378 SYMBIOGENESIS 



species bears little or no relation to its seed-producing power." 

 This, of course, savours of chance, and is supposed to be 

 interpretable as such. How greatly, however, design enters 

 into this chance is seen the moment we view Dr. Wallace's 

 illustration in the light of Bio-Economics ! He mentions the 

 case of Lantana mixta, and says : " The fruit of this plant is 

 so acceptable to frugivorous birds of all kinds that, through 

 their instrumentality, it is spreading rapidly to the complete 

 exclusion of the indigenous vegetation where it becomes 

 established." 



Dr. Wallace thus unwittingly contradicts his own destruc- 

 tion (i.e., chance) theory, and shows that plants qualify for 

 abundance by bio-economic usefulness, and that we have here 

 design, though it be not of the " prescient-from-all-eternity 

 order." 



In the concluding chapter of Luck or Cunning, Butler has 

 some important remarks on "feeling" which, are again worth 

 reproducing here. 



Feeling is the art the possession of which differentiates the civilised 

 organic world from that of brute inorganic matter, but still it is an 

 art; it is the outcome of a mind that is common both to organic and 

 inorganic, and which the organic has alone cultivated. It is not a 

 part of mind itself ; it is no more this than language and writing are 

 parts of thought. The organic world can alone feel, just as man can 

 alone speak ; but as speech is only the development of powers the germs 

 of which are possessed by the lower animals, so feeling is only a sign 

 of the employment and development of powers the germs of which 

 exist in inorganic substances. It has all the characteristics of an art, 

 and though it must probably rank as the oldest of those arts that are 

 peculiar to the organic world, it is one which is still in process of 

 development. None of us, indeed, can feel well on more than a very 

 few subjects, and many can hardly feel at all. 



It is not a little significant to see Butler here using the 

 term "civilised organic world" (held together by common 

 "feeling"). I have spoken several times of "organic 

 civilisation," and, indeed, I hope I have shown wherein it 

 consists, how profound are its roots and how extensive its 



