BIONOMICS 203 



the physical, the chemical, and the biological ; hence arises a 

 great complexity of inter-connected factors, and hence also 

 the difficulty of assigning its due value to each one of them. 

 That the biological factor, in the widest sense of the word, 

 easily becomes the most important of all, we have already 

 seen, and it becomes again apparent from the following passage 

 of Spencer with which he concludes his chapter on "organic 

 matter": 



To all of which add, that the state of warmth, or increased molecular 

 vibration, in which all the higher organisms are kept, increases these 

 various facilities for re-distribution, not only as aiding chemical changes, 

 but as accelerating the diffusion of crystalloid substances. 



Obviously the biological factor is here sprung upon us too 

 suddenly, for Spencer provides no previous introduction. 

 Again we must ask what it is that keeps organisms warm and 

 in sufficient molecular vibration? And again the answer is 

 that it is " work " in one shape or other, failing which 

 organisation must cease to progress and ultimately decay. 



No amount of disposition on the part of organisms to live 

 by short cuts, that is to avoid systematic work by getting 

 foreign supplies of warm blood in dishonest ways, can blind us 

 to the fundamental fact that physiological capital is primarily 

 and constantly produced by work, and that the normal rule of 

 life is for all organisms thus to provide their own warmth, 

 circulation and evolution. The majority of organic workers, 

 though ever so inconspicuous vide the humble plant, the 

 humble bee, the humble earthworm have elected to lead a 

 strenuous work-a-day life and to produce their own " warmth " 

 and their own sustenance and even surpluses to spare for others. 

 That a plant's usual temperature is slightly raised in the seed, 

 in its "love-food" laboratory, we have already noted. Thus 

 early we see is the need of the production of warmth by 

 industry, both domestic and biological. Darwin rightly 

 pointed out that to be highly (progressively) active, the 

 brain must be bathed with warm blood, and that this is best 

 achieved by aerial respiration. He also notes that the 



