GENETICS 175 



We need only put "species" for "nations" and we see 

 that the same factors that make for loss of beauty within a 

 nation, also make for loss of symmetry in a species. 

 Shakespeare, in referring to the desolation caused by war, tells 

 us in other words how cessation of genuine bio-economic 

 activity in the web of life is incompatible with beauty and 

 utility (which are inter-dependent) : 



The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth 

 The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, 

 Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, 

 Conceives by idleness ; and nothing teems 

 But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs, 

 Losing both beauty and utility. 



Darwin showed by his classical experiments that continued 

 self-fertilisation in plants tends to the production of " some- 

 what monstrous" forms, and we must conclude that self- 

 fertilisation is responsible for such teratological (pathological) 

 development, precisely because this mode of fertilisation is 

 bio-economically speaking inferior and antagonised by the 

 tendency towards cross-fertilisation, which is associated with 

 higher, i.e., better organised life functions of the plant and 

 with the maintenance and progress of biological industries 

 generally. If plants are artificially deprived of their highest 

 industry, they must lose the felicity of form that was once 

 connected with it. If there were not the bio-economic need 

 of cross-fertilisation, as I have depicted it, it is safe 

 to say it would not have arisen at all, and there 

 would have been no such striking antagonism between 

 the cross-fertilising and self -fertilising modes as we find, 

 especially since the former on any other explanation would 

 appear to be wasteful rather than useful. As Darwin says : 

 "A very small quantity of pollen would have been sufficient 

 for fertilisation (self-fertilisation) instead of millions of grains 

 being produced " (cross-fertilisation). Thus again we have 

 the connection between true usefulness and truth of form 

 (normality), as between sexual and bio-economic differentiation. 

 The very fact that symmetry and proportion impress us as 



