118 SYMBIOGENESIS 



though not the extent to which this occurs in nature ; the 

 extent to which the plant can "metamorphose" portions of 

 itself, without harm or loss to itself, into "remuneration" of 

 the cross-fertilising animal, and to which this arrangement has 

 come to be (what I might now term) a symbiogenetic fixture 

 an indispensable organic asset worth many an organ to both 

 plants and animals concerned. 



From the above quotation from Darwin we can almost see 

 graphically how symbiotics gradually arose in nature and how 

 their increasing perfection and efficiency resulted in increasing 

 security and reliability of life, rendering anti-symbiotic (anti- 

 social) adaptations and so-called "over-specialisations" 

 correspondingly unnecessary. 



I have, no doubt, treated the case of both symbiosis and of 

 "love-foods" too sparingly in my little book on Evolution by 

 Co-operation. 



Sir Francis Darwin, to whom I took the liberty of sending 

 a copy of that book, kindly pointed out to me that it fails to 

 convince on these matters. I here reproduce some of the 

 correspondence, because it sets forth in terse form the 

 difference of two specific points of view the general outlook 

 now reigning in Biology, and the one I wish to substitute for 

 it. 



Sir Francis states : 



Organisms have to fit themselves to their environment, and since 

 their environment is largely made up of other organisms a modus vivendi 

 is arrived at, but I fail to see any gain in clearness in calling it 

 co-operation indeed, I think it obscures the problem. Nor can I see 

 the point of cross- feeding and in-feeding ; you seem to believe that there 

 is some essential and striking difference between plants and animals 

 considered as food which I do not understand. How do you deal with 

 the case of a herbivorous animal such as a cow, whose calf is fed in utero 

 by the closest of in-feeding? Or the case of a germinating acorn in 

 which the young plant is at first an in-feeder? 



In my reply I pointed out: 



I use the word co-operation as equivalent to symbiosis, but as 

 illustrating the similarity of this process in biology to that of economics, 

 and I try to show that the modus vivendi arrived at is far more stable 



