BIO-DYNAMICS 105 



basis for a valid theory of evolution. It is a one-sided 

 acceptance of Malthus and a tacit rejection of Adam Smith 

 with his teaching of work as the sole basis of wealth. Not only 

 does it falsely give an inferior place to work and to co-opera- 

 tion as compared with competition, but it ignores these positive 

 factors altogether. Such incompleteness of thought has been 

 too long the bane of Biology, with the result that the true 

 issue, viz., the study of values, has been obscured. Yet from 

 the first to the last, I affirm that everything in Biology is a 

 matter of values, and not merely of numbers. 



Spencer's work presents a striking illustration of the incon- 

 gruities that were bound to arise in the absence of a qualitative 

 biological analysis. Very justly he has told us in his First 

 Principles that, " to see clearly how a right or wrong act 

 generates consequences, internal and external, that go on 

 branching out more widely as years progress, requires a rare 

 power of analysis." Yet in his own case, for lack of apprecia- 

 tion of qualitative differences between biological conditions 

 apparently similar, he is surprised to find facts say of 

 nutrition producing what seem to him contradictory results 

 on different organisms. That is to say he ranks equally as 

 "abundant nutrition" the surplus gained by an organism 

 strenuously earning its living by normal and healthful activity 

 and the mere surfeit produced by a predaceous or parasitic 

 gorging of food without adequate exertion and its healthful 

 reactions. No wonder in the end he is baffled and speaks of 

 "conspiring" and endlessly "conflicting" degrees of condi- 

 tions by which the phenomena of growth are " governed." 



Whilst the case of the ox, the sheep, the lion, and (though 

 less readily) that of the plant seemed to fall in with his 

 analysis, he has some difficulty with the case of the crocodile, 

 which " is said to grow as long as it lives." Moreover, " there 

 appears reason to think that some predaceous fishes, such as 

 the pike, do the same." What does he say is the explanation? 

 " That these animals of comparatively high organisation have 

 no definite limits of growth is, however, an exceptional fact 



