PSYCHOGENESIS 371 



operation of "chance" or of "Natural Selection." It is 

 equally futile to plead that " Natural Selection " is but a con- 

 venient and innocent metaphor, reconciling 1 every kind of 

 peaceful endeavour with every form of ruthless conflict, every 

 form of health with every form of disease. In reality the 

 doctrine stands condemned by such bivocations, by the falsity 

 of its implications, and likewise by the fruits it has borne in 

 the socio-political sphere. " Ogn' erba si conosce per lo seme." 

 Butler also tells us: 



When we speak of cunning or design in connection with organisms 

 we do not mean cunning, all cunning, and nothing but cunning, so 

 that there shall be no place for luck ; we do not mean that conscious 

 attention and forethought shall have been bestowed upon the minutest 

 details of action, and nothing been left to work itself out department- 

 ally according to precedent, or as it otherwise best may according to 

 the chapter of accidents. 



Like Spencer, Butler pointed to the analogy of the 

 establishment of physiological and psychological capital with 

 that of mercantile capital. That " cunning," however, even 

 with the above proviso, is nevertheless insufficient as an 

 explanation of success, but requires replacing by the more 

 comprehensive symbiogenetic view, becomes further evident 

 from the following otherwise quite reasonable passage : 



Granted, again, that there is no test more fallacious on a smaL 

 scale than that of immediate success. As applied to any particular 

 individual, it breaks down completely. It is unfortunately no rare 

 thing to see the good man striving against fate, and the fool born with 

 a silver spoon in his mouth. Still on a large scale no test can be con- 

 ceivably more reliable; a blockhead may succeed for a time, but a 

 succession of many generations of blockheads does not go on steadily 

 gaining ground, adding field to field and farm to farm, and becoming 

 year by year more capable and prosperous. Given time of which there 

 is no scant in the matter of organic development and cunning will do 

 more with ill luck than folly with good. 



Although a large scale test may easily be superior to a 

 small scale one, yet we can now in the light of symbiogenesis 

 understand how Butler's rough test must frequently be totally 

 inadequate. Mere cunning may, and very frequently does, 



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