278 SYMBIOGENESIS 



scale of life. Nor is the survival of the " most adapted " 

 frequently more than a deception. It is often achieved (for a 

 time) at the expense of physiological capital and with degrada- 

 tion of types, and the "most adapted" are not necessarily 

 desirably or enduringly adapted. 



My principle of biological values supplies a quasi-moral 

 standard by which to judge of tendencies in organisms and 

 their variations, such as Spencer seems to desiderate and even 

 vaguely to proclaim. By its means retrogressive vicious varia- 

 tions of habit, leading to degradations of function and 

 structure are clearly and constantly distinguished from truly 

 progressive upward changes, and the puzzles of parasitism and 

 of much morbidity are got rid of, while Evolution becomes 

 comprehensible as being finally an uplifting and improving 

 process with a strong bio-moral sanction behind it. "Les 

 phenomenes economiques ne veulent pas etre envisages 

 seulement sous 1'aspect technique, mais sous 1'aspect 

 juridique," as Bougie says quite truly. 



The same writer, by clever analysis, shows that as regards 

 "un criterium objectif du progres des organismes " (and 

 a fortiori of human societies) present-day Biology is quite 

 unable to provide such " un metre du progres." 



Mais aucune loi natnirelte ne nous autorise a distribuer ainsi 1'eloge 

 ou le blame; des jugements de valeur entrent ici en ligne de compte 

 qu'aucune constatation biologique ne saurait confirmer ni infirmer. Au 

 vrai la theorie organique ne nous apporte aucune lumiere ni sur les 

 conditions d'existence propres a nos soci^tes, ni sur leur evolution 

 caracteristique, a fortiori sur leurs fins particulieres (Italics mine.) 



La morale naturaliste tombe sous le reproche de n'introduire, qu'au 

 prix d'une inconsequence, la " qualite " qui lui eet necessaire pour 

 hierarchiser les etres. 



It reads almost as gospel to hear from Spencer that prey- 

 ing on one another constitutes a biological evil, for he has 

 previously made but the slightest references that could be 

 interpreted in this sense. Even so, he seems to refer only to 



