, cannot be even
half understood by exclusive reference to mechanical transmission
of chemically active products. It is the partnership and " duty "
aspect of the matter which is of paramount importance.
We have to do with substances secreted by one organ
which can influence others at a distance : chemically and
without intervention of the nervous system. This, according
to the orthodox Physiologist, is remarkable, for he has hitherto
looked upon the nervous system as enjoying the monopoly in
co-ordination, seeing that it physically attaches organ to
organ. In the absence of such attachment, the Physiologist
finds co-ordination difficult to understand. Yet with the now
disclosed fact of marvellous " stimulation at a distance/'
" physical attachment " must retreat into the background and
make room for co-operation evolved and irrespective of
attachment. The term " internal secretions " is to some
extent a misnomer, inasmuch as it is apt to cause it to be over-
looked that the vital potencies of these body-fluids are in reality
derived from the plant, which alone possesses the necessary
synthetic powers of manufacture. Mr. Stiles probably takes it
for granted that the ingredients of the glands must first be in the
blood, and, again, that in order to be there, they must first be in
the food. But he does not tackle the subject of origins in this
connection, and, in my opinion, rather detracts from the impor-
tance of glandular secretions by identifying them with drugs . This
identification he tries to justify by saying that in either case the
stimulation is offered in toto, i.t., diffused by the blood over the
whole body. But there is a vast difference in the respective
applications. The drugs of the physician are something artificial
and may or may not reach the part they are intended for.
They may or they may not effect the desired changes. Though
they reach the affected parts, they may do such damage to others
as to render more difficult than ever the restoration of the
natural balance of secretions on which health depends. The
internal secretions, on the other hand, have behind them, as
the norm of life, the sanction of symbiotic evolution and
are, therefore, ideally adapted as natural media of harmonious
148 SYMBIOSIS
stimulation. If, as Mr. Stiles says, there is no way of limiting
their distribution and bringing them to bear upon a restricted
portion of the system, as might be conceivably of some benefit in
the application of drugs, such limitation of the operation of
internal secretions may not be in the least desirable or beneficial
to the organism. I should say that health and growth depend
precisely upon a uniform diffusion of these special products of
the joint evolution of plant and animal, the effect of which
is to stimulate all parts harmoniously to co-operative and widely
useful work. Mr. Stiles concedes that the body needs a " slow
and uniform delivery " of internal secretions, as though having
regard to the requirements of symbiotic moderation. It is not
enough, however, to say that the glands, as the suppliers of
indispensable normal stimulations, work according to " duty,"
and to leave it there. We must recognise that they require in
turn to be treated according to " duty." For instance, they
require to be supplied by the organism with raw material that
avails to life in the fullest sense of the word. This necessitates
an adequate supply of special, matured food food, instinct;
with influences congenial to a permanent and harmonious co-
operation of the parts. And such " tutored " food, increasing
in adequacy with every higher degree of Symbiosis, and ideally
equipped with potencies diff usable with great benefit and with-
out injury over the co-evolved animal body, can only be-
obtained with the help of symbiotic vegetable partners.
We are told :
At the back of the abdominal cavity, above the kidneys, are the paired
structures known as the adrenal bodies. Insignificant as they appear,
they are vital organs, the removal of which is followed swiftly by prostra-
tion and death. Something must go out from them which gives tone
and efficiency to more than one system. When the adrenals are gradually
wasted by disease, the failure of strength corresponds with the degree
of their destruction. Their extracts do not successfully compensate for
the lack of living cells ; the body seems to need a slow, uniform delivery
of this internal secretion, and periodic dosing does not prove equivalent
to the natural condition.
And what, again, is the " natural condition " in which all
the parts may be slowly and uniformly, i.e., moderately and
harmoniously supplied in a manner not to be equalled by
artificial means ? It is the condition provided by a symbiotic
relation with the implied reliability of support and the
BIO-ECONOMICS OF INTERNAL SECRETIONS 149
implied constancy and regularity of exercise of the parts.
There are also internal secretions at particular times, and
Mr. Stiles tells us that
we have the best of evidence that the adrenals can thus be thrown into
a temporary activity far beyond their ordinary performance. The par-
ticular occasion for this is one of stress and excitement. It has been clearly
proved that at such times the chief product of the adrenal cells (adrenin)
is increased in the blood. It has also been proved that this internal
secretion confers upon an individual the utmost command of his physical
resources.
We may take it that great irregularity of glandular action,
commensurate with the irregularity of ill-gotten supplies, is the
norm amongst predaceous species, which, as the result, if they
have more excitement of life, are yet in the end left with
diminished strength and endurance, and with uncouth, ill-shapen
bodies. As regards the origin of Adrenaline, according to Prof.
Gowland Hopkins (see his Presidential Address to Section I.,
Brit. Assoc., 1913), it is derived from one of the " aromatic "
amino-acids, i.e., in my view, from one of the " building stones "
specially hall-marked as of vegetable extraction. Prof. Hopkins
remarks in this connection : " Facts of this kind will form a
special chapter of bio-chemistry in the future."
In the same address it is pointed out that in connection with
certain important proteid reactions, the carnivore behaves
differently to the herbivore,* the' latter showing greater powers
of synthesis and of defence, which seems further to corroborate
my view that growth and evolution are determined according
to the varying degrees of Symbiosis existing between animal and
plant.
* One of my French /oological critic^ (-\>\nie Biohgique, Vol. xxi.:, tvulontly a believer
in " de t>ustihuhs non eat di,puta.dum" nn<l> t.uilt with me for asserting that it makes' a difference
in evolution win thrr a vprcirs h.ilntu illv mnrst> animal "i pi Hit pnnrni. and lie thinks it doubt-
ful that my theory will cause " la biologic positive " t<> take a l^rw.inl step. One must not,
. abandon all hope.
CHAPTER VII
THE LAW OF THE MEMBERS
ANOTHER Biologist, Prof. E. W. MacBride, speaking of internal
secretions (Presidential Address, Sect. D., Brit. Association, igi6)
shows himself to be fascinated by the Pauline idea that " if one
member suffers, all the rest of the members suffer with it." Yet
the full biological implication of this observation is little realised,
as little indeed as is the fact of the existence of a genuine
biological community, held together by work and partnership,
the legitimacy of the ensuing capital depending upon bio-moral
factors, i.e., upon the serviceability of organic wealth to fellow-
organisms (" members " in the biological sense).
The neglect of the " Sociology " of inter-relations is all the
more astonishing as evidently Biologists could not help noticing
that often the relations between organs (" semi-independent
organisms " !) partake of the sociological order. One reason
for this neglect is that sociological and economic study is not
particularly congenial to Biologists ; another that the prevailing
fashion in biology favours purely mechanical interpretations.
Prof. MacBride's way of treating the " law of members " is
a case in point. Instead of examining the application of this
law in connection with the correlated activity of the glands, he
shelves the whole matter, getting rid of the difficulty by invoking
one of the most abused of biological catchwords, namely, the
" environment " a veritable deus ex machind of Biology. This
term, if it is not to be entirely discarded, should, in my opinion,
at least be clearly defined, so as to be used with the least possible
indeterminateness. Not enough, however, with an undefined
entity of " environment," Prof. MacBride conceives of the
organism as possessed of a kind of internalised entity in the shape
of an " inner environment " (an inner " outer ") which he employs,
inter alia to supplant a rival entity, namely, the Aristotelian
" entelechy " revived by Driesch. Instead of admitting that
organisms capitalise the results of joint work in the shape of
150
THE LAW OF THE MEMBERS 151
capacities and of valuable substances, in accordance with bio-
social rules, Prof. MacBride posits an " internal environment,"
capable, in his opinion, of emitting " organ forming stimuli,"
with the help or " specific organ forming substances," the discovery
of which substances he hails as the great epoch-making event in
experimental embryology.
Such invocation and inversion of " environment " is an
alternative, but, in my opinion, an inadequate, way of stating the
case of the inter-connections of " semi-independent organisms "
(organs) connections closely associated in turn with those
between independent creatures, i.e., between organism and
organism in the bio-social and bio-economic sphere. The fact
of the appearance of " substances," however, coupled with the
fallacy that " environment " is a chiefly physic' 1 agency, helps
to weigh the scales against a due sociological view, and provides
justification in the eyes of our Biologists for emphasising physical
at the expense of sociological factors.
So long as there are catchwords, and so long as there is
" substance," so it seems, the Cult of Physical Science is assured,
and, though there may be an occasional flirtation with Pauline
views, what one might describe as " spiritual law in the natural
world " is ordered out of court.
As regards the suggestion of the " environment " (mainly
animate) entering the organism, we have seen that, in virtue of
due reciprocity, in some cases of attached Symbiosis a kind of
" garden " (in the shape of strenuous green cells) may indeed be
said to have entered the organism. We found that permanence
and success of organisms thus compounded depend entirely upon
the degree of biological righteousness inherent in the association.
Parasitism we found to represent the perversion of the fundamental
and righteous principle of organic association. We inferred that
on no account can the relation between organism and " environ-
ment " be regarded as a purely physical matter. We may say,
therefore, that " internal environment " at most can only mean
that the organism, as a result of its transactions with others,
has duly capitalised its experiences, its wealth of relations,
and has learnt to use its stored capital as though to some extent
independent of immediate external supplies. If the " internal
environment " is not to be another " entelechy," it can only mean
an acquisition on the part of the organism, purchased by its
" labours " not anything separate in accordance with the
152 SYMBIOSIS
usual connotation of the term " environment," but something
inseparably built into the organism's flesh and blood. If the
organism has by due labour and due exchanges woven biological
raw material into its own inner fabric, it seems more justifiable
to speak of capitalisation than of " inner environment." I would
ask the reader to consider which view is the more judicious and
also the less equivocal, that which posits an " internal environ-
ment " irrespective of any but physical laws, or that which
emphasises the acquisition of capital by adequate efforts under
adequate duties and responsibilities all transformation being
the result of work and of exchange of surplus products.
To quote Prof. MacBride in extenso :
We have been gradually led to view the nucleus as a storehouse of all
the characters of the species and to look for the cause of the first differ-
entiation seen in development in the modification of the cytoplasm
through the emission of substances from the nucleus ; but to attribute
much of the later development to the modification of one organ through
the influence of materials emitted into the body-fluid by another organ,
so that we may compare the organs of the growing body to an assemblage
[partnership !] of semi-independent organisms which constitute an environ-
ment for one another [another way of saying that it is the symbiotic
relation which constitutes the essence of an " environment."] We all
know from medical evidence that there exist certain organs of the body
the so-called ductless glands or Endocrine organs whose secretions have
enormous influence both on the growth and the function of all the other
organs of the body. The question then inevitably occurs to our minds
whether all the organs of the body may not exercise the same kind of
influence on each other to a lesser degree. (Italics mine.)
Reasoning further from considerations such as these as to
the probability of the inheritance of acquired characters and as
to the plausibility, in a somewhat modified form, of Darwin's
hypothesis of Pangenesis, Prof. MacBride concludes that many
features of the adult are due to the interaction of, and the
modifications induced in, one another by the growing organs of
the individual. He argues further that
these modifications are similar in nature to those produced by the external
environment (animate rather than physical, I should add) and, like the
results of external influences, tend in time to become ingrained in the
constitution of the organs on which they act. (Italics mine.)
All of which may be simplified by saying that evolution is due
to a double, i.e., an internal and external form of Symbiosis
with the implied work, the capitalisation of the results and the
momenta inherent in the respective bio-social processes.
CHAPTER VIII
" PATHOLOGIA PHYSIOLOGIAM ILLUSTRAT "
IN a very interesting article on The Natural History of Tumours,
in Science Progress, April, 1916, Dr. C. Mansell Moullin, M.A.,
places before us the following considerations :
Division of labour means that every part of the body has to undertake
a particular kind of work ; particular work entails a particular chemical
reaction. The more thoroughly the work is done the more completely does
this special reaction predominate over all the others at that particular
spot. This, continued in the same group of cells for generation after
generation, of necessity involves progressive modification of chemical
constitution and of structure or in other words development. (Italics
mine.)
This socio-chemical account of development is to help us to
understand how, through some chemical disturbance in the
system, a tumour may be formed. In my opinion, however,
chief stress needs to be laid upon the dependence of the chemical
factor upon " work," which is of much greater significance than
this otherwise suggestive passage would lead many to suppose.
Equal stress must be laid upon the concomitant factor of
" division of labour." Neither factor can be casually treated
or dissociated from its wider economic and sociological implica-
tions. Chemical force, I insist, is engendered in the body by
the mutual work of the parts, and this, and chemical evolution
rally, depends mainly upon the " alchemy " of Symbiosis,
a beautiful illustration of which we saw in the case of the lichen.
\\V emphasised there, what is again becoming apparent here,
that without the right kind of Bio-chemistry no lasting " partner-
ship ' is possible, and that this requires above all the right
kind of " work " on the part of the organism. We found that
Symbiosis represented a veritable " Madonna delle Salute," and
we must recognise it also as the presiding principle of bio-chemistry,
if we wish to get at the foundation of the organism's viability
and resistance to disease. Although in Dr. Mansell Moullin's
outline of progressive modification of chemical constitution we
get references to " a particular kind of work," to " thoroughness
of work," to " permanence of work," yet the connotation of
153
154 SYMBIOSIS
" work " is not sufficiently sociological, and he evidently lacks
a persistent principle regulating the work and the divisions of
labour and directing them into their right channels.
Dr. Mansell Moullin invokes the authority of the late Prof.
Ehrlich to the effect that " the process of chemical evolution
is still going on." This fact to me scarcely seems to need proof.
Such evolution is still proceeding inasmuch as interaction and
work are still proceeding.
In a dissertation upon tumour-formation, with its excessive
proliferation o-f cells, the question inevitably arises what is it
that, in normal days, keeps the cells, generation after genera-
tion of them, to their true work ? Is it from sheer inclination
or from compulsion that they keep to the path of integrity ?
And what is the nature of either or of both ? Some no doubt
would clinch the matter and shelve difficulties by answering
" natural compulsion." I contend that the most rational
explanation, which accounts for the specialisation of work and its
biological connections and for what " good will " and " compul-
sion " there exist, is one which considers the normal physiological
and biological relation of units to be one of Symbiosis.
Obedience to the law of Symbiosis, compelled by bio-economic
and bio-social necessity, that is the compulsion and also the good
will in the matter of integrity of the cells. To transfer instead
compulsion and good will to the stars and nebulae is a mere
Naturalist's artifice, which should no longer be countenanced in
Biology, nor in modern thought.
We are further told :
The development of the individual is in part the product of the chemical
reactions that have taken place in its ancestors from time immemorial,
handed down by inheritance from generation to generation, in part the
result of the chemical changes that are taking place in its own tissues at
the present time.
This is a mere " historical " instead of a qualitative, account.
There is no allusion to the fact that we may have in the organism
before us a " damnosa hereditas." Yet this should be fully noted ;
and nowhere more than in a dissertation upon pathological
growth. A race or a species may have behaved badly, i.e., anti-
biotically for more than one generation, and its physiology and
bio-chemistry must consequently be abnormal in commensurate
degrees. Dr. Mansell Moullin states further :
The essential point is that all development, like growth, is ultimately
the outcome of chemical changes in the tissues and that everything that
"PATHOLOGIA PHYSIOLOGIAM ILLUSTRAT' 155
interferes either with the inheritance of the products of past chemical
changes or with the effects of present ones, interferes with the develop-
ment of those tissues, so that they remain on the same plane as their
racial ancestors, and enjoy the same powers of reproduction.
