200 SYMBIOGENESIS 



We may infer that, so far as mechanics alone are con- 

 cerned, every compound depends on the balance of opposite 

 and mutually complemental factors, such as relative activity 

 and relative passivity. Failing a due balance, serious danger 

 must arise to the living tissue by its becoming "infected" with 

 the disintegrating tendencies of waste or foreign matters, i.e., 

 an organic body has to rely also on the physical "good" 

 character of the composing matter. Although from mechanical 

 to physiological balance is a far cry, yet we must concede that 

 in general every organic compound depends in some such way 

 on balance of complementary factors. That this holds good 

 of the higher factors which are superposed on the mechanical 

 factors we have already seen. How much of each factor is 

 required for a due bio-dynamic balance remains to be seen in 

 each case, and depends finally on bio-economic conditions. 

 Though, of course, the relatively inert constituents of organic 

 matter help to prevent the components of living tissue from 

 diffusing away along with the effete matters, yet the case of 

 the Convolute, provided us with an illustration of the way in 

 which biological requirements and the forces at their disposal 

 materially alter the distribution of forces in the organism 

 which would result from merely chemical and dynamical 

 reactions ; for in that organism we saw the excretion of waste 

 matters was replaced by their complete retention and conver- 

 sion to new symbiotic uses, though this was in the particular 

 case of a retrograde symbiosis. 



Evolution in general is more than a mere mechanical 

 " redistribution of Matter and Motion " ; it is a symbiogenetic 

 process the ultimate result of which is determined by values in 

 my special (social) sense. 



The presence of super-mechanical factors as well as the 

 concurrent primordial and eternal need of compromise and of 

 balance between complemental opposites, may aLso be gleaned 

 from other considerations of Spencer in the cases of colloidity 

 and crystallinity, diffusibility and indiffusibility, fluidity and 

 solidity. 



