BIONOMICS 209 



of "nitrogenous" or of " fatty" degeneration, i.e., those of 

 malnutrition by in-feeding, which by reducing organisms to 

 the "quasi-mechanical" level of existence and distorting the 

 ratio of their erstwhile chemical and bio-chemical differences 

 of composition mutatis mutandis also ends in obliterating 

 their vitally important bio-economic specialisation for 

 "work," their character and status. 



The exceptions from the norm of life are indeed 

 instructive. We have seen that the Fungi belong to a group 

 which have, to a great extent, retrogressively changed their 

 character from one associated with an erstwhile strenuous 

 career to one associated with relative indolence, and that part 

 passu their composition has changed from a physiological to a 

 relatively pathological condition, and their position in nature 

 from one of strenuous independence to one of precarious 

 dependence. It is, no doubt, within the power of all plants to 

 indulge (retrogressively) in surfeit of nitrogenous or other 

 fare. But the majority of plants have evidently elected not 

 to swerve from the symbiogenetic path, but to maintain a good 

 (symbiogenetic) behaviour. They have not aped certain 

 animals in becoming excessively nitrogenous, but as eternal 

 givers have specialised instead to provide ideally balanced 

 food-substances for the animal, thus aiding its digestive and 

 genetic transformation, i.e., its evolution. 



Their good (constant and symbiotic) behaviour has thus 

 assured the survival and progress of the organic world, whilst 

 rendering the "nitrogenous" animal dependent, and contri- 

 butory to a far higher degree than Spencer's passage would 

 lead one to suppose. Indeed, we may say in a general way 

 that the more nitrogenous fare an organism requires, the more 

 biologically dependent it becomes. Frugality is here, as in 

 human relations, the prime requisite of genuine independence 

 and reliable character. 



The magnificent and terrible hamadryad, a snake which 

 as the Times says (20/7/14) would be the most awful scourge 

 of all living things, is yet permitted by nature "to live only 