This, however, is still far too physical an account of the arrest
of development such as usually leads up to the incidence of
tumours. We are merely enabled to see that there must have
been some chemical disturbance, some interference with the
" normal " bio-chemistry sometime and somewhere. Evidently
there was at one time an orderly chemical evolution, whatever
it was that constituted the " order."
The effect of the mysterious disturbance evidently is to
abrogate a previous wholesome restraint of cell-reproduction
and to restore to the incriminated tissue a liberty, or rather
licence, of reproduction comparable to that it once " enjoyed "
in primordial times, long before it had formed intricate " partner-
ships " with other cells or tissues. According to the tout -ensemble
view, a reduction has taken place in the range of that widely
useful co-operation upon which the complete realisation of develop-
ment primarily depends. This allows only of stunted, aborted
and ill-directed development. The later and higher phases of
evolution consequently tend to be obliterated, and, in, proportion
as the special forces, momenta and substances which formerly,
as a result of high co-operation, maintained and directed these
phases, are in course of dissipation, some more primitive phases
of life are prone to re-assert their dominance. The higher control
has gone with the higher integrity. There is a contraction
in the life of the respective tissue commensurate with the con-
traction in its socio-physiological usefulness. The cells
prising it are " reverting," i.e., preferring " private " to
" corporate " autonomy and spurning, as anarchists, the superior
laws of the polity to which they yet belong. The result is
friction and disease.
Dr. Mansell Moullin continues thus :
So little is known of the intimate nature of the chemical changes that
take place in the tissues that it is not easy to cite instances in which the
failure of any particular reaction has led directly to the cessation of
development and the birth of a tumour.
This recalls the story of the purloined letter for which the
detectives groped in every corner of the room while all the time it
lay openly on the table. In my opinion the direful effects of non-
symbiotic feeding fully account for the failure of normal chemical
156 SYMBIOSIS
reactions in the tissues. Very special injurious stimulations,
of course, occasionally supervene and produce special accelerating
pathological effects. In the majority of cases, however, we may
take it that a distinct diathesis, due to pronounced metabolic
deterioration, obtains and is a fundamental cause of serious
failures of development. In my view, the exuberance of
tumour tissues and the concomitant cessation of vital development
in other directions is on a par with the well-known redundancy
and its direful degenerative concomitants so characteristic of
Parasitism . In either case, I believe, we have a diathesis primarily
caused by 'faulty food stimulation. I would indeed comprise
the " miser e physiologique " in both cases under the general
category of " parasitic diathesis."
Dr. Mansell Moullin thinks that there are many isolated
facts suggesting that failure of a particular bio-chemical reaction
is the direct cause of the cessation of development and the
formation of tumours. One of these facts, he believes, relates
to the occasional disappearance of tumours.
It is well known (he says), that tumours, especially those of the embry-
onic type sometimes stop growing, diminish in size and even disappear
under the influence of remedies which can only act through the medium
of the general nutrition. (Italics mine.)
We are thus getting well on the trail of the " purloined
letter." The next step would be to scrutinise the adequacy of
the general nutrition an investigation to a certain extent "taboo"
with the powers that be in medicine.
We are also told that the tumours that so often follow the
continued application to the skin of soot, tar, paraffin, and the
like, arise in a similar manner. Some substances were absorbed
which, in course of time, affect the nutrition and functional activity
of the skin, so that it becomes harsh and dry to the touch. This,
then, is further confirmation of the fact that food is seriously
implicated, and the observation is well worth pondering for
another reason : it is important from a diagnostic point of view.
The " ash " and dry appearance of the skin, in my opinion, is a
tell-tale symptom revealing an advanced "parasitic diathesis."
The skin is an important organ of elimination, which suffers in
efficiency of function and likewise in appearance from the
cumulative effects of mal-nutrition. Its morbidly pale appear-
ance in cancer and also in the case of many parasites indicates
that there is an encumbrance out of all proportion to the powers
" PATHOLOGIA PHYSIOLOGIAM ILLUSTRAT" 157
of elimination. The normal ratio of ingestion and elimination
is inverted, precisely as though it were a case of too much
" take " and too little " give " on the part of the offending
species. And the respective disproportion, the respective
diathesis, and the respective " social " disposition are hereditary
such is the reverse or pathological side of the " hereditary
principle " in Nature.
Dr. Moullin's distinctive explanation is as follows :
The cells that compose it (the skin) cannot carry on their work as they
should. Their development, which depends upon the chemical changes
that take place in them during their work, remains imperfect. It comes
to an end before it should, while the cells are still in a stage that was perfect
for their remote ancestors, but should only have been a transition stage
for them, and, as a consequence, at a time when they are still capable
of exercising the powers those ancestors possessed. The result is the
formation of a bud, like the buds that were thrown off from time to time
by their ancestors, capable of independent growth and composed of cells,
the rate of whose growth and multiplication depends upon the maturity
of the parental stock at the moment. If the affected cells have all but
reached adult age before the interference is felt, the buds that grow from
them are all but adult too. The tumour is composed of tissues that
resemble those of the normal skin. But if, owing to irritation, whether it is
mechanical or chemical or due to the reaction of living organisms, there
is a great increase in the proportion of young rapidly growing cells, and if
the development of these is checked in their youth, the buds that spring
from them resemble them, and then the tumour increases rapidly and
spreads wherever it can. (Italics mine.)
This is an interesting chemico-embryological view of the
dissolution of one-time wholesome relations of cells leading up
to the anarchy that allows of tumours and cancers. It
contains, however, I contend, far too casual a reference to
the attendant chemico-economic factors, which are more
fundamental, I believe, than the chemico-embryological.
Kvidently there is a great deal of incompleteness and of
curtailment of development as the result of what ? As the
result of incomplete " work " on the part of the individuals or
species. We have seen that only essential, i.e., symbiotic work
conduces to a wholesome exercise of all the parts, failing
which there is glandular anarchy. It is not difficult for a
Biologist to read between the lines of the above passage that
there obtains a distinct diathesis determining the formation of
buds, due to a fairly general impediment of function and a loss of
integrity. On the " sociological " side we see a reversion as
158 SYMBIOSIS
from a highly civilised to a primordial savage state, from the
mutuality and security of a " city," to the loose and insecure
life of cannibal society.
I would again emphasise the close analogy with Degeneration
in Nature. The possibilities of degenerative reversions and
abortions are the greater, the lower we descend in the evolutionary
scale. A fully extended reversion is not compatible with the
status of a higher organism, which yet, if parasitic or predaceous
in habit, cannot escape drastic penalties in the shape of suffering
and disease. Dr. Moullin tells us that there is a tendency of
the same kind of tumour to occur in members of the same family
at about the same time of life, which again emphasises the
biological analogy of Degeneration. For, as Darwin already
insisted, it is a general and important rule in Biology that " at
whatever period of life a peculiarity first appears, it tends to
reappear in the offspring at a corresponding age, though sometimes
earlier."
I have italicised the last three words from Darwin, because
they seem to point to a diathesis a gradual undoing or dissolu-
tion of the particular species or family. These "peculiarities," in
my opinion, for the most part appertain to the non-symbiotic
and pathological order. This being so, we have to see in the ever
earlier incidence of " peculiarities," and of other more obvious
symptoms of disease in every new generation, an indication of
the progressive impoverishment of the protoplasm, tantamount
to a curtailment of adult existence. Speaking " sociologically,"
we may say that there is an increasing veto against the species,
a diminishing sanction of its existence. The " wages " of a
prolonged transgression against the law of Symbiosis is thus
indeed death in the shape of diathesis, dissolution, and of a
kind of Paedogenesis precocious sexuality very ghastly forms
of which are to be found amongst rank parasites.
Dr. Moullin concludes again I would say rather " historically "
that tumours are the products of the innate power of asexual
reproduction present in some degree in all tissues, except perhaps
the most specialised of all. The question therefore arises what
is it that determines the way in which the innate powers of
Reproduction are turned to account, good or bad ? And the
answer, as I believe I have shown, lies in the application of the
" sociological " factor to evolution. I have also insisted, in this
and in former volumes, that the asexual is an inferior method of
" PATHOLOGIA PHYSIOLOGIAM ILLUSTRAT ' 159
reproduction, and that a reversion to it from an erstwhile sexual
form of reproduction, means a Joss of status, closely associated
with a loss of symbiotic potential. Nature, however, can ill
afford a serious loss of symbiotic potential, which would entail
a serious loss of indispensable " high-class labour." Nature,
therefore, abhors perpetual " asexualisation," as she also abhors
perpetual in-breeding, and perpetual in-feeding, and above all
Parasitism. Though her retributive processes may frequently
be veiled from our vision, yet it can be stated pretty generally
that in one way or another the transgressors against her "socio
logical " laws are ultimately brought to book.
Though He stands and waits in patience
With exactness grinds he all.
And that all this is true is the most important lesson to be
learnt from the Bio-chemistry of tumours, the most valuable
morale to be gleaned from the study of pathology.
Dr. John Beard, who has long defended the view that one form
of cancer is due to an "irresponsible" asexual generation or
growth occurring during the sexual generation period of the life
cycle, has shown that the asexual generations of many animals
are rapidly killed and digested by pancreatic ferments (Trypsin
and Amylopsin), whereas frequently, on the other hand, the
sexual generations are not in the least affected by these enzymes.
This points to a biological antagonism between sexual and
asexual modes of reproduction, or at any rate it shows the
inferiority of the latter because of its frequent more or less patho-
genetic, or " sociologically " inferior, origin, which easily renders
it a source of danger to biological progress and calls for repressive
measures in the protective adaptation of the progressive types.
Dr. Beard suggests indeed, that the difference of composition
has to do with this biological (" sociological ") antagonism between
uuous and pathogenic organisms, and he tells us that asexual
forms are built up of dextro-proteins, whilst the sexual are built
up of laevo-albumins He contends that the " micro-organisms,
bacilli, etc., of disease are of necessity composed of compounds
which are, stereo-chemically, antitheses of those making up the
normal human body and that when they are compared with
the pancreatic ferments, the like is true of the ferments by means
of which they effect their ends. Only by means of such antithetic
or opposite characters of compounds and of ferments produced
160 SYMBIOSIS
by them could such disease-inducing organisms bring about their
ravages.
Here again, then, we have an illustration of the everlasting
difference between right and wrong in Nature, and here again
we can make profitable application of the maxim that Pathologia
Physiologiam illustrat.
CHAPTER IX
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FROM the late Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace's Darwinism we
cull the following interesting data :
It is, however, when we come to true fruits (in a popular sense) that
we find varied colours evidently intended to attract animals, in order that
the fruits may be eaten, while the seeds pass through the body undigested
and are then in the fittest state for germination. This end has been gained
in a great variety of ways, and with so many corresponding adaptations
as to leave no doubt as to the value of the result. Fruits are pulpy or
juicy, and usually sweet, and form the favourite food of innumerable
birds and some mammals.
I should say that we have here evidence of biologically
" good " attractions, " good " habits, " good " adaptations in
short of fundamentally good bio-social relations well worth
distinguishing from " bad," i.e., wasteful and sanguinary relations
such as are usually associated with " The Struggle for Existence."
For Dr. Wallace, however, such distinctions as " illth " or
" wealth " of organic relations did not exist. He was " out "
to demonstrate " The Struggle for Existence," irrespective of
any distinctions of appetites, although these are easily first among
determinants of evolution. Could he but have seen that the
" fondness " of birds and mammals for fruits is anything but
accidental, but is based, in effect, upon affinities of primordial
and transcendent bio-economic and bio-social importance, totally
different in character from those existing between carnivores
and their prey ; could he but have recognised that the nobler
food attraction, associated as it is with service, represents a case
of Symbiosis, involving a high order of Economics, whilst the
carnivorous attractions involve an opposite and inferior system
of natural Economics ; could he but have surmised that the
apparent " intention " on the part of the fruit to be " eaten "
(" devoured " is the expression he more commonly uses) by the
useful animal, has to do with positive biological co-operation,-
and is founded upon antecedent co-operative evolution rather
than upon any suddenly developed capacity of design on the
161 12
162 SYMBIOSIS
part of the plant what a difference this would have made to his
account of the evolutionary process.
On another page he tells us again, as he thinks, in evidence
of " The Struggle for Existence " that
Flowers have been specially adapted to the kinds of insects that most
abound where they grow.
He instances amongst others the gentians of the lowlands as
being " adapted " to bees ; those of the high alps being " adapted "
only to butterflies.
From the point of view of Bio-Economics, however, this state-
ment is very incomplete. It leaves out some essential points
and slurs over the fact that we have here examples of the mutual
accomodation of beings according to qualification and mutual
worth. A little reflection will show that it is in the first place the
bio-economic usefulness of the plant which renders possible
the systematic biological traffic here concerned ; and, further,
that it is the quality of the insects' service which determines
their success in obtaining the boon and the far-reaching good
effects of this desirable biological trade. More particularly, as
was abundantly shown in the preceding pages, and must on no
account be omitted in this connection, the pre-requisites of
successful biological trade are these : cross-feeding and mutual
forbearance. It should be expressly mentioned that the vast
numbers of insects which fail as regards the aforesaid pre-
requisites are ipso facto excluded. They do not " come in "
at all. Having failed to qualify for high symbiotic service, they
have no legitimate claim to the biological remuneration incidental
upon such service. That the Symbiosis between flower and
insect is often marked by highly specialised " adaptations "
which have an interest of their own for the mere morphologist
has its reason in special contingencies, which we are not wrong
in interpreting as bio-economic contingencies. Flowers adapted
to be fertilised by one class of insects, as, for example, by bees,
in Wallace's own words, stand in danger of having their nectar
extracted by another class, e.g., by flies, without effecting cross-
fertilisation. The would-be robbers, therefore, have to be foiled ;
and flowers have from time to time to be modified in structure
according to such (bio-economic) contingencies. We know that
modifications thus interpretable frequently occur. Such modifica-
tions in effect amount to this : the flower dedicates, gives, or
" adapts " itself to those animals which qualify most in Symbiosis.
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The animals so excelling succeed in life and subsequently abound
in numbers. It is putting the cart before the horse to attribute
their success to their abundance . What is required is qualification,
first and last.
The same holds good of the case of the fertilisation of flowers
by birds.
Each part of the globe (says Wallace), has special groups of birds
which are flower-haunters. America has the humming-birds (Trochilidae)
and the smaller group of the sugar-birds (Caerebidae). In the Eastern
tropics the sun-birds (Nectarineidae) take the place of the humming-birds,
and another small group, the flower-peckers (Dicaeidae), assist them.
In the Australian region there are also two flower-feeding groups,
the meliphagidae, or honey-suckers, and the brush-tongued lories
(Trichoglossidae) .
(Again), the great extent to which insect and bird agency is necessary
to flowers is well shown by the case of New Zealand. The entire country
is comparatively poor in species of insects, especially in bees and butter-
flies which are the chief flower fertilisers ; yet according to the researches
of local botanists no less than one-fourth of all the flowering plants are
incapable of self-fertilisation, and, therefore, wholly dependent on insect
or bird agency for the continuance of the species.
