398 SYMBIOGENES1S 



law of co-operation over-rides that of competition. For it will 

 be seen on any careful review of biological history that never 

 at any time have organisms been permitted to go their own 

 way unchecked and uncontrolled by other than selfish con- 

 siderations, or to follow for long the path of least resistance as 

 far as appetites and desires go except at their own risk and to 

 their own injury. 



Never at any time has the world of life been able to 

 dispense with restraint, with mutual aid, with mutual for- 

 bearance and with nobility of life as main stays of organic 

 existence, even, as I maintain, in the sub-human world. Never 

 at any time has the weal of one really consisted in the woe of 

 another. Never at any time has competition been more than 

 an instrument of efficient co-operation. Never at any time has 

 parasitism or any conduct in accordance with Dr. Pangloss's 

 philosophy led to more than transient success. Never at any 

 iime have physiological transgression or excess and abuse of 

 power been allowed to proceed with impunity. On the 

 other hand, it cannot be denied, temptations have been many, 

 great numbers have stumbled, and innumerable failures can 

 only with difficulty be accounted for in the light of considera- 

 tions embracing (as far as possible) the "ensemble" of life 

 and its past. 



But, even so, the vast sphere of pathogenesis representing 

 ihe doom of frailty as well as the retributive regularisation of 

 efficient co-operation must be fully accounted for before we 

 can inveigh against Nature or bring any charges of callousness, 

 wantonness, or cruelty against her. Underneath it all the 

 constant tendency throughout has been towards more strength, 

 more health, more resistance to disease, more harmony and 

 perfection of organisms and their mutual relations ; in short, 

 towards ever greater physiological and psychological values. 

 To what an extent this credit side of the account over-balances 

 the debit side can only be fully grasped, I assert, in the light 

 of the principle of symbiogenesis as operating on a large scale 

 in the past and present of the organic world. 



