SYMBIOSIS 13 



Bio-Economics. I shall have plentiful occasion in the 

 following pages to demonstrate the truth of these contentions. 



The gastronomic triviality at the end of the above passage 

 may, in the meantime, serve as an illustration of what a 

 yielding to bad habits may in the end accomplish by way of 

 causing loss of dignity, of association, and of "status." In 

 human society, as in nature, individuals are most generally 

 attracted by that which they have made their attraction 

 " Du gleichst dem Geist den du begreifst " or, at any rate, 

 attractions are qualitative. "Eating," as Samuel Butler 

 would say, " is a mode of love; it is an effort after a closer 

 union; so we say we love roast beef." Hunger is not satisfied 

 by quantity merely, but by quality; although inferior quality 

 is frequently required by cravings of an undesirable kind. 

 There are two kinds of hunger the physiological and the 

 pathological hunger. The former results from "work," and 

 its satisfaction generally stimulates further " work," which is 

 more than can be said of the morbid kind of hunger, which is 

 that of the pampered and " well-fed," and lacks that 

 regularisation and standardisation which regular work alone 

 can supply. Once a concession is made to the " seductive 

 smells " of forbidden fruits, this is apt to lead further in the 

 direction of morbidity and degeneracy. 



The noblest races of organisms have shown a most remark- 

 able survival of discriminative behaviour as regards feeding 

 habits, and their success can be shown to be associated and 

 correlated with this constancy of good habits in this respect. 

 It is by proper "cross-feeding " habits and by these alone, as 

 I have been at some pains to show in previous volumes, and as 

 we shall presently see confirmed by the case of plant-animals, 

 that progressive evolution can be successfully accomplished. 

 The opposite mode, " in-feeding," is not only as fallacious as 

 is perpetual in-breeding, but it produces in the long run as 

 deleterious effects as sexual transgressions, and certainly 

 reacts unfavourably on the evolution of sex. And this I 