All of which testifies to the vast and important role played in
the world of life by cross-feeding animal " specialists." Although
in sheer numbers the robbers and parasites may exceed, yet it
is the armies of the workers which support and primarily determine
evolution. On the score of the inferiority of self -fertilisation,
Dr. Wallace tells us :
An immense variety of plants are habitually self -fertilised, and their
numbers probably far exceed those which are habitually cross-fertilised
by insects. Almost all the very small or obscure flowered plants with
hermaphrodite flowers are of this kind. Most of these, however, may be
insect fertilised occasionally, and may, therefore, come under the rule
that no species are perpetually self-fertilised. It is now believed by some
botanists that many inconspicuous and imperfect flowers, including
those that are wind -fertilised, such as plantains, nettles, sedges, and grasses,
do not represent primitive or undeveloped forms, but are degradations
from more perfect flowers which were once adapted to insect fertilisation.
In almost every order we find some plants which have become thus
reduced or degraded for wind or self-fertilisation.
Again, speaking of the " Dispersal of Plants," in another
place, Wallace states :
It is a very suggestive fact, that all the trees and shrubs in the Azores
bear berries or small fruits which are eaten by birds ; while all those which
bear larger fruits, or are eaten chiefly by mammals such as oaks, beeches,
hazels, crabs, etc., are entirely wanting.
164 SYMBIOSIS
Here, owing to special circumstances, the birds have proved
themselves so useful as seed carriers to certain shrubs and trees,
that they have actually been able to determine the island flora
in a manner more useful to themselves than to mammals, which,
for several reasons, are here very sparse. This isolated
phenomenon, however, by no means disproves the fact that,
generally speaking, the mammalia (including man) as the higher
order and representing higher values, are pre-eminent in deter-
mining the flora of our globe.
Views similar to the co-operative interpretation of evolution
for which I have now for some years contended, have recently
been advanced by Mr. E. Kay Robinson, well known as the
Editor of "Country-Side," "Country-Side Leaflet," etc., as the
following quotations will show :
Most people (says Mr. Kay Robinson) would thoughtlessly regard
animals and birds which eat fruits, berries, and seeds, as the enemies of the
plants which produce them, and especially would they regard the grazing
animal as the enemy of the grass. Yet they would be wrong in every case.
The immense genus of trees to which the apple, pear, etc., belong, un-
doubtedly owe their world-wide dominance to the habit of fruit-eating
animals, which devour the pulp and throw away the core, or drop the
seeds. In an English countryside you can locate the site of an ancient
orchard by the prevalence of wild crab-apple trees in the hedges, all sown
in this way. Similarly the mountain ash would still be confined to the
distant valley where it originated, but for the aid of wide-ranging berry
eating birds, which have distributed it broadcast in all the upland valleys
of the temperate zone. When the seeds themselves, rather than berries
or fruits, are eaten, the reciprocity of interest is less direct and definite ;
but birds can only eat the seeds of a given plant during the short time
of its harvest, and during the rest of the year they help the plants by
killing insects, and even during the seed-harvest they do much good by
scattering the residue of seed which they do not devour or cannot digest.
For in all these cases of mutual assistance the animal (a term which, of
course, includes " bird ") is sustained by food which the plants produce
in excess of their own requirements, and in almost all cases the animal
also destroys insects, etc., which are injurious to the plants. The result
is that the allies prosper side by side ; while carnivorous animals, which
live by destruction, are always making their environment worse for them-
selves, and inevitably tend towards extinction.
Mr. Kay Robinson thinks the case of the grass and the grazing
animal a particularly striking example of mutual aid. This is
what he says :
In grazing, the animal eats down everything to within half-an-inch,
say of the ground. This is fatal to the seedlings of all large plants, as
well as to most small plants all, that is, except a few which have some
FOR " PROFESSIONAL " SERVICES RENDERED 165
special protection of poison, prickles, etc., or which can creep along the
earth within a half -inch limit. Even of this minority most are exterminated
where grazing animals are numerous, by being trampled upon or
accidentaly bitten off and discarded. Only the grass has, so to speak,
studied the needs of the grazing animal in order to supply them to its
own advantage. It produces no stem to be trampled upon or bitten
through, but from its mat of fibrous roots sends up innumerable tiny ribbons
of wholesome green food. When these are bitten to within half-an-inch
of the ground, it pays out another half-inch of each growing ribbon in
readiness for the animal's next visit. So it goes on, until the grass, in its
own brief fruiting season, quickly sends up a comparatively stiff and wiry
stalk with scaly and chaffy inflorescence, which the grazing animal prefers
not to eat since tender blades of grass are still to be had in abundance.
Thus enough grass seed survives to spread the race more widely and
provide sustenance for larger herds. From this and the previous examples
quoted we learn the true secret of nature in the inevitable triumph of those
animal and vegetable allies which are mutually helpful to one another.
I should say that the " alliance " between grass and grazing
animal does not represent a particularly high form of Symbiosis ;
the example, however, may serve to illustrate the application
of the principle of biological remuneration, though the
"remunerated" are otherwise " plant-carnivora," and pro
tanto marked by backwardness of evolution.
Again in " Country-Side Leaflet," Jan., 1918, Mr. K. Robinson
states the following :
There is no week in the country without its little harvest for the wild
things, and just now it would seem as if word had been passed round that
the acorns of the holm oak are really ripe at last ; because scores of fat
wood-pigeons are marching about under the trees in the park, gulping and
choking as they go, in the effort to make room for just one more. Forty
of these small acorns are only a moderate load for the wood-pigeon to
cram into its crop ; and indirectly it does some good by its greediness,
because when it has flown home at dusk to roost in the pinewood, it is very
sick and throws up, or rather throws down, some of the acorns upon the
ground below. This is why young oak trees, both of the common and
evergreen kinds, are always springing up under the pine trees, so that
the pine wood which you knew as a boy is very often an oak wood when
you revisit it as a man.
In the same way and from the same cause, the beech often succeeds
the pine, because the wood-pigeon finds a surfeit of beech nuts very diffi-
cult to keep. Solitary oaks growing in the open, on the other hand, are
generally the work of rooks which have buried acorns that they could not
eat, and have never found them again ; while it is largely to the squirrel
that we are indebted for the abundant growth of oak and hazel in our
woodlands. He was busy all through the autumn days, scampering about
and hurriedly burying acorns and nuts, of which he probably does not
discover fifty per cent, afterwards.
166 SYMBIOSIS
The case of the squirrel, as that of the grazing animals, again
shows that symbiotic adaptation is by no means confined to insects
and birds, as has been asserted ; but that it extends to mammals
as well. True the Symbiosis between, say, honey-bee and flower
seems a more perfect " adaptation " than that of the mammalia
here concerned. But we may set against it the conscious
Symbiosis existing between man and his food plants, which is of
a high order. Evidently there are amongst all classes of organic
civilisation some " professionals " who are occasionally or
habitually addicted to charging exorbitant fees for their services.
We have seen however, that in the event of Symbiosis at any
time becoming very defective, important biological checks
against transgressors came almost automatically into operation,
tending to effect considerable regularisation in the economic
web of life, and tending also, in the end, to restore at least a
modicum of bio-economic integrit}'.
PART III
CHAPTER I
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION "
" Le progres de la science ne depend pas seulement de la decouverte
des faits nouveaux, mais est en r6alite du a leur interpretation correcte."
HENRI DE VARIGNY.
I HAVE already referred to Dr. Rene Larger 's book on
Degeneration, and, as I cannot insist enough on the morbidity
of predaceous types, it may be useful to consider that author's
testimony on the subject.
At the outset he tells us that Biologists have persistently
confounded degenerative with normal characters. Although some
Palaeo-Zoologists have spoken of " retrogressive adaptation,"
he says they have failed to recognise that they are dealing with
pathological developments a failure which, according to him,
is less pardonable in Palaeontologists who have had a medical
training than in those who have not. Somewhat similarly I find
fault with Dr. Larger 's stopping short at the mere fact of patho-
logical transmission, caused, as he thinks, by " une maladie
quelconque." This malady, I affirm, most certainly and most
importantly needs specifying, and I believe it to be none other
than what I have termed a " parasitic diathesis " due to nutri-
tional transgressions and to sluggishness of life, voluntary or
involuntary.
How far is Dr. Larger from such a recognition !
He approves to a certain extent of the definition of degenera-
tion enunciated by Magnan and Legrain, which is to the effect
that a constitutional diminution of psycho-physical resistance has
taken place and that losses predominate, except for an occasional
regeneration. Of regeneration, however, he will not hear very
much, believing its role to be quite subordinate.
We are exultantly introduced to " Pal eo -pathologic Generale,
Comparee." But the author seems as far from an appreciation
of Bio-Economics as, according to him, are those whom he, not
without reason, styles " Biologistes normaux," are from appre-
ciating Pathology. I should, therefore, be inclined to speak of
167
168 SYMBIOSIS
a larger class of Biologists, in which Dr. Larger still takes his place,
namely that of the " Biologistes naifs " those who are
commonly perplexed by the phenomena of disease and of
degeneration because they fail to appreciate the fundamental
cause of the evil, namely, non-compliance with bio-moral
sanctions.
If Dr. Larger 's " Paleo-Pathologie " is to supersede the
spurious science of the " biologist es normaux," it must bring
out what it now slurs over, the fundamental difference between
Pathology and Physiology, and this regardless of all existing
bias and though it involve, as it quite indispensably does,
incursions into Bio-Economics and Bio-Sociology. The example
of the " Biologistes normaux " should be as a warning that the
complete and not the aborted view must prevail.
Scores of investigators before Dr. Larger have shown that
hereditary and other diseases have in the geological past played
a large part in undermining species and even genera.
Evidently the identical organismal failings and indulgences
have prevailed at all periods. Such blemishes, whilst appertaining
to the pathological, also appertain to the sociological order.
They are, in fact, pathological largely because they are anti-
social in character. Weakness has often been pleaded in depravity ;
but depravity, it must be owned, is also the most frequent source
of weakness. As regards the antiquity of disease, Dr. Larger
is not inclined to dwell too much on it, feeling that on so vast a
subject as that of Palaeo-Pathology he can only give a few general
indications :
Trop heureux si ces quelques donnees peuvent servir, a de plus jeunes
que moi, de point de depart pour d'autres recherches analogues aux
miennes.
That Dr. Larger's chief weakness is on the sociological side
becomes apparent from his definitions. No sooner has he
emphasised the frequency of pathological processes as affecting
not only individuals but also whole species, genera and orders,
than he goes off at a tangent, telling us that " la Degenerescence
apparait moins comme une maladie autonome proprement dite,
que comme un processus contraire a 1'E volution."
When is a malady not a malady ? When we fail to understand
its cause. It seems a pity that Dr. Larger has chosen so grandi-
loquent a title as " Contre-E volution/' for it is calculated to divert
the attention from those matters which would naturally interest
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 169
us most in connection with " Paleo-anatomie pathologique,"
namely as concerns ihefons et origo of the pathology. The author,
I think, would have done better to take up the threads left by
pre-evolutionary French writers such as Morel, for instance, of
whom he says :
Pour lui, la Degenerescence n'etait autre chose qu'une, deviation
maladive d'un type primiti:
or by Isidore Geoffrey Saint- Hilaire who
admettait la transmission hereditaire, sous 1'influence d'une " diathese
malformatrice. "
The fact that, as Magnan has stated, degeneration is destructive
of evolution, need by no means be interpreted as proving a
" Contre-E volution." Degeneration is merely, as an evil,
impeding evolution. To Magnan, Dr. Larger pays a high tribute,
for having by his wording suggested to him the title of " Contre-
E volution." But Magnan's words are clearly suggestive of
something much more sane than " Contre-E volution," namely,
of the simple truth that there is, and always has been, a wide
prevalence of disease, eating canker-like into the very heart of
the organism and impeding progress. According to Magnan,
degeneration is a morbid state of the organism, showing a striking
imperfection of functions compared to the state of progenitors.
Bien plus, cet etat morbide constitutionnel s'aggrave progressivement,
et, de meme que la degeneration d'un tissu precede sa disparition, sa mort,
de meme la degeneration de 1'individu precede son aneantissement dans son
espece.
In other words, " function " has deteriorated, as a result of
which serious deficiencies arise. The magnitude of the evil, of
the " diathesis " thus ensuing, is proportional to the deficiency
of " function " more particularly bio-economic function, I
should add. The progress of the race is self -impeded. The race
does not counter-evolve in order to die of a premature death.
It fails to evolve satisfactorily. Voild tout. Magnan might have
added to his definition that if anything avails towards death
rather than towards life, it ceases pro tanto to be evolutionary,
i.e., progressive, and becomes pathological, i.e., merely negative
or chaotic.* We have seen that Magnan does not overlook the
psycho-physical factor, which is as a hint that he, at any rate,
contrary to Dr. Larger's view, regarded degeneration as " une
maladie autonome proprement dite."
* Dr. Larger himself says on page 86 " ce qui caracterise souvent la Degenerescence, c'est
i'absence de rtgle fixe," i.e., absence of Law and Government.
170 SYMBIOSIS
If Dr. Larger had not contemptuously brushed aside autonomy
and regeneration and instead made a kind of entity of " Contre-
E volution," he might have seen that there is no inherent
necessity of degeneration or of loss of plasticity, be the organism
never so high in the scale of evolution. Instead of which we get
the ludicrous statement on p. 26 with regard to man, that
De meme que tous les animaux superieurs, il a perdu toute plasticite
et ne peut plus des lors que degenerer et disparaitre.
and, further, p. 27 that :
Plus 1'animal est eleve dans la hierarchic zoologique, moins il est plastique
et plus les regressions deviennent degeneratives.
The author's reasoning with regard to degeneration seems to
be this : these things are, therefore they must be. But, as there
is no inherent necessity for a highly evolved animal to be divorced
from Symbiosis, so there is no reason why it should lose the
plasticity requisite for further progress. Inasmuch as man
remains a symbiotic cross-feeder, he has infinite chances of
survival.
It seems never to have occurred to Dr. Larger that plasticity
and progress on the one hand, and stagnancy and pathology on
the other, are dependent upon sociological factors. Although
he is not an adherent of Natural Selection, his own theory has
this in common with it, that it tends by a facile generalisation to
force sociological factors into the background until they are nearly
lost to vision, with results altogether deplorable.
I agree with the author when he states that there is
Degenerescence, c'est-a-dire, maladie, des 1'instant ou la defense de
1'organisme se trouve affaiblie par une cause quelconque.
He is getting, however, somewhat mixed when he continues :
Peu lui (to the Pathologist) importe qu'il y ait perte ou gain des parties,
c'est-a-dire, regression ou progression.
If the defence of the organism is enfeebled, there is sure to
arise a loss, and such loss is serious. More especially must this
follow where there is an abiding cause, such as in-feeding, behind
the enfeeblement. On no account must we allow ourselves to
be deceived into conceiving of dubious pathological additions
transformations conforming to the existing pitch of diathesis
as progressive features. I read Dr. Larger 's statement, therefore,
as a counsel of despair, his diagnosis being still too incomplete-
to distinguish in many cases between "regression" and "pro-
gression," between pathological and physiological additions..
