100 SYMBIOGENESIS 



business. Now applying the analogy, we may trace in the transactions 

 of an organism the same three ultimate elements. There is the expendi- 

 ture required for the obtainment and digestion of food, there is the 

 gross return in the shape of nutriment assimilated, or fit for assimila- 

 tion, and there is the difference between this gross return of nutriment 

 and the nutriment that was used up in the labour of securing it a 

 difference which may be a profit or a loss. Clearly, however, a surplus 

 implies that the force expended is less than the force latent in the 

 assimilated food. Clearly, too, the increment of growth is limited to 

 the amount of this surplus of income over expenditure ; so that large 

 growth implies both that the excess of nutrition over waste shall be rela- 

 tively considerable, and that the waste and nutrition shall be on exten- 

 sive scales. And clearly, the ability of an organism to expend largely 

 and assimilate largely, so as to make a large surplus, presupposes a 

 large physiological capital in the shape of organic matter more or less 

 complete in its structural arrangements. 



And thus Spencer thinks he has acquitted himself of the 

 task of showing how, speaking generally, throughout each 

 organic sub-kingdom, the acquirement of great bulk occurs 

 only where the incipient bulk and organisation are consider- 

 able, and that they are the more considerable in proportion 

 to the complexity of the life " which the organism is to lead." 



Again the general analogy is well chosen. It is calcu- 

 lated to open up the rich field of economics. But Spencer 

 shirks a profound economic interpretation. Moreover, like 

 Darwin in the case of Natural Selection and variations, he 

 begs the real question, which is the question of "origins." 

 Just as, according to Samuel Butler, the results ensuing on 

 Natural Selection "will depend entirely on what it is that is 

 selected from," so all physiological capital ultimately depends 

 on positive ancestral dynamics, i.e., on symbiotics. 



Grant but the " luck " of a good start, though but as a 

 street- vendor, and the rest is comparatively easy; although, as 

 things are at the present day, even so lucky a capitalist will, 

 in all probability, at the end of, say, twenty years of business 

 unless extraordinarily lucky not have an accumulation to 

 compare with that of some City alderman, more careful or 

 more "lucky" in the choice of his parents. What of the 



