142 SYMBIOGENESIS 



That there exists in nature an obvious antagonism 

 between those of a community which contribute to and raise 

 the common good, and those the activities of which tend in 

 the opposite direction, is borne out by many facts. We see 

 that the drones of the bee are mercilessly slaughtered 

 (eliminated) with the approach of the winter, for their bio- 

 genetic value to the community cannot make up for their 

 bio-economic uselessness. We can find similar " extrusions " 

 in hundreds of other instances. We find many cases of recog- 

 nition of superior value and even of property rights by social 

 animals, and frequently a community will inflict the penalty 

 of death upon a member guilty of what it considers unsocial 

 conduct. 



Now, Mendelism although sadly lacking, in my opinion, 

 in qualitative analysis confirms in some detail the account of 

 natural antagonism as I have so far outlined it, as a little 

 further consideration will show. Mendelism is supposed to 

 have brought home to us the idea of a living organism as built 

 up (in part at least) of numerous unit-characters which much 

 like Mr. Davidson's plantagens behave as indivisible entities, 

 and, like the plantagens, have definite predilections and 

 affinities according to the factors that are "co-operating" in 

 the compound. 



We saw that it was the general form of co-operation 

 (symbiosis) in a plant that determined the success or otherwise 

 of a particular plantagen-community, and we may conclude 

 that in a similar way it is the degree of bio-economic appro- 

 priateness which ultimately determines whether any unit- 

 character is worth retaining, or has perforce to be retained. 



The discovery of indivisible units has called forth the 

 expression "the atomic constitution of organisms"; a state- 

 ment which may easily become misleading if a complete 

 rigidity of biological characters, and a behaviour of characters 

 irrespective of symbiogenesis, is thereby suggested. Of course 

 there are atoms and even groups of atoms as there are also 