" CONTRE-EVOLUT10N " 171
He is merely able to certify some rather acute cases of " regression "
with the aid of his anatomical stigmata. For these criteria we
owe him thanks ; but I think one must still apply to him the same
criticism which he applies to Cope, who, according to him :
en dpit de son grand m6rite par ailleurs, n'a fait que cr6er une con-
fusion facheuse en detournant completement le terme de Degenerescence
de son sens exclusivement pathologique qui est le vrai (ce qu'il avait
le droit d'ignorer. Cope, en effet, n'etait pas medecin) pour ne lui
donner, au contraire, qu'un sens exclusivement evolutif auquel ce meme
terme ne saurait pretendre, la Degenerescence etant, par sa nature, destruc-
tive de toute evolution normale.
This is well said ; but has not Dr. Larger fallen a victim to
the same temptation ? Is he not giving to a merely " destructive "
and chaotic agency a sense still too " evolutif," and does not this
involve him in difficulties similar to those of the " Biologistes
normaux " ? Let us see.
On p. 33 we find him grappling with the perennial problem
of Parasitism, and this is what he says :
Ces regressions, en effet, si graves soient-elles au point de vue morpho-
logique, ne pr6sentent aucun des caracteres de la veritable D6g6nerescence.
Le plus essentiel de tous leur fait defaut, celui qui, nous venons dele voir, est
compiis dans la definition meme de la Degenerescence, a savoir : la sterilite"
et 1'extinction de la descendance. Loin d'etre frappes de sterilit6, ces
animaux parasites sont, au contraire, d'une fecondite incomparable . . .
Les regressions, purement morphologiques, des parasites, se r6duisent
done a de simples phenomenes d 'adaptation. C'est, si Ton veut, de la
Degradation, mais non pas de la Degen6rescence ! C'en est meme tout
juste le contraire, parce que, loin de diminuer les moyens de defense de
l'organisme, ces regressions les augmentent. Car 1'atrophie par non usage
des parties, constituc une adaptation parfaite a la vie parasitaire ou de
fixation. C'est ce que le botaniste Korschinsky a tres justement appe!6 :
1'adaptation regressive, ainsi que nous 1'avons dit.
Here then we have a medical man who cannot distinguish
between morbid and wholesome reproduction, who sees in excessive
multiplication a proof of normality, who, with the " Biologistes
normaux," classes parasites amongst the most genuinely successful
organisms. Morphologically, as he admits, the case of parasites
is serious ; sociologically, as he omits, their case is even worse.
Yet, we are asked to consider such degradation as the very
opposite of " Degenerescence." What monstrous aberration of
the human mind ! Parasitism, as the author admits, frequently
gives rise to Paedogenesis, i.e., precocious reproduction, but we
are asked not to regard this as pathological or as counteracting
172 SYMBIOSIS
the survival of the species, though, of course, obviously increas-
ingly curtailing adult existence. When is a disease not a disease ?
When it is an " adaptation." But, it must be " une adaptation
parfaite," Dr. Larger would probably add. Even parasites, how-
ever, scarcely begin their career of profligacy with " adaptations
parfaites." Nor are these parasitic adaptations "parfaites," as
the author himself is obliged to admit. This is how he expresses
his scruples :
Toutefois, si Ton n'a pas raison d'appeler les parasites des Degeneres,
ce serait peut-etre exagere de dire qu'ils sont absolument normaux. II
est certain, eir effet, que si le Parasitisme, n'est pas la Degenerescence, il
est non moins incontestable qu'il y prepare le terrain pour 1'avenir.
If Parasitism is not quite normal, after all, what kind of disease
or malady does it represent ?
From the acknowledgment of Parasitism as a preparatory
stage of " Degenerescence," it should not be too great a step to
the recognition that a lapse in the parasitic direction constitutes
quite usually the preparation for pathological states. It is
merely a matter of discerning the roots of disease and of recognising
a disease as such long before it has become acute or malignant.
Unable to deal adequately with Parasitism, Dr. Larger finally
places it in the borderland between normal evolution and " Contre-
Evolution," and, having got it thus safely out of the way, lets
well alone. The thought of " mis-adaptation " has apparently
never occurred to him. He postulates " Inadaptation " (in the
end) as distinguished irom " Adaptation " (in the beginning),
and he has a convenient way of arriving at the one by the other
by the further postulation of " Semi-adaptation," a kind of
intermediary stage " ou les mutations sont les unes adaptatives
et les autres inadaptatives, sur le meme sujet " in fact " des
cas mixtes," where " 1'adaptation generate, vu la solidarite des
organ es " becomes deficient.
Is this not a case of imperfect function where the autonomy
of the organism is at fault, such as it is in all cases where
the organism yields to temptations apt to determine it in the
parasitic direction ? But the author arrives at his " mutations
semi-adaptatives " without the invocation of autonomy, a factor
which, according to the prevailing fashion in Biology, is burked
as much as possible, or referred to usually with contemptuous
remarks concerning the metaphysical eyewater of the user of the
term. If we consider the following passage, it becomes clear
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 173
that what is really implied could be better stated by saying that
there frequently exist amongst organisms different degrees of
the parasitic diathesis different that is, according to the varying
transgressions and the different compatibilities of each case.
This is what we are told :
Or, ces mutations semi-adaptatives, restant tou jours dans le domaine
de la degenerescence, c'est-a-dire de la contre-evolution, doivent etre
placees, en consequence, au meme rang que les inadaptatives ou contre-
evolutives completes. Ce n'est en effet entre elles, qu'affaire de propor-
tions, et ranimal pour n'etre que degenere faiblement, n'en reste pas moins
" un degenere." De telle sorte qu'au lieu de succomber de suite et d'etre
sterilise, lui et sa descendance, il arrive que cette derniere est, dans le
principe, seulement diminuee dans sa natalite et sa variability
In other words, there are inceptional stages and gradations
in the respective " misere." Must we not search for the root
of the evil ? But the author instead goes off into Geology, telling
us that :
Les choses peuvent durer longtemps ainsi et Ton sait ce que " long-
temps " veut dire quand il s'agit de periodes geologiques ! Dans le cours
de ces dernieres, les conditions peuvent changer et changent presque
forcement. Mais les descendants legerement atteints, il est vrai, par la
degenerescence, quoique cependant diminues dans leur vitalite, se defendent
mal, partant, s'adaptent aussi de plus en plus mal. Us en arrivent ainsi
a subir progressivement la degenerescence complete et finalement dis-
paraissent.
If the organisms defend themselves badly, this is because they
had previously comported themselves badly. This, surely, is
the common -sense oT the matter ; and it would much simplify
Biology to say so, and to make a thorough study of behaviour
instead of inventing ever new grandiloquent terms to suit misty
and fanciful postulations.
" You must always think of ' semi-adaptation,' " says Dr.
Larger, " in order to understand counter-evolution." So much
the worse for " counter-evolution," I should say ; for " semi-
adaptation " is semi-nonsense.
How well the author can reason with those despised
" Biologistes normaux," who fail to distinguish between mutations
that are useful and those that are injurious, may be seen from
the following :
Tel est le probleme que se sont pose en vain tous les paleontologistes,
commencer par Kowalevsky et Cope lui-meme. Car s'ils sont tous
d'accord pour admettre 1'existence des deux categories de mutations, cette
entente cesse parfois d'exister lorsqu' il s'agit de distinguer celles qui sont
"utiles " d'avec celles qui sont " nuisibles." Certains biologistes, pour
174 SYMBIOSIS
se tirer d'embarras, ont imagine en outre une troisieme categoric de muta-
tions : les mutations " indifferentes." Comme si quoi que ce soit pouvait
etre jamais indifferent dans la nature ou tout a sa raison d'etre. Or, cette
raison d'etre, nous pouvofls parfois ne pas la distinguer ; mais la nier,
non point !
The case for Nature could scarcely be better stated, were it
not that the question of " usefulness " is the great stumbling
block in Biology. Could Dr. Larger but bring himself to realise
that there exists a sociological, i.e., economic and moral " raison
d'etre" in Nature, and that such "raison d'etre" lies behind
the phenomena to which he calls attention. Towards the
distinction of " useful " from " injurious " mutations he can
guide us but little more than the " Biologistes-normaux."
According to him, it is the constant aim of Nature, not only to
maintain, but also incessantly to improve the means of defence
in the organism. He does not, however, stoop to tell us how this
noble end is attained. He takes the fact for granted, and, Nature's
high aim being somehow fulfilled,
II y a adaptation et l'animal continue d'evoluer normalement vers
des adaptations nouvelles. Dans le cas contraire, il y a non adaptation,
ou inadaptation et 1'etre quel qu'il soit, animal ou vegetal, degenere et
disparait. II ne peut rester stationnaire, a moins d'avoir une organisa-
tion tres simple, indifferente jusqu' a un certain point aux influences internes
et extern es.
In other words, qui non proficit, deficit, which is, after all, a
sociological truth. "Adaptation," according to this view, is born
of the noble intents of Nature, but it remains to be seen what
it is that confers the sanction of Nature upon one " adaptation "
more than another. Dr. Larger is far from realising that normal
adaptation is that which accords with normal behaviour, i.e.,
such as is calculated by its other-regarding value sufficiently to
compensate Nature for her pains. Yet what simpler or better
explanation than the sociological is there to account for the fact
of the simultaneous and correlated progress of closely inter-
dependent beings which constitutes evolution ? It follows from
such a view that degeneration is to be regarded as the result of
long-continued misuse turning organic wealth into " illth." Failing
such common-sense view, Dr. Larger feels constrained to make
the sweeping assertion that " tout s'use, tout degenere dans la
nature," as though use per se entailed degeneration, which, of
course, is not true. We may say, on the contrary, that the more
right use, the less degeneration.
" CONTRE-EVOL UTION " 175
As I have throughout strongly insisted on the distinction
between cross- and in-feeding, it is significant to learn, that, on
Dr. Larger's diagnosis, the (cross-feeding) Equidae have not
appreciably degenerated :
Si Ton considere 1'adaptation a la course dans le phylum des fiquides,
on observe, outre les mutations regressives des membres, des modifications
correlatives avantageuses de la dentition et du crane, du cerveau, des
poumons, du cosur, etc. L'essentiel est que, Regressives ou Progressives,
les mutations non seulement n'entrainent pas a leur suite une diminution
des moyens de defense de 1'organisme, mais contribuent au contraire a
les ameliorer dans leur ensemble. Tel est pr6cisement le cas des tiquMit
actuels qui, pour cette unique raison, n'ont pas degenere. Les 6quid6s,
en effet, non seulemement ne presentent aucun stigmate appreciable de
deg6nerescence ; mais sont, au contraire, merveilleusement adaptes a la
course.
But after all that has been said on the subject, we may be
sure that the far-reaching correlations of the cross-feeding habit
have had more to do with the general beneficence of modifications
in the Equidae than their running propensities, although these,
of course, implied healthy exercise.
When we find that the ensemble of parts has gained in the
organism, we may justly conclude that the organism has not been
" hors de Symbiose" as regards feeding. Who will deny, more-
over, that the physiological " means of defence " are derived
to a large extent from the symbiotic environment, and that
the supply of the respective potencies is the more assured
and the more regular, the more there is of symbiotic behaviour,
of symbiotic disposition, and of symbiotic moderation ? In
my Evolution by Co-operation, I have emphasised the fact
that the horse is comparatively modest amongst grazing animals,
and that young foals do not gorge themselves with milk as calves
do. I have there also remarked that I see the explanation
of Cope's second law in the survival of legitimate bio-economic
behaviour. What is known as Cope's second law is that of
non-specialisation. It states that " organic types which are
not specialised alone are capable of an ulterior evolution."
Those animals, says Cope, which have attained excessive
specialisation, have lost their plasticity, their adaptive faculty,
and are, therefore, destined to perish with a change of environment .
This, says Dr. Larger, is but a statement of facts :
Sans pouvoir les expliquer, sans meme y essayer, car la notion exacte
de la vraie Degenerescence leur (Cope and Dollo) fait defaut a tous deux,
comme d'ailleurs a tous les Biologistes-normaux.
176 SYMBIOSIS
But does he really explain very much with " Degen-
erescence " ? His reference to the " means of defence "
as the " unique " cause of success, without telling us, however,
wherein consists the real strength of resistance in a species, is
after all, but a statement of facts a way of begging the true
question. And if the " marvellous adaptation " for running
is to be considered as the antithesis of degeneration, this
rather contradicts the previous generalisation that in Nature
every use unfailingly involves degeneration. I agree with
Dr. Larger's diagnosis as far as it goes, for instance, when he
says : " le Gigantisme Acromegalique est toujours une tare
degenerative grave."
I view the phenomenon, indeed, as so grave as to consider it
as but the last link in a long chain of a pathological process
due to trespasses against the bio-moral order of the world.
We are told that the Pterosaurians, which disappeared
suddenly with Pteranodon, " sont acromegaliques tout a leur
origine," which is merely a conjecture, for we know nothing
about origins. The author, however, corrects himself by saying
that they were
Semi-degeneres par avance, mal ou insuffisamment adaptables, par
consequent, ils etaient aussi mal armes pour se defendre des maladies et
de toutes les causes de destruction. Demi-d6generes des le principe,
ils restent des demi-adaptes jusqu' a la fin.
But whence their initial semi-degeneration ? Did they not
spring from erstwhile normal ancestors ? It is futile to trace
degeneration down to semi-degeneration and to leave the matter
there. Elsewhere Dr. Larger himself protests against the
practice of placing " en tete d'un Phylum, au titre ancestral,
des animaux degeneres," exclaiming that "c'est purement et
simplement un non-sens." I would enter a similar demurrer to
his placing at the beginning of a race a semi-degenerate.
Darwin at least hinted that carnivora may improve their
chances of life by becoming less carnivorous, and he further stated
that liability to extinction may be due to " lack of improvement
according to the principle of the all-important relations of
organism to organism in the struggle for life." But there is
scarcely an allusion to such (semi-sociological) considerations in
Dr. Larger's work. He only just notes that the difference between
Pterosaurians and Birds consisted in the fact that the former
were cold-blooded animals, whilst the latter are warm-blooded
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 177
and that, for this reason probably, the former were the inferior
aviators. But such physiological differences, I affirm, are
importantly connected with differences of food and Symbiosis, and
the distinctions require to be clearly established. We may feel
sure that Symbiosis, and Symbiosis alone, conduces to that state
and condition of the blood which are most favourable to progress.
More will be said on this subject in a subsequent chapter.
We are further told :
D'autre part, les Oiseaux presentent, atous les points de vue de 1' Aviation,
un contraste saisissant avec les Pttrosauriens. Us ont sans doute tous
deux la meme origine reptilienne ; mais tandis que 1'un marque le pas
et reste jusqu' & la fin un reptile plus ou moins maladroit au vol, 1'autre
s'eleve rapidement au rang superieur d'oiseau et atteint jusqu' & ce degr6
d'aviation parfaite c'est le cas de le dire ! qui nous frappe d'admiration
chez le Martinet et le Condor. Le Pterosaurien tralne, depuis sa naissance,
le boulet de la Degen6rescence qui le retient au sol et finit par le tuer ;
tandis que 1'oiseau, n6 et rest sans la moindre tare de'ge'ne'ratlve, a ete trouv6
pour la premiere fois dans les schistes Kimmeridjiens d'Eichstaedt, 1'oiseau,
dis-je, ne tarde pas & s'adapter merveilleusement intus et extra, a la vie
de 1'aviateur et, enfin, dure plus que jamais !
