GENETICS 171 



it has been customary hitherto to speak of "chance" varia- 

 tions. Truly "chance" here is nothing but the perceptible 

 effect of a cause too complex and too remote for the ordinary 

 specialist to have noticed.* One reason why some biologists 

 almost resent the introduction of values seems to be the same 

 as that which makes some physiologists insist so strenuously on 

 the validity and self-sufficiency of the laws of Physics and 

 Chemistry, viz., as Sir Oliver Lodge told us at Birmingham 

 (British Association Presidential address), that they are keen 

 to do their proper (specialist's) work. 



We may view Evolution with Prof. Bateson as a process 

 of "Variation and Heredity," but what began the process 

 (omitted by Prof. Bateson), was the creation of first organic 



* Since I wrote this, Prof. Bateson's address before the British Association in 

 Melbourne has appeared in print. He tells us : " What these elements or factors, 

 as we call them, are we do not know. That they are in some way directly trans- 

 mitted by the material of the ovum and of the spermatozoon is obvious, but it 

 seems to me unlikely that they are in any simple or literal sense material particles. 

 I suspect that their properties depend on some phenomenon of arrangement. 

 However that may be, analytical breeding proves that it is according to the 

 distribution of these genetic factors, to use a non-committal term, that the 

 characters of the offspring are decided." What with non-material particles, with 

 phenomena of arrangement and of "distribution," with occasional loss of altruistic 

 (i.e., symbiogenetic) instincts (as in the case of the leghorn where the absence of the 

 maternal instinct is "due to loss of one factor which the jungle-fowl possesses") 

 associated with loss of " Mendelian " factor, the reader will observe that it is not a 

 far cry to purely economic causes (factors) and that the bio-economic and symbio- 

 genetic explanation that I have supplied must at least prove suggestive. Prof. 

 Bateson goes so far as to say that the available evidence points to the conclusion that 

 even the differences which characterise distinct species are due to such factors, 

 which on my interpretation means to say that evolution proceeds on bio- 

 economically pro-determined lines. As regards the postulate of the " Ur- 

 organismus," Prof. Bateson states: "At first it may seem rank absurdity to 

 suppose that the primordial form or forms of protoplasm could have contained 

 complexity enough to produce the divers types of life. But is it easier to imagine 

 that these powers could have been conveyed by extrinsic additions ? of what nature 

 could these additions be?" Whilst willing to concede the absurdity of the 

 Mendelian proposition regarding the " Ur-organism," my answer to Prof. Bateson's 

 queries is that the complex powers of protoplasm have been gradually evolved 

 through symbiogenesis, i.e., through progressive symbiotic (bio-economic, bio- 

 dynamic and bio-chemical) transmutation of values, involving at the same time an 

 ever-increasing complexity of relatcdness. In other words physiological capital so 

 evolved was primitive. Its subsequent use to similar and other purposes caused 

 an increasing complexity of forms. Whilst, therefore, agreeing with Prof. 

 Bateson that primarily " that which is conferred in variation must rather itself be 

 a change, not of material, but of arrangement, or of motion," (i.e., a bio-dynamic 

 change, as I would say) we need not reject all " extrinsic additions " (some of which, 

 as we have seen, must be regarded as symbiogenetie agents) as summarily as he 

 does when he continues : " The invocation of additions extrinsic to the organism 

 does not seriously help us to imagine how the power to change can be conferred, 

 and if it proves that hope in that direction must be abandoned, I think we lose 

 very little." I believe I have sufficiently shown, that without the recognition of 

 extrinsic symbiogenetie additions and their true value, the study of Genetics in 

 particular must be well-nigh futile. Prof. Bateson suggests abandonment of the 

 richest vein of inquiry almost in the same breath in which he disconsolately admits 

 the utmost uncertainty as regards discrimination of the value of "factors. ' 



