16 SYMBIOGENESIS 



commonplace from a laboratory point of view, but they are of 

 special significance from a bio-economic point of view, 

 although this has never been sufficiently demonstrated. Plant 

 protoplasm represents "the earliest labour, the earliest manu- 

 facture, the earliest surplus, i.e., capital, in the organic 

 world. But for this miraculous economic power of plant proto- 

 plasm (and its associated " good " character, from the point 

 of view of Bio-Economics), organic life as we know it would 

 have been impossible. Previous to. nutrition there is work," 

 i.e., photosynthesis whoso will not work neither shall he eat, 

 is as valid in the biological as in the human sphere nor has 

 the organic world ever been able to dispense with this salutary 

 arrangement or been able to allow any of its members to trans- 

 gress it with impunity. True, the energy required in photo- 

 synthesis is largely borrowed from the sun (and that may have 

 its own cosmological meaning), but it does not relieve any 

 member of the biological community from the necessity of 

 bio-economic contribution. All have to borrow occasionally, 

 and all have to make good in one way or another. The way in 

 which the radiant energy of the sun is utilised by plant proto- 

 plasm in the manufacture of sugar previous to nutrition 

 remains for the present as mysterious as the fact that in the 

 evolution of consciousness experiences are registered 

 " within." Plant protoplasm also possesses the secret of 

 protein-synthesis and, mirabile dictu, the wisdom of storing 

 some of the results of its surplus labour (capital) for future 

 (bio-economic) use, faculties not only wonderful but indis- 

 pensable to the progress of the organic world. Though it is 

 emphatically true, however, that the animal is particularly 

 dependent on the labour of the plant, it is nevertheless non- 

 sense to pronounce the aphorism "all flesh is grass" as no 

 mere figure of speech, but a terse statement of truth. It seems 

 astonishing that so acute an analyst as Prof. Keeble should 

 attempt with such levity of argument to dispose of the neces- 

 sity to grapple with the most important economics underlying 

 the phenomena of animal dependence on plant labour, and the 