But where is there a mention of the most important adaptation
the ancestors of the birds have ever made, namely, the adaptation
to Symbiosis with the plants, which has first rendered evolutionary
success possible ? It is over-looked, just as was the case of cross-
feeding on the part of the horse and its ancestors.
We know that the birds, like the insects, have been of great
bio-economic usefulness through the dispersal of plants, and this
inasmuch as they were mainly cross-feeders. We may conclude
that the leading physiological adaptation of the birds, in virtue
of which they excelled over the reptiles, was a widely useful
adaptation ; and that it was, hence, from a symbiotic source
that they originally obtained the wherewithal for favourable
adaptations in many important directions. Subsequently, in so far
as many birds ceased to be symbiotic cross-feeders, and, like
large numbers of the Pterodactyles, became increasingly in-feeders
beasts of prey they tended to lose the power of making
favourable adaptations. Although with the birds of prey the
adaptation for flying is stimulated to the highest pitch, such
stimulation is not free from morbidity. The stimulating diet
of an in -feeding species may allow of a temporary acceleration
of many life processes and even of " specialisations " in particular
directions the principle of compensation lending itself to numerous
13
178 SYMBIOSIS
applications but such stimulations attended as they are by
losses of other, milder, yet more vital stimulations, are followed
by sudden and often startling exhaustion of the species. The
balance of the account in the end shows a loss. Something of
the sort has happened to the birds as a class, for we are told :
Si rapide a ete leur evolution que, dans les couches m ernes oii disparaissent
sans retour, les derniers Pterosauriens, les Pteranodontit6s, on rencontre
des Oiseaux tenement differencies que certains d'entre eux, tel Hesperornis
regalis, Marsh, en avaient deja perdu la faculte de voler.
To say that the heavy, flightless, and wingless Hesperornis
was highly differentiated, is putting rather a peculiar complexion
on the case. We need to know the physiological reason for the
degeneration of the bird, and the reason is this : in-feeding together
with its anatomical correlations, leading to inferior adaptations.
In bio-economic terms, the bird had become divorced from the
leading (symbiotic) adaptation of its order and had to pay the
penalty by losses in many directions. As I have emphasised in
my Evolution by Co-operation, the bird was a gigantic
diver, allied to the grebes of to-day. The set-back of the legs,
and the large knee-cap and enemial crest seem to have rendered
an erect position impossible. The explanation of the Anatomy
of the bird is to be found in its feeding habits.
As Ch. Deperet surmised, the rapidity of evolution of a group
is in inverse ratio to its longevity. He should have added that
longevity depends in the first place upon cross-feeding. The
class of the birds includes many excellent examples showing
that cross-feeding species excel in longevity.
Of the Ratitae, the name applied by Huxley to the order of
flightless birds of old, in which the sternum is destitute of the
prominent ridge or keel, to which the large pectoral muscles are
attached, we are told that " leur inadaptation au vol ' par defaut
d'usage' entraine leur Degenerescence," and we get an allusioi
to Owen's remark that Nature presents no greater anomaly thai
a bird which cannot fly. " Get oiseau dechu, c'est le Ratite."
But, surely, we have here " misuse," over and above " disuse,"
and it is not enough merely to continue " Mais qui dit Anomalie,
dit le plus sou vent Degenerescence." Instead we should
shown that the transformations, or "mutations," based upoi
in-feeding, never have the sanction of Nature, and that onl\
cross-feeding can provide the physiological groundwork fit for
abiding transformations.
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 179
The numerous " dystrophies degeneratives," cited by the
author, are without exception the usual concomitants of the
parasitic diathesis. For instance :
Le Casoar d casque presente de plus un siigmate concomitant de Degener-
escence, une Exencephale, ou tumeur cerebrale congenitale dont j'ai
demontre jadis la nature exclusivement teratologique. II en est de meme
de la poule de Houdan. La poule domestique, en effet, est en train de subir
un commencement de Degenerescence analogue a celle des Ratites. Sa tem-
perature, ainsi que je 1'ai verifiee, s'est abaissee, comme celle du Ratite,
de 3 a 4 5, selon les especes ou varieties et par rapport a celle des oiseaux
volants.
The " misere " of these birds is none other than that of
creatures divorced from Symbiosis, be it in Nature or in
Domestication.
The Ratiiae for Cursored, or Runners, comprising the Ostriches,
Rheas, Cassowaries, Emus, and the singular Apteryx of New
Zealand) represent an artificial assemblage, and, according to
Dr. H. Gadow, a convergence. But, says Dr. Larger, it is
entirely a case of " convergence degenerative." I quite agree ;
but I would emphasise the striking convergence of anti-biotic
behaviour, which is involved.
The same reasoning as is applicable to the Ratitae, according
to the author, also applies to the case of the Edentata :
Les E dent 6s nous offrent 1'exemple d'un groupe simplement artificial,
plus accuse encore que ne le sont les Ralites. Car si chez ces derniers,
il cxiste encore une parente specifique reelle avec les Carinates, chez les
Edentes, cette parente unique disparait elle-meme et les stigmates d6g6n6-
ratifs les plus varies constituent le seul lien de convergence pathologique
<jui ait pu servir a les unir les uns aux autres.
Amongst the Edentata are comprised some herbivorous and
some insectivorous creatures. The herbivorous, however, have,
no doubt, similar to the elephants, long become " plant-carnivora,"
which accounts for their slow degeneration. Their ancestors at
one time were normal cross-feeding species, though the traces
of such ancestry be lost in the dim past. That the in-feeding,
i.e., purely insectivorous Edentata have degenerated cannot cause
the least surprise.
A' -cording to Dr. Larger's diagnosis, the chief acromegalic
character in the Ratitae are to be found in the vertebrae, which
are extremely osteoporose, although the other bones of the
skeleton, too, according to him, are usually similarly affected.
The beginning of such osteoporosis has even been traced in our
i8o SYMBIOSIS
hens, some of which are losing the power of flight. Of the
skeleton of the gigantic Dinornis maximus from New Zealand, we
are told :
A premiere vue, je fus frappe de Videntiti complete que prSsentent les
os de ce squelette, avec ceux du Geant acromegalique humain actuel du Museum
de Paris. Ce sont exactement, en effet, les memes innombrables cellules
osseuses, constituant un tissu spongieux a mailles tantot fines, tantot
larges et a parois tres minces, ayant envahi les os entierement et no laissant
a leur surface qu'une coque fort mince de tissu compact oh ^enfoncerait
le doigt comme dans une matte de beurre, si on y exereait la moindre pression !
L'identite de structure en est frappante et me parait tout a fait incontest-
able, je le rep etc. Cette osteoporose atteint notamment les vertebres de
rhomme acromegalique et celles du Dinornis. L'exageration de la meme
dysostose osteoporose conduit aux grandes cavites osseuses qui se voient,
on le sait, sur les vertebres des Dinosauriens et j'ajoute, des Pterosauriens
dont nous venons de parler. Elle y affecte, chez les uns et les autres, la
forme et le volume de veritables sinus d'ou le nom de, " Sinusomtgalie "
que j'ai donne a cette forme de dysostose acromegalique, par analogie
avec celle qui s'observe sur certains os du crane de rhomme acromegalique
actuel.
Here then we have a picture of the anatomical bad effects
engendered by a parasitic diathesis in man and beast, past or
present. Up till now, Palaeontologists have not been able to
provide " aucune explication raisonnable " of the phenomena.
Some have seen in the " sinusomegalie vertebrale " merely an
adaptation to flight, calling it " pneumatisme osseux," analogous
to that of the birds. But Dr. Larger will have none of it :
On ne tient nul compte par la de ce fait que Voi&eau volant lui-meme
n'a jamais prisenti de vertebres pneumatiques ! Et que ses vertebres ne devien-
nent poreuses ou soi-disant pneumatiques, que juste au moment meme, oil,
passe a Vitat de Ratite t il cesse ddfinitivement de voler ! Au surplus, personne,
que je sache, n'a jamais pousse la fantaisie jusqu' a prctendre que les Dino-
sauriens fussent des animaux doues de la faculte du vol !
In the Dinosaurians, then, " dysostoses osteoporeuses ou
sinuso-megaliques " are to be regarded purely as manifestations
of Acromegaly. As in the case of the Ratita and Edentata, so
in that of the " Thalassotheriens " (Sirenia, Cetacea, etc.), which
have become " adapted," from an erstwhile terrestrial, to an
aquatic life, I do not agree with Dr. Larger that their " Regressions
adaptatives " are altogether " automatiques," but I submit that
they are largely due to inferior feeding habits.
Some of the stigmata adduced by the author are to
be met with more widely than he evidently thinks, especially
if we study their milder forms. Without becoming " pisciformes,"
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 181
like the " Thalassotheriens," many animals, including men,
are to be met with in which " la tete fait, de plus en plus, suite
au tronc, sans demarcation." The result is brought about by
bad feeding habits, and wherever we detect stigmata of this
kind, even in the more general appearance of the organism, there,
we must conclude, disease is present.
We are told that :
ies Thalassotheriens de pleine mer (Baleine, Cachalot, etc.), sont plus
degeneres que ceux qui, ne quittant pas Ies coles et ayant conserv c'est
le cas de le dire un pied-a-terre, vivent et se reproduisent en partie sur le
sol, comme Ies Sireniens et Ies Pinnipedes.
It should surely be added that the Sirenia have conserved
their cross-feeding habits, and that the Pinnipedia have in all
probability only comparatively late in their history become
converted to in-feeding habits, their glands thus retaining
considerable capacities of manufacturing useful secretions even
from second-hand food.
The chief " stigmate " of the Cetacea, according to Dr. Larger,
consists in " asymetries cranio-faciales," although, here too, we
meet with osteoporosis, or " hypertrophie spongieuse des os,"
or even with " Osteosclerosis " (Os craniens eburnes) " ce qui
reduit a neant 1'argument unique tire de la flottabilite* par allege-
ment." That the " Biologist es normaux " cannot account for
numerous features otherwise than by classing them as " useful
in combat," does not deter Dr. Larger from classing them as
pathological, which, in truth, they very often are. I fully agree
with him when he says :
Dans ces cas, comme dans beaucoup d'autres, je le repete, la Nature
fait effort pour profiter de 1'existence d'une lesion pathologique, en la
transformant, tant bien que mal, en une mutation plus ou moins utile.
Mais, en verite, on n'a pas le droit de dire que c'est premedit6 et normal
de sa part ; et n'est-ce pas veritablement forcer la note que d'y voir une
mutation proprement adaptative ?
As far as possible, i.e., as far as the frailty of life permits,
Nature is for ever trying to make the best of a " bad job," and
this fact should not be lost sight of, if we are to understand the
nature of the condominium of good and bad characters in a
species . In point of interpretation, however, neither "adaptation,
nor " mutation," nor " struggle " would satisfy me, seeing that
all these terms are employed without a bio-economic standard
of usefulness or normality.
182 SYMBIOSIS
An interesting problem arises in connection with the " Pachy-
ostose " of the Sirenians :
D'apres le Prof. Abel, en effet, cette pachyostose constituerait " une
cuirasse interne, une defense protectrice centre les fractures, et serait le resitltat
de faction des flats sur les os des Sireniens"
This explanation does not satisfy Dr. Larger, who demurs :
Mais pourquoi, seuls de tous les Thalassotheriens, les Sirdniens auraient-
ils besoin de cette fameuse cuirasse interne ? Et encore : 1'action des flots
n'est-elle done pas la meme pour tous ?
But it is all not so much a question of what is necessary or
expeditious, but rather a matter of what the physiological
economy of the organism can afford what Nature, with the
means thus offered her, can afford to do by way of making the
best of " a bad job" all of which depends very largely upon
feeding habits past and present.
In every one of my books I have emphasised the fact that loss
of symmetry is a grave symptom of Pathogenesis, and I find
myself in complete agreement with Dr. Larger when he says
that:
I'Asymetrie cranio-faciale est un stigmate degeneratif grave, incontest-
able et inconteste".
This asymmetry, we learn, is a feature amongst the Cetacea,
and it occurs amongst men always a more or less grave symptom
of disease. I also agree with the author that man must serve
us as the prototype in the study of degeneration. And here is
perhaps the place to mention that Dr. J. Bland Sutton, in his
Evolution and Disease, after a fairly wide study of the
zoological distribution of disease, reaches the conclusion that
many diseases, supposed to be distinct in man and the lower
animals, will one day be found to depend upon the same cause
which cause I believe to be none other than the parasitic diathesis.
In speaking " de la Degenerescence en general," Dr. Larger
expresses the view that the
loi de solidarite ou de correlation des Stigmates de la Degenerescence
n'est, par le fait, que 1'application a la pathologic de " la loi de Correlation
des caracteres (normaux) de Cuvier."
This deserves mention because " correlation " is admittedly
a most important matter one, moreover, which has not hitherto
had paid to it the attention it deserves. I would add that in
order to arrive at a full comprehension of the subject, it is indis-
pensable to take bio-economic correlation duly into account.
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 183
But Dr. Larger is still far too exclusively " teratologiste," and
his endeavour to fall into line with, or even to improve upon,
"la maniere large " "de concevoir la Degenerescence, maniere
inauguree par Charles Fere," must still be pronounced a failure.
What on special occasions he has to say of the solidarity of the
organs and the resulting possibilities of pathological correlations,
must be extended, mutatis mutandis, to the idea of the solidarity
of all life. Neither can it be overlooked that the degeneration
of the higher organisms presents a case of a corruptio optimi
pessima,
I quote, not without sympathy, the author's further remark :
Je discerne deja ce reproche que j'ai souvent entendu resonner a mes
oreilies : " Mais alors tout le monde est degen6r6 ! " Mais parfaitement !
Dans les races trop civilisees du moins, ou trop specialisees, comme on dit
en Paleontologie peu de families, en effet, sont absolument normales.
Et plus ces families sont cultivees et plus elles comptent de degeneres !
Et voila pourquoi, etant touted plus ou moins " predisposes," elles finissent
par disparaitre pour faire place a des Races indemnes de Digevirescence.
N'est-ce pas ce que 1'Histoire, d'une part, et la Paleontologie, de Tautre,
demontrent de la maniere la plus incontestable ?
There existed a fair consensus of opinion amongst ancient
philosophers that the chief cause of the decline of races was
excess :
Multo plures satietas quam fames perdidit viros.
And this, in my opinion, is fully borne out by the study of
Biology, as also of Palaeontology. Whilst predisposition, with
me, begins with a divorce from Symbiosis, with Dr. Larger it
begins only when such divorce has, after ages it may be, produced
grave anatomical blemishes. I wonder whence, in his opinion,
spring the " races indemnes de Degenerescence," and what,
according to him, would have to be the qualification of a pro-
genitor fertile in normal offspring ? The mere absence of
" stigmates," surely, is not enough, and tells us very little about
the physiological qualifications required. Nor is it enough to
say that : la plasticite s'accuse progressivement en remontant
vers 1'origine du phylum." What we want to know is this :
wherein consists normal specialisation ? The question why the
puny mammalia have scarcely degenerated, involves the author
with his axiom that " tout degdnere dans la nature " in some
difficulties. He thinks the organisation in this case has remained
primitive, the organisms having preserved their general characters
184 SYMBIOSIS
without " exces de specialisation portant sur les organes essentiels
a la vie."
