32 SYMBIOGENESIS 



hitherto but scantily considered, but in reality showing the 

 difference between them to be primarily one of bio-economic 

 position, he fails, like Prof. Keeble, to take the further step 

 that would bring him to biological symbiosis. This failure is 

 mainly due, I believe, to the inability to account adequately 

 for the bio-economic and qualitative factors of nutrition. He 

 tells us that the plantagens in so far as they represent 

 (economic) individuals can move and do move like animals. 

 " That is to say, they change their position it may be by 

 some power inherent in themselves, or it may be simply by the 

 intervention of the multiplying somatic-cells. There is a 

 definite order in their movement a regularity both in the 

 length and the direction of their journey which suggests that 

 the mobile power is in themselves." 



The imaginary passivity of plant-life thus receives a rude 

 shock. At any rate the plantagens must be supposed to be 

 sufficiently mobile and alive to look after their business. 

 Butler's sarcasm seems to be appropriate here: " If a sub- 

 stance does not succeed in making it clear that it understands 

 our business, we conclude that it cannot have any business of 

 its own, much less understand it, or indeed understand any- 

 thing at all." 



Maybe that one day we shall speak of the bio-economic 

 co-equality of plant and animal, just as we now speak of the 

 co-equality of the sexes. 



When the plantagens eventually come to rest " they enter 

 upon a new phase, each becoming an incipient bud, and 

 developing a feeding and breathing apparatus, a leaf, by 

 which means it is enabled to grow, and, under favourable con- 

 ditions, to propagate its race and to make itself generally useful 

 to the community." 



If a plant is thus viewed as a community of plantagens 

 it is " impossible to escape the conclusion that, comparing one 

 stage in the existence of a plantagen with a similar one in that 

 of an insect, the flower corresponds to the butterfly. The fact 

 that both are more or less brilliantly coloured and beautiful in 



