8 SYMBIONTICISM AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



Microsymbiosis appears to be a universal biological phe- 

 nomenon. The cells of all normal plants and animals 

 contain minute bodies which have been named "mito- 

 chondria." In a series of researches the author has been 

 able to demonstrate the bacterial nature of these bodies. 

 Their universal presence in the cell coupled with the known 

 properties of bacteria, appear to indicate that mitochondria 

 represent the end adjustment of a fundamental biologic 

 process. The estabhshment of intimate microsymbiotic 

 complexes has been designated "Symbionticism" by the 

 author. Symbionticism, then, is proposed as the funda- 

 mental factor or the cardinal principle involved in the origin 

 of species. 



It is a rather starthng proposal that bacteria, the organ- 

 isms which are popularly associated with disease, may 

 represent the fundamental causative factor in the origin of 

 species. Evidence of the constructive activities of bacteria 

 has been at hand for many years, but popular conceptions 

 of bacteria have been colored chiefly by their destructive 

 activities as represented in disease. This destructive con- 

 ception has become so fixed in the popular mind that the 

 average person considers bacteria and disease as synony- 

 mous. Bacteria occupy a fundamental position in the world 

 as it is constituted today. It is impossible to conceive of 

 this world as existing without bacteria. The cycUc rotation 

 of essential food elements is dependent on bacterial activity. 

 Thus, fixed nitrogen which is practically limited in amount 

 in the world and is, also, the pivotal element in living matter, 

 is made available through bacterial activity. Those kinds 

 of bacteria which produce disease in man and animals, the 

 pathogenic bacteria, represent only a small fraction of all 

 the known varieties of bacteria. The activities in nature 

 that are dependent upon bacteria are numerous and diver- 

 sified. It is this diversity of bacterial properties, that 

 lends support to the theory of Symbionticism as the causa- 

 tive factor in the origin of species. 