This, however, is not, as he thinks, a statement of cause, but
one of facts only, without any explanation of the facts whatsoever.
I have shown in my Evolution by Co-ope/ation that in many
cases the differences of size are quite obviously connected with
differences of diet, and I have there also traced pronounced
sexual dimorphism to one and the same source, namely the
parasitic diathesis (p. 78) . Dr. Larger concedes that the way of life
may have contributed to the success of the punier races. They are,
he says, generally omnivorous, or feed upon animals and plants
which exist in all seasons, wherefore, he thinks, they are well
adapted to the changes of climate [i.e., they are tolerably cross-
feeders and many entirely so]. Besides, he continues, many
bury themselves during the unfavourable season and manage to
keep their nutrition suspended during hibernation [i.e., they
practise moderation, thus achieving regeneration and rejuven-
escence matters altogether under-estimated by Dr. Larger].
He further suggests that if they do not counter-evolve (degenerate)
this is because they did not in the first place evolve either, which
is evidently special pleading. Finally, he adduces his supposed
strongest reason : as these types do not show any " stigmate de
Degenerescence," it must be that they have preserved intact
their reproductive function which, again, I demur, is no explana-
tion, but only a surmise of facts. But the author eventually
finds a way out of the difficulty by dismissing the argument
altogether :
or la petitesse de la taille est un fait qui n'explique absolument rien.
He is on safer ground when he tells us :
le Gigantisme se rencontre, en effet, chez tous, quels qu'ils soient :
Vertebres ou Invertebres, depuis le Gorille jusqu' aux Foramini feres. Sa
Constance a la fin de presque toutes les especes, tous les genres, families,
classes et embranchements, est meme telle, que le Gigantisme des animaux
actuels et fossiles est devenu incontestablement la question capitale de
la Paleopathologie generate comparee et, partant, dans la recherche des
causes de 1'Extinction des groupes quels qu'ils soient.
All flesh is apt to pervert its way.
As regards, once more, the cause of " Degenerescence," in
trying to be more explicit than at first, when he referred to
" maladie quelconque," the author tells us that :
ce qui est incontestable, c'est qu'elle designe une maladie constitution-
elle, c'est-a-dire generate, dont la cause intime est encore indeterminee,
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 185
ce qui explique certaines divergences. Et s'il est permis d'emettre, a
cet egard, une hypothese, il semblerait qu'elle soit due a une alteration
protoplasmique. Mais la chimie seule pourra faire de cette hypothese une
realite, le jour ou elle se trouvera en mesure d'analyser et de synthetiser
les albuminoid es. Une infinite de phenomenes tant physiologiques que
pathologiques s'expliqueront sans doute ainsi.
This is putting us off to the Greek Kalends. My further
comment is that " alteration protoplasmique " signifies above
all " alteration symbiotique," both physiologically and biologically
speaking. Not Chemistry, but Bio-Economics can supply the
solution of the problem. We have seen that the best conception
of protoplasm is that of a partnership subject to " sociological "
laws, both " domestic " and biological. Sociological factors
we have indeed found to be the chief determinants of
protoplasmic success, and we have also concluded that the more
there is of Symbiosis, the more there exists of healthiness, of
division of labour and of resulting support, sanction, longevity,
and plasticity of life. That the protoplasm is largely determined
by biological factors, is implied by Dr. Larger 's own remark that
microbic intoxication must be held responsible for many patho-
logical changes when it remains to be seen, however, in how
far the organism by its own transgression provides the soil for
infection. When the protoplasm is thus affected, according to
the author, it loses " progressivement," all its properties, and
the organism becomes " un bouillon de culture." We are told
in capital letters :
C'est, en effet, la mauvaise quality du terrain il faut y insister qui
aract6rise le degeneve.
In other words, the soil is more important than the microbe.
When the " soil " is badly " fertilised " by inappropriate nutrition,
infection and degeneration set in. Ubi uber, ibi tuber. It is now
quite evident that the following passage merely requires inter-
pretation in terms of co-operation instead of struggle in order
to give a totally different complexion to " Contre-E volution " :
Tout etre organise, quelqu'il soit, vit sans cesse au milieu d'une infinite
de microbes saprophytes et pathogenes. Us pullulent a la fois dans 1'atmos-
phere qui 1'entoure, a la surface de son corps et dans toutes ses cavit6s
naturelles en contact avec le milieu exterieur. Les epitheliums de la
peau et des muqueuses ont pour fonction principale de lutter sans cesse
centre la penetration de ces microbes et de leurs toxines dans les tissus.
Ceux-ci sont envahis des 1'instant ou ces epitheliums, alteres dans leur
nutrition, opposent un obstacle insumsant a 1'invasion, laquelle devient
i86 SYMBIOSIS
complete au moment de la mort. Mais les moyens de defense de 1'orgamsme
vont plus loin encore et le sang renferme les phagocytes, ou fabrique par les-
glandes endocrines, les anticorps et autres antitoxines pour detruire les
microbes ou neutraliser les poisons qui ont franchi en fraude les barrieres
de Foctroi. II est done permis d'enoncer ceci : que vivre c'est letter.
Let us say that every organism is under the obligation of
upholding its bio-economic integrity, and that this implies
maintenance of the symbiotic disposition, i.e., obedience to the
law of co-operation under penalty of disease and pain. If the
means of defence are, normally, as high as they are here admitted
to be, if they depend upon (phagocytic) Symbiosis, as here described,
and if the defensive power of the epithelia is dependent upon
proper nutrition, this renders it only the more evident that
its inherent integrity is the true safeguard of the organism. The
case, in other words, does not stand so chaotically as the constant
reference to " lutter " would make it appear, and the " lutte "
itself is largely a bio-moral " lutte." But he who says " lutter,"
generally wishes thereby to shelve the inconvenient questions
as to sociology and the " inner nature of the organism." He
wishes to divert the attention from these subjects, a proceeding
which has the effect of converting the philosophy of life into
necrology, and of conducing to moral and intellectual damage.
No organism can live well without maintaining sufficient symbiotic
integrity this is the law of co-operation and the law of life.
Although Dr. Larger wishes to introduce an alternative "lutte "
to Darwin's " lutte pour la vie," he has yet overlooked the
fundamental alternatives to " lutte," which are : work and
co-operation.
Consider the following symptoms of degeneration as
enumerated by Dr. Larger :
Chez le degenere, toutes les fonctions de nutrition et de relation s'alter-
ent. La respiration et la circulation sont defectueuses. 11 en resulte une
hematose insumsante, d'ou : propension aux affections pulmonaires et
vasculaires, a I'anemie et a 1'arterio-sclerose notamment. La digestion
devient la dyspepsie , la sensibilite, le nervosisme. Le systeme muscul-
aire, mal nourri, mal innerve, s'atrophie. La fonction de generation sur-
tout subit les atteintes, les plus graves. Chez 1'homme, ce sont des troubles
genitaux varies, le conduisant a I'impuissance et a la sterilite.
What does all this imply ? It implies a loss of " normals "
those of nutrition, of respiration and of circulation, and also
those of generation, which " normals " we have seen, broadly
speaking, to be the correlates of normal bio-economic behaviour.
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 187
Evidently a foremost place is occupied by metabolic abnormality,
and we may feel certain that in Nature this is generally caused
by predaceous feeding or by in-feeding with the implied trans-
gression against the symbiotic order of nature and the consequent
physiological sterility.
As against Dr. Larger 's account of degeneration in man, we
may here set an account of man's frequent unsymbiotic behaviour,
as recently supplied to the Lancet, though with a totally different
thesis than the one here propounded, by Dr. Harry Campbell,
F.R.C.P., Alienist and Anthropologist. He tells us that
in the matter of slaughter he (man) leaves all other animals far behind.
He is the arch-slaughterer facile princeps. Since the time the pre-human
ape took to hunting he and his human descendants have wrought ruthless
havoc among the lower animals, and at the present day man not only hunts
them, but breeds them for the express purpose of destroying them, chiefly
for food, partly for amusement. Many a person of gentle nature would
be amazed and horrified were he at the end of a long life to see en masse,
the hecatombs of living things done to death on his behoof.
Such being (part of) man's biological behaviour, we cannot
be astonished at the prevalence of disease and of degeneration.
On Dr. Larger 's view, Tuberculosis is "la maladie degenera-
tive par excellence." This we are told in capital letters and with
many examples from animal and human races. " Elle s'attaque
aux organismes uses, commc les Moisissures aux vieux troncs."
It would, however, be more correct, I think, to regard the
attack as of the same nature as that o f the hyper-parasite upon
the parasite, i.e., largely as a form of biological retribution.
Curiou ly enough, Dr. Larger himself is tempted to speak of
the parasitic micro-organism as of an " executioner," although,
of course, he is far from avowing any kind cf moral or bio-moral
delinquency on the part of the " executed." Thus, in wishing
it to be understood that it really does not matter what particular
disease it is that is responsible for degeneration, he tells us that
not only Tuberculosis, but other diseases, too, may play the role
of the " executioner." He says :
cet office d'executeur peut etre rempli par n'importe quelle maladie
infectieuse qui trouve toujours dans la Degenerescence son terrain d'eledion.
At this point, however, feeling perhaps that the task of
discovering the true cause of degeneration is beyond him, the
author would fain discard any further quest of cause as " un
simple interet de curiosite." Curiosity forsooth !
i88
SYMBIOSIS
That " selection " very generally induces, not genuine
improvement, but, on the contrary, disease and degeneration,
is acknowledged by the author thus :
on cr6e forcemeat des adaptations nouvelles par les changements de
milieu et de regime, de suralimentation, etc. On provoque intentionelle-
ment des specialisations unilaterales excessives : le developpement exa-
g6re du systeme musculaire, pour la production de la viande chez les Bovidts,
pour favoriser la course chez les Equide~s, etc. C'est ainsi qu'on a singu-
lierement multiplie la tuberculose des Bovides " trop amelioreV ce
qui, en langage biologique, doit se traduire par " trop specialises." Et
parfois des laureats de concours agricoles ont 6te saisis & 1'abattoir comme
viande tuberculeuse. Le fait s'est produit, notamment, il y a une quin-
zaines d'annees, pour le taureau, laureat du grand prix du concours general
de Paris. Tant il est vrai que la Roche Tarpeienne est pres du Capitole !
Jean Jacques Rousseau would have told us that we have
here mainly an instance of bad biological behaviour on the part
of man. His modern countryman, albeit with much greater
erudition, or, perhaps, because of this, endeavours to explain
the biology of the case by a vague and semi-sociological term,
whilst at the same time implicitly denying the sociological factor.
If we were at least told wherein normal " specialisation "
consists ! The morale of the case seems to be mainly this, that
" suralimentation " of one kind or another produces morbid
growth and monstrosity, be it in Nature or in Domestication.
If History was to be invoked at all, in interpretation of the
"laureate's" fate, then it should have been shown that the mon-
ster's " misere," if not entirely self -caused, was yet typical of the
retribution befalling those types which from whatever cause
indulge in acromegalic habits and desires. We are further told:
Mais il arrive non moins souvent que, sans devenir tuberculeux, ces
memes animaux, purement selectionnes, degenerent neanmoins par suite
du simple changement des conditions biologiques (nourriture trop sub-
stantielle, etc.), auquelles on les soumet, et perdent plus ou moins leurs
qualites reproductrices.
A fortiori should this observation have caused the author to
pause and to consider the importance of feeding in degeneration.
It might have struck him that the same cause which is so potent
in the rapid degeneration of domesticated races, though Tuber-
culosis be absent, may be, in some way or another, the chief cause
of the gradual degeneration of races in Nature. It might have
struck him that there remained as yet some important laws of
nutrition to be enunciated. Instead of which, all we get is the
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 189
cheap philosophy of " lempus eda% rerum." There is also this
to be said : Dr. Larger has insisted on the normality of Parasites,
in view chiefly of their apparent fecundity. Now, as is well
known, the chief pre-requisite of Parasitism is an abundant
nutrition. How comes it that animals in Domestication, with
sluggishness of life and over-feeding as the norm, lose their
reproductive qualities, whilst Parasites, still more sluggish, and
still more indulgent in a " royal diet," i.e., under much the same
physiological conditions, yet fail to lose their reproductive
capacities ? The answer is that the physiological contradiction
is not real but only apparent, that Parasites are in effect losing
this capacity, and that it is only the blindness of Biologists which
does not see that there is really failure of genuine fecundity.
The compatibilities are merely different. The Parasite loses one
part after another in compensation for indulgence, whilst the
higher organism, liable to different compensations, can far less
afford to do so and may have to pay the penalty for indulgence
with his life. In either case, however, the analogous diathesis
tends to produce an identical result, namely, a curtailment of
the specific powers. If, according to Dr. Larger, Domestication
frequently results in "avortements spontanes," it may equally
be said that the Parasite's losing game of life is equal to an
" avortement perpetuel " of the species. Very aptly the author
himself says on p. 109 :
L'individu primitivement normal, mais ensuite diminue dans sa vitality
par les causes ci-dessus enoncees, engendre des etres dont la vitality est
elle-meme affaiblie et cela, de plus en plus, car V observation demontre qu'un
degenere produit generalement de plus digineves que lui. De telle sorte que
la Digenirescence devient progressive par Vheridite.
Let us say that the individual suffers a diminution in its
vitality chiefly as a result of " suralimentation," and that, only
too commonly, heredity is the worse for it. Whether, in the
author's words, "la gravite des tares degeneratives devient
incompatible avec la vie," depends, as I have said, on the
status and character of the particular species. In a micro-
organism, the same diathesis as that in a higher organism is only
too likely to produce different phenomena, though in either case
the nett effect is that of a loss of vitality.
A dim recognition of what I have called " spiritual law in the
natural world " may be said to occur on p. 119, where the author
igo SYMBIOSIS
adumbrates that there is a struggle between Good and Evil,
i.e., between physiological and pathological factors, a
lutte du Bien et du Mai lutte incessante, avec des alternatives de
succes et de* revers de part et d'autre et cela, depuis 1'etat embryonnaire
jusqu'a la mort de 1'individu ; depuis 1'apparition jusqu'a 1'extinction
du groupe ; mais lutte dans laquelle, nous venons de le voir, le Mai finit
toujours fatalement, bien qu'a la longue, par 1'emporter sur le Bien.
This amounts almost to a religion of fatalism, and it has its
basis in the fact that the founder only begins with the symptoms
of comparatively advanced disease, the phase past redemption,
and ignores the inceptional stage, including the real " raison
d'etre " of the conflict concerned. The fatal ending of the
Degenerate is not at all to be regarded as a victory of Evil over
Good. What is past praying for is eliminated : that is all. The
41 Good," i.e., the bio-economically useful, survives.
In arguing that it is " Degenerescence," and not " Natural
Selection/' which is chiefly responsible for destruction, the
author tells us that it is a great error to believe that the approach-
ing extinction of elephants and whales is due to the action of
man :
La verite est que ces animaux sont en train de disparattre parce
qu'etant considerablement reduits et amoindris par la Degenerescence
demontree par les lesions anatomo-pathologiques de rAcromtgalie-Gigan-
tisme, la destruction brutale [chasse] peut s'operer et s'accomplir efficace-
ment. Cette action serait au contraire negligeable, comme elle Test chez
les lapins et les Rongeurs en general, si les Elephants et les Baleines etaient,
de meme que ces derniers, des animaux normaux, c'est-a-dire capables
de reparer leurs pertes par une extreme fecondite : ce qui n'est pas.
