78 SYMBIOGENES1S 



physiological capital and energy accumulated by generations 

 of physiologically upright and strenuous ancestors may easily 

 be so abused by degenerate descendants as to lead to patho- 

 logical conditions and even to monstrosities, and of this the 

 organic world, I maintain, shews abundant illustrations. 



In the case of bio-economically strenuous organisms the 

 case is much simpler. They are not encumbered by 

 adventitious growths of all kinds to such an extent as are 

 degenerates, and therefore lend themselves more readily to 

 our study of origins and of genealogical classification. All 

 that is necessary in their case is to trace the successive steps by 

 which organisation was perfected, pari passu with increasing 

 symbiotic activities, bearing particularly in mind that fauna 

 and associated flora evolved in mutuality ; and, further, as 

 Darwin has it, that after long intervals of time, the produc- 

 tions of the world are seen to have changed simultaneously, 

 which, indeed, they must have done, being all involved in the 

 web of life which tended by its own growing exigencies to raise 

 the level of existence in the way I have depicted. 



"We have seen that habits, customs and behaviour past 

 and present count for a great deal as momentum in bio- 

 logical development, and we have also seen that "good" 

 conduct leads to symbiogenesis, and thus to higher-production 

 as distinguished from mere re-production as a plurality 

 of favourable nutritional, i.e., bio-chemical and bio-economic 

 circumstances are correlated with such conduct, and that, 

 inversely, "bad" conduct leads to retrogression precisely 

 through a loss of these correlated favourable factors. In 

 accordance with these facts we have already drawn the distinc- 

 tion between positive and negative factors of evolution. It 

 remains now to specify the qualitative distinction further and 

 to define the "endowment " of a species due to and heritable 

 in virtue of positive ancestral dynamics, i.e., ancestral 

 symbiotic strenuousness, as contrasted with the negative 

 dynamics which may subsequently lead to continuous 

 degradation. Everything that exists in the organic 



