BIO-DYNAMICS 103 



and conflicting 1 in endless different ways and degrees," he says 

 in his conclusion, " are the several conditions by which the 

 phenomena of growth are governed." In no case can a 

 desirable "surplus of income over expenditure" be success- 

 fully achieved by depredation. Spencer, nevertheless, thinks 

 it can be done. He says: 



Manifestly the young lion, born of tolerable bulk, suckled until 

 much bigger, and fed until half grown, is enabled by the power and 

 organisation which he thus gets gratis, to catch and kill animals of size 

 enough to give him the large supply of nutriment needed to meet his 

 large expenditure and yet leave a large surplus for growth. 



What manner of " growth," what manner of " large 

 expenditure.," what manner of "gratis" benefit does the lion 

 get, indeed? And what is its success in organic civilisation? 

 As a mammal the lion, of course, has a considerable fund of 

 positive ancestral dynamics to rely upon, and can thus indulge 

 in morbid feeding habits (with resultant morbid developments 

 of size) for considerable periods of time, though probably short 

 as compared with the geological time covering the positive 

 dynamics and the life-period of the common mammalian 

 ancestor. A certain amount of joie de vivre and of healthy 

 exercise of some few powers, at any rate, no doubt tend some- 

 what to prolong the length of days of the species lion. But it 

 is the morbid "requirements" of this fastidious beast which 

 make it a pest and render its existence in an ever advancing 

 organic civilisation increasingly impossible. This is so also, 

 because, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, the great 

 bulk of animals of the predaceous type is in reality achieved at 

 the expense of physiological capital, as I have sought to show 

 in my Evolution by Co-operation. 



I have there also pointed out that the fate now threatening 

 the species lion presents a parallel to that of the Arab tribes of 

 the Mogreb, who from a race of predatory exploiters became 

 transformed into a race of mere parasites, their remnants now 

 constituting those unfortunates whom the cultivators call Ben 

 ramasses without a means of livelihood save begging, 