We have seen, however, that " Degenerescence " is no more
the true cause of extinction, than extreme fecundity is a symptom
of genuine survival. Man, by his inferior instincts, becomes a
kind of scavenger, a kind of "executioner," to whom many
over-fed and morbid types fall a prey much in the same way as
they do to parasitic micro-organisms. We need not, therefore,
deny the well-known agency of man in the destruction of these
types in order to bolster up a distinctive " Contre-E volution."
What we need to do is this : to apportion the role played by the
respective appetites in determining the fate of the organism.
Dr. Larger's continuation, indeed, very pertinently provokes
such an interpretation :
Pareil fait a celui qui s'est passe a la Jamai'que arriva en Australie
ou les conditions, en depit de la grandeur de Tile, sont cependant
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 191
comparables, au point de vue de la Segregation geographique, car les deserts
centraux de 1'Australie tiennent lieu de barrieres infranchissables. II y
a un certain nombre d'annees, en effet, quelques couples de lapins y furent
acclimates. Mais il advint que les lapins se multiplierent a ce point qu'ils
devinrent un vrai fleau pour le pays. Tons les moyens de destruction outre
la chasse [pieges, poisons, virus pathogenes, etc.] etant epuises, on cut
recours aux chats qu'on acheta en grandes quantites en Europe et en
Amerique. Les chats, il est vrai, detruisirent les lapins. Mais les chats,
a leur tour, devorerent les oiseaux et les poules. Us finirent par s'attaquer
aux agneaux et aux moutons eux-memes. Pour le coup, on songea aux chiens.
Or ces derniers, devenus sauvages, devorerent tous les autres animaux,
sauvages ou domestiques !
A round of events similar to this also applies in Nature, in
the shape of " checks/' spoken of in a previous chapter. The
nett effect of such " checks," as I have stated, is to ensure the
protection of the fundamental capitalist : the plant. Appetites,
unrestrained by Symbiosis, lack the permanent element, i.e., in
their inordinate growth they become self-destructive, and eventu-
ally cease to be even indirectly useful. It is thus the uselessness
of the whale and the elephant which is the final cause of their
morbidity and disappearance. The elephant, being at least a
cross-feeder, is easily the more useful and also the more sym-
pathetic of the two, and its chances of life, therefore, are greater
than those of the whale. Unwittingly Dr. Larger provides
exceeding good testimony for my view respecting the superiority
of cross-feeders. Thus, of the negroes in the United States,
contrasting them with the Red Indians, he says :
Bien que places dans des conditions identiques, ils prosperent nean-
moins et voient meme leur population s'accroitre dans des proportions
telles que la question Negve en est devenue un probleme inquietant pour
1'avenir des Etats-Unis. Et cependant ils ont ete soumis, encore un coup,
aux memes epreuves que les Peaux-Rouges, ont subi les memes brutalites
de leurs premiers maitres, leurs memes contacts physiques et moraux,
avec cette circonstance tres aggravante, que, deracines de leur pays
d'origine, 1'Afrique, ils ont du s'adapter a un nouveau climat et a de
nouveaux milieux. II y a la une contradiction apparente, mais qui
s'explique tres -bien. Les Negres africains, en effet, race in/trieure,
sont doues d'une vitalite extraordinaire, dont ils nous offrent le spectacle
dans leur pays d'origine ou ils resistent si etonnamment a toutes les causes
de destruction telles que : guerres, esclavage, disettes, maladies. C'est
ainsi, par example, qu 'Us jouissent d'une immunity d peu pres complete
pour la fievre jaune, et, relative, pour la malaria.
A ce propos, Boudin (Soc. Anthrop., loc. cit., 1860) : "Cite 1'exemple
d'une expedition anglaise ou les Negres jouirent d'une immunite remarqu-
able pour le paludisme auquel succomberent beaucoup d'Anglais." Chez
192 SYMBIOSIS
eux, comme chez tous les races non degenerees, les plaies ne suppurenf
que peu ou point, tant est energique leur phagocytose, ainsi que je 1'ai deja
fait remarquer (Congres fran9ais de chirurgie, 1899). Par centre, chez
les degeneres, le pus se forme avec facilite et abondance et leur phagocytose
est tres affaiblie. On peut dire des lors que la faculte d* adaptation des Ndgres
est maxima et Ton comprend tres bien qu'elle leur ait permis de resister
a toutes les conditions defectueuses nouvelles resultant de leur trans-
plantation d'Afrique en Amerique.
But whence the extraordinary vitality of the negroes ? Are
they a " race non degeneree " for no other reason than that they
are a " race inferieure " ? Surely this is not a very plausible
explanation, nor one worthy of a Physiologist or of a medical
man ! But the physiological cause of this vitality and the true
explanation of the contrast between Red Indians and negroes,
which Dr. Larger has entirely overlooked, I submit, are these :
the Red Indians are mostly in-feeders, hunters, warriors and
meat -eaters ; whilst the negroes, especially in their " pays
d'origine," are chiefly cross-feeders. In his work on Leprosy,
the late Sir Jonathan Hutchinson reports that the Zulus, the
physically finest race of African natives, live upon maize, millet
and the productions of their herds. They have a strong prejudice
against fish as food, and, as a rule, never eat it. Sir Jonathan
was told that no girl would marry a man who admitted that he
had been in the habit of eating fish.
If Dr. Larger, as he says, has demonstrated, that the immunity
to disease on the part of the negroes depends upon their great
power of Phagocytosis, then he has in reality proved that this
power of resistance, this ability to depend upon biological support,
consists in Symbiosis, as previously defined by me. Phagocytosis
is but another word for internal or domestic Symbiosis, which,
as the example shows, largely depends upon appropriate feeding
habits, i.e,, above all, on cross-feeding. It is chiefly amongst
cross-feeders, again, that we find those remarkable powers of
adaptation dwelt upon by the author. Even in captivity this
is very noticeable. Thus, according to R. Lydekker, whilst the
little insectivorous bats, the flying-foxes of Australia (Pteropus
poliocephalus), like our own species, give some trouble to keep,
the big tropical fruit-bats are very easy subjects, and, in the
London Zoo, the African collared species (Cynonycteris collaris)
bred generation after generation in some cages in the Monkey
House years ago.
We may say, therefore, that the physiological superiority of
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 193
the negroes is due to a high degree of biological integrity, not-
withstanding inferiority in other directions. Physiologically, they
do not deserve to be classed as an inferior race, and one would
rather exclaim with regard to the cause of their immunity to
microbic attacks : " vraie noblesse nul ne blesse." Absence of
biological integrity and absence of Phagocytosis go together.
Thus, as previously noted, in the notoriously parasitic
Nematodes, no wandering phagocytes have been discovered,
and the same is true of other lowly types.
When Dr. Larger surmises with regard to the Red Indians
that " leur race etait sans doute, degeneree quelque peu, avant
la conquete de 1'Amerique, comme 1'etait certainement celle
des Asteques," this is merely " repondre en Normand." We
want to know the reason, the physiological reason, for this early
phase of degeneration. " Over-specialisation " and " Over-
Evolution," or " Cont re-Evolution," are mere words explaining
nothing.
It is well known that the class Cephalopoda, comprising the
Cuttle fishes, Squids, Pearly Nautilius, etc., are all marine and
carnivorous, and it is interesting to learn from Dr. Larger that
the study of their past orders has helped to engender some
sympathy amongst Palaeontologists with the idea of
Degenerescence-Maladie : C'est ce qu'exprime clairement un jeune
savant frangais prematurement disparu, Felix Bernard : En general, dit-
il, les formes ainsi modifiees sont frappees d'une sorte de dibiliti cong&nitale
qui les rend mains aptes d la lutte pour la vie et ne donnent pas une longue
strie de descendants : c'est ce qui arrive pour les Cdphalopodes devoules
qui atteignent une assez grande taille et disparaissent ensuite brusque-
ment ; ce fait se produit a diverses epoques et aux depens de groupes
distincts. II est accentue surtout pendant la periode Cretacee. II
semble, a la fin de cette epoque, que le groupe entier soit malade.
Bernard's intuition, respecting the morbidity of monstrous
size, however, was confined to the Cephalopods, according to
Dr. Larger, who here again raises the absurd claim that no one
but himself had ever thought of connecting extinction with
pathology. Thanks to the law of " Attenuation," so Dr. Larger
thinks, a giant animal race, though morbid, may yet remain able
to procreate for considerable periods of time. An acromegalic
giant, such as an elephant, according to him, suffers merely from
monstrosity. It is more or less " en etat d'imminence morbide."
It is in a state of grave degeneracy,
Mais non pas au propre, un malade. C'est ce qui explique comment
194 SYMBIOSIS
il se fait que 1'animal acromegalique-geant soil encore capable, quoique
faiblement, de procreer [exemples : Elephants, Baleines, etc.].
This, it seems to me, is putting too fine a point upon the
distinction between morbidity and disease. Procreation per se,
to my mind, proves little ; it may proceed for a long time though
attended by disease. The good physician is he who recognises
such disease though masked by the remaining components of
health.
We learn that the comparatively slight cases of human
acromegaly are much more common than is usually thought,
and it has been found that " les variations extremes de la taille
relevent toujours de causes pathologiques," with which I fully
agree.
For a more exact account of the various " stigmates tera-
tologiques, psychiques, nevro-pathiques ; asymetries ; denivelle-
ments de la taille des families ; dystrophies gigantiques ;
dysharmonies de diverses parties du corps ; developpements
precoces," marking the degenerate types, I must refer the reader
to the book itself. We are told that " chez les Vertebres geants
les plus superieurs, tant actuels que fossiles, on ne constate que
rarement 1'absence des lesions anatomo-pathologiques de la
Dystrophie acromegalique."
The exception, apparently, is formed by some cross-feeding
mammals, such as " Cervus Megaceros (fossile) et Cervus Wapiti
(actuellement en voie de disparition au Canada), chez lesquels
cette absence de lesions acromegaliques paraisse plus ou moins
etablie."
Evidently cross-feeding is answerable for many circumstances
favourable to prolonged viability of the species.
Man, according to the author, is affected by comparatively
simple forms of Gigantism, whilst
les formes du Gigantisme acromegalique et de I'Acromegalie simple,
ou accompagnee de Nanisme, sont au contraire des types de dysostoses
appartenant pour ainsi dire exclusivement d la Diginirescence animale
actuelle et fossile.
Dr. Larger is of opinion that the reason for the disparity
between human and animal gigantism must be sought in the
comparatively enormous cerebral differentiation of man . I would
rather say that the disparity has its source in the fact that man's
ancestors were symbiotic cross-feeders, far excelling in biological
integrity all other types, and, further that the graver forms of
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 195
Acromegaly are incompatible with man's evolutionary status,
similar to the way in which, on the physiological side, regeneration
of limbs is incompatible with the status of the higher animal.
The following is Dr. Larger's formula respecting the zoological
distribution of " Gigantisme " :
le Gigantisme simple est celui des Digeneres supdrieurs et le Gigantisme
acromegalique, celui des Degeneves inf6rieurs en donnant meme & cette
derniere appellation le sens de bestialiti.
The contrast, therefore, is between bestiality, with its extreme
degeneration, and the sympathetic, i.e., symbiotic, organism
which, by its very nature, by its superior character, is debarred
from descending to the lowest depths of degeneration.
The whole skeleton, according to Dr. Larger, is eventually
affected by Acromegaly ; and he mentions the following important
symptoms : " dilatation des Sinus cranio-fasciaux ; 1'osteoporose
ou 1'osteosclerosc de tous les os ; la dilatation des trous osseux
vasculaire? et nerveux ; les saillies des insertions musculaires."
There are two types of Acromegaly so far as the structure of
the skeleton is concerned : " le type long et mince et le type
large et epais (Macroplastie et Euryplastie)," both occurring
occasionally in man, although it is the " euryplastic " type that
is the commoner of the two :
Mais d'une maniere generate, tant chez I'homme que surtout chez
les animaux (Proboscidiens, Grands C&taces, Sirtniens, Megatherium, Din-
osauriens}, c'est le type d'Acromegalie dit 6pais et large ou euryplastique
qui 1'emporte. L'on peut dire que ce qni s'observe le plus souvent chez
I'homme, principalement, c'est le melange en proportions variables, des
deux types ; non seulement sur le meme individu, mais encore, sur le meme
crane. C'est ce que demontrent les autopsies relatees par Launois et
Roy et d'autres encore. Uir regular it 6 d'tpaisseur des parois du crane
humain, notamment, a meme ete donnee par B6clere comme etant un
caractere de 1'Acromegalie humaine, bien que cette irregularite soit bien
loin d'y etre constante.
We may well believe that frequently enough the thickening
of the walls, incidental upon general mal-nutrition, is but a
forerunner of their extreme porosity. The phenomenon is
symptomatic of the way in which every undue exuberance of life
is followed by general exhaustion.
We learn that amongst the races of man a well denned
acromegalic type was confined to the Neanderthalians. Modern
acromegalic human giants are all completely sterile, which
precludes extremely pathological characters from becoming fixed
196 SYMBIOSIS
by heredity as they otherwise would, and as they actually do in
the case of animals.
It is interesting in this connection to note that the author
distinguishes between " sterilite immediate," i.e., 'Tinaptitude
absolue a feconder ou a concevoir ; and " sterilite mediate,"
i.e., " Finfecondite relative, c'est-a-dire, celle ou la natalite n'est
que notablement affaiblie, dans le principe ; mais devient par
la suite, complete."
There is thus, no doubt, a gradual exhaustion of the procreating
power, pari passu, I believe, with the gradual intensification of
the parasitic diathesis. What Dr. Larger omits to state is this,
that in the majority of cases the precursor of this gradual exhaus-
tion was a more or less intensified redundancy, an undue
exuberance of life, which, though originally deriving its power
from Symbiosis, yet very commonly transgresses the bounds
of symbiotic restraint, which led to reactions of an injurious
order.
According to the author, there is a fair consensus of opinion
among savants that the cause of the acromegalic affection of the
skeleton is ultimately to be found in " un trouble de nutrition
osseuse." Hence Dr. Larger 's term " dysostose acromegalique,"
which he conceives to be a part of the general "dystrophie
acromegalique " of the entire body " squelette et organs
splanchniques."
Beyond such surmises, however, we get no approach to the
elucidation of the real problem, namely, as regards the nature
and significance of the nutritive failure. Dr. Larger 's strength
evidently lies in classification rather than in explanation . He is,
of course, chiefly concerned with specification, with the task of
outlining palseo-pathological stigmata. To this end he first
wishes to establish a " signe pathognomonique invariable de la
Dysostose acromegalique," and as such he recognises above all
what he terms " la Sinusomegalie "
La dilatation ou le Retrecissement des sinus cranio-faciaux, speciale-
ment, de ceux du Frontal par I'effet de la Dysostose acromegalique
invariablement concomitante de leurs parois ; soit par Osteoporose ou
Osteosclerose, soit, le plus souvent, par 1'association des deux.
We learn that
la Sinusomegalie surtout frontale, est le signe pathognomonique de la
Dysostose acromegalique, tant chez rhomme que chez les Mammiferes
actuels et fossiles doues d'un cerveau centralise, ... la Sinusonie-
galie, soit cranienne, soit vertebrate, n'etant au fond qu' une osttoporose-
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 197
d outrance, constitue en general, chez les Vertebres, le caractere a la fois
le plus decisif et le plus constant qui se puisse voir de la Dysostose
acromegalique.
It would be impossible here to enumerate all the various
" signes pathognomoniques adjuvants ou secondaires," as laid
down by the author. Suffice it to emphasise the fact, to which
he himself witnesses, namely, that mal-nutrition of one kind or
another is entailed in the respective pathology.
An interesting point occurs with regard to the explanation
of the ossification of the ligaments and of the intervertebral
muscles in the case of some Dinosauria. This is what we are
told:
Or les ossifications ligamenteuses et musculaires se montrent exclusive-
ment chez les Iguanodons, alors que tous les Crocodiliens en sont exempts !
Comment expliquer cela ? se demande 1'eminent professeur de Brux-
elles (Dollo) pour qui d'ailleurs 1'Acromegalie est chose absolument
inconnue ! II ne pense naturellement qu'a une explication par la Physio-
logie normale, explication qu'il emprunte a Barkow. Nous ne le suivrons
evidemment pas sur ce terrain, qui n'est pas le vrai, nous bornant a relater
ici sa description inconsciente de la Dysostose : " Ce sont, dit-il, des sortes
de cordelettes osseuses [car les ligaments et muscles sont ossifies et non
pas pitrifies : 1'auteur tablk lui-meme la distinction ce qui est tres import-
ant) embrassant, a droite et a gauche, la colonne vertebrale, dorsalement
aux diapophyses et commen9ant generalement a la fin de la Region cervic-
ale, pour se continuer, sans interruption, dans les regions dorso-lombaire
et caudale, ne s'arretant que quand les lames des neurapophyses cessent
d'exister, etc. Us rentrent done dans la categoric [categoric incontestable-
ment pathologique] des ligaments derives de muscles entiers par suppression
des fibres musculaires et ossification subsequente : Muscles sacro-lumbalis,
spinalis dorsi, multifides spinae, obliquo spinalis." Et 1'auteur lequel,
aux yeux de quiconque a 1'honneur de le connaitre, ne m6ritera jamais
le reproche de prolixite ! termine son tres bref, mais fort substantiel et
tres interessant Memoire, par cette remarque que nous enregistrons non
sans satisfaction, a savoir : " qu'il existe la plus grande analogic entre
la disposition des ligaments ossifies des Iguanodons et celle decrite par
Owen chez Apteryx," Et il ajoute ceci : " Les Ratites sont de tous les
Oiseaux, ceux qui presentent le plus d'affinite avec les Dinosauriens."
L'excellent professeur Dollo rfoublie qii'une settle chose, Jest de nous dire
le point connnun aux Ratites et aux Dinosauriens, a savoir : l'Acrom6galie.
We may fitly compare the loss or ossification of muscular
fibre in the case of the Dinosaurs, to the loss of regular fibre in
the case of plants which have ceased to draw on soil and atmosphere
having yielded instead to parasitic propensities. And we may
interpret the convergence between Dinosauria and Ratitae, noted
by Prof. Dollo, as one due to a parallel retrogression from a
igS SYMBIOSIS
previous normal and symbiotic to an abnormal and comparatively
parasitic habit of life.
A somewhat similar convergence, only on a smaller scale,
was noted by Darwin in the case of domesticated pigs. To some
extent Darwin seems to have realised that the phenomenon is
due to a pathological cause. For in his Variation of Animals
and Plants, Vol. I., p. 90, he states that the phenomenon is due
" to similar causes of change acting on the several races, and
partly to man breeding the pig for one sole purpose, namely,
for the greatest amount of flesh and fat " (i.e., man is over-feeding
and at the same time under-exercising the creature, which is
certain in the long run to induce morbidity).
On the other hand, Darwin, always open to the possibilities
of re-conversion, notes in the same volume (p. 95), that pigs and
other animals, when allowed to become feral, tend to lose their
monstrosity and to revert in the general shape of their bodies
" as might be expected from the amount of exercise which they
are compelled to take in search of food."
In the case of cattle, he says that " we cannot doubt that an
active life, leading to the free use of the limbs and lungs, affects
the shape and proportion of the whole body," whence it should
not prove too great a step to the recognition that a definite ratio
of food to work, such in fact as provided by the contingencies
of Symbiosis, is indispensable to normal " specialisation."
In view of the great physiological importance of this ratio, I
would introduce the expression f/w (^J) as a way of repre-
senting a norm of behaviour upon which almost everything
in Biology depends.
It is also significant that Darwin compares the case of
monstrosity amongst cattle, e.g., the niatas, to that of the over-
fed pig or bulldog. Nay, he goes further, and, taking care to
indicate several interesting pathological stigmata, he makes a
comparison with the case of the gigantic extinct Sivatherium of
India, showing that in either case we have the lower jaw
projecting beyond the upper, with a corresponding upward
curvature, etc., etc.
Seeing that I cannot emphasise too much the parallelism
between the pathology due to sluggishness, over-feeding, and
Parasitism in Nature, and the one induced by a perverted
f/w ratio in Domestication, a further digression respecting
Darwin's views on these matters may not be out of place. " It
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 199
is almost certain," he says (loc. cit., p. 112) " that abundant food
given during many generations directly affects the size of a
breed."
Surely the same is true in the case of abundant food " taken "
by a species in Nature, more especially so if there is a lack of
habitual counter-services. Had " selection " not been so dear
to Darwin's heart, had he fully appreciated the importance of
the f/w ratio, he would, no doubt, have come to realise that
artificial selection is too closely associated with Pathogenesis
to exemplify the process of normal evolution.
He would have realised the extreme physiological importance
of the bio-economic nexus existing between organisms, be it
on the small or on the large scale of Nature. Darwin was
evidently greatly struck by the bad effects, extending even to the
anatomy of the creature, of surfeit, confinement, and one-sided
exploitation of organism by organism, as evinced by the case of
Domestication. Thus he notes the elongation of the skull
relatively to its breadth, and the antithesis between size of brain
and of body developments obviously analogous to those seen
in the monstrous types in Nature. He states (p. 143) :
The explanation seems to lie in the circumstance that during a number
of generations the artificial races have been closely confined, and have
had little occasion to exert either their senses, or intellect, or voluntary
muscles ; consequently the brain, as we shall presently more fully see,
has not increased, the bony case enclosing it has not increased, and this
has evidently affected through correlation the breadth of the entire skull
from end to end,
And again (p. 157) :
We thus see that the most important and complicated organ in the
whole organisation is subject to the law of decrease in size from disuse.
To " disuse " we must now, however, add " misuse." With
this addendum it is fairly obvious that there is a unity of
disease, be it in the case of monstrosity in Nature, or in Domesti-
cation, as exemplified by Darwin's findings. In either case
we have a perverted f/w ratio, with the implied divorce from
Symbiosis. If he does not provide instances of ossification, Darwin
at any rate shows that by way of correlation every suture in the
skull as well as the form of the lower jaw (asymmetry of the
condyles) is often greatly affected in Domestication. " How
erroneous," he exclaims, " to say that only parts of slight
importance become modified under domestication." Yes, but
above all it is necessary to recognise that for the most part
200 SYMBIOSIS
these modifications appertain to the pathological order and are
the opposites of those produced in normal evolution. The
modifications under Domestication redound little to the credi
of " Selection." Justification for this view is again afforded b
Darwin's own subsequent remark respecting the domestic rabbit
concerning which he tells us (p. 157) : " By the supply of abundan
and nutritious food, together with little exercise, and by th
continued selection of the heaviest individuals, the weight
the larger breeds has been more than doubled." Obvious!
Darwin felt constrained, by the force of the evidence, to giv
pride of place to two positive factors, namely (a) food, and (b
exercise, whilst the negative factor : destruction (selection^ tak
third place, as certainly it should.
Supposing, in the place of Darwin's phrasing, we put the ca
thus : By the continued supply of abundant and highly nutritio
but unnatural food, together with too little exercise, the size
the organism becomes pathologically increased. By makin
exploitatory use of the principle of compensation, man indue
a hypertrophy in some parts together with an atrophy in othe
By the destruction of those animals which lend themselves le
to man's exploitatory purposes, the. abnormality of the survive
(the " selected ") tends even to be increased. The whole process
except for some mitigating circumstances, is one of systemati
non-symbiotic and semi-parasitic exploitation, which cannot b
be physiologically injurious, i.e., it is pathological in effects,
term " Selection," therefore, fails to convey what is chiefl
entailed in Domestication. " Darwin," says De Vries, " w
never quite clear about the physiological part of the theory
Selection."
But who amongst recent writers sees clear in these matters ?
Who has shown that physiology is above all determined by
biological behaviour ?
But to return now to " Cont re-Evolution." It is when we
come to Dr. Larger's treatment of the aetiology of " Gigantisme
acromegalique " that we are afforded the utmost justification
for concluding that surfeit and in-feeding are largely responsible
for the implied Pathogenesis. Frequently the abnormalities,
atrophies, precocities and disharmonies are quite obviously of
the same character as those occurring in Domestication, or, still
more so, in rank Parasitism. There is, first of all, the case of
some giant tadpoles, discussed at considerable length by Dr. Larger
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 201
and diagnosed by him as Acromegaly. What is omitted, and
what has to be borne in mind above all, is this, that although
tadpoles are mostly cross-feeders pointing to a one-time
purely cross-feeding ancestry yet the adult frogs are frequently
inveterate in-feeders, taking large toll of insect and other life,
which must give rise to a diathesis and likewise to infection.
All carnivorous or insectivorous animals suffer from food-borne
infection, and anyone dissecting a frog can, as a rule, detect some
parasite. Acromegaly here, according to Dr. Larger, is due
not to a local but to a general cause :
une cause de nature toxi-infectieuse ce qui est prouve par 1'invasion
uniforme de tous les tissus par les leucocytes et les cellules osinophyles,
cause efficiente des processus a la fois hyperplasiques et atrophiques dont
ces m ernes tissus sont le siege.
But, surely, the chief cause behind Dr. Larger's " non-local "
cause, is in-feeding, the bad effects of which universally lead
to antitheses as here portrayed. In this connection the author
again insists that there is a pathological reason for the fact that
we never meet with " Gigantisme acromegalique " at the
beginning of a phylum, without, however, being able to specify
the true reason for the comparatively late incidence of the
visitation. All he can tell us is that some ancestor must have
left a " heredite pathologique." The phenomenon, however,
can be accounted for by the view that the beginning of a phylum
is everywhere made by cross-feeding and by such wholesome
biological activities as preclude disease. Such behaviour alone
leads up to a fruitful patrimony. The frailty of life, however,
is such, that wholesome development is frequently followed by
abuse, leading to the growth of a parasitic diathesis, which
finally leaves the organism, if monstrous, yet bare of viability
and of power of orientation in the world of life. Though without
any subjection to the will of man, or, for that matter, to that of
any other creature, the acromegalic organism ultimately loses
the ability of duly fending for itself and of adapting itself pro-
gressively. Its life and constitution are no longer congruous
with the leading socio-physiological contingencies of existence.
Its very existence is an anachronism in modern evolution.
Acromegaly, human or animal, is marked by " anarchic
glandulaire " in the absence, I should say, of a perfect
glandular balance. And this balance depends upon (a) internal
symbiosis, and, concomitantly, (b) upon external Symbiosis, the
202 SYMBIOSIS
two mutually complementing each other ; for, be it with glands,
or organs, or organisms : all have to comply, jointly as well as
severally, biologically as well as physiologically, with the all-
embracing socio-physiological law of progress, the law oi
Symbiogenesis.
The following are some acromegalic stigmata applying to
man and beast as observed by an autopsy and cited on p.
of Dr. Larger's work :
On trouve, outre les dysostoses que nous avons decrites precedemment :
" une tumeur du corps pituitaire grosse comme une mandarine. Le foie,
la rate et les reins hypertrophies. L'uterus tout petit, portait 2 ovaires
atrophies. Pareille atrophie complete des organes genitaux males
voit ailleurs. Les capsules surrenales sont volumineuses. Enfin et sur-
tout, le corps thyroide est enormement hypertrophie, avec 4 parathy-
roides considerablement augmentees de volume. En resume : tous le
organes splanchniques sont plus ou moins interesses ; les ui
hypertrophies, les autres, atrophies I'hypophyse y comprise, peut-on
dire \
It is therefore certain, says the author, that " l'origin<
et la nature toxi-infectieuses generates sont demontrees a la
fois par la Pathologic humaine et par la Pathologic comparee."
The Neanderthalian, as already pointed out, in the author's
opinion, is the only human group " nettement degenere d'apres
le mode animal." This race was not
acromegalique individuellement et a titre exceptionnel, comme peut
1'etre rhomme actuel ; mais bien en tant que groupe entier, c'est-a-dire,
de la fa$on dont sont atteints et disparaissent ou ont disparu la plupart
des groupes animaux actuels et fossiles.
As to the lesions found, there have been shown to be various
forms of Arthritis, often of a tubercular character. There are
indications of Osteo-arthritis and of " polyarthrite alveoloden-
taire." More precisely, Dr. Larger thinks the lesions due to
" Rhumatisme tuberculeux," which disease is notorious for
its osseous lesions lesions to be found in the Neanderthalian
skeleton and likewise in that of Ursus spelaeus.
No doubt, in-feeding and sluggish conditions, the analogues
of those prevailing in Domestication, must be held responsible
for the result. Dr. Larger says that especially during the late
glacial periods, when man and animal lived under deplorable
hygienic conditions, either in caverns or with insufficient shelter,
and often without air and light and with insufficient food, tuber-
culosis was certain to have been rampant. And tuberculosis,
" c'est la maladie degenerative par excellence."
" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 203
There is no doubt, I should add, that depredation and carni-
vorism were widely prevalent during those remote uncongenial
ages, with conditions generally adverse to Symbiosis. Of Homo
N eanderthalis , Dr. Larger further says that he constitutes
un groupe essentiellement degeneratif, form6 exclusivement par un
ensemble d'individus portant tous, sans exception, les caracteres de
PAcrom6galie. Ce groupe degeneratif est tout a fait comparable a celui
des C6tac6s, des Dinosaitriens, des Pttrosauriens et des Ratites que nous
avons deja vus et a celui des Proboscidiens. Le groupe de " 1'Homo
Neanderthalis " est un groupe degeneratif bien plus homogene encore
que ne Test, a ce point de vue pathologique, celui des Anthropoides lui-
meme. . . De telle sorte qu'il est plus exact de dire, qu'au point de vue de
la Degenerescence en general, et a celui de 1'Acromegalie, en particulier,
c'est le Neanderthalien et non 1'Anthropoide, qui marque v6ritable-
ment la transition de I'homme actuel aux groupes animaux degeneres
totalement : les Proboscidiens, par exemple.
It is only too likely, I should say, that the Neanderthalian
race had attained to almost complete in-feeding as corruption
is often the greater the higher you go which the Anthropoids
had avoided, the latter thus escaping the extreme pathology of
the former. Special circumstances, of course, may have con-
tributed to this end. It is, however, interesting in this connection
to find that another French writer, Gaudry, points to nutritional
conditions as possible determinative factors. As Dr. Larger
tells us :
